Rebublicans advocate massive budget cuts!

[westcoast]

Nothing draconian about cutting money we don't have from programs we don't need.

It's a good start. It's not nearly enough though.

Let's start making the DoD budget much more efficient. There is no reason we can't cut a third from that budget and not keep the same security levels.

Eliminating the Dept of Energy and Homeland security would be good a good addition to the departments already mentioned.

And of course, they need to start hitting the deceptively named "mandatory" spending as there is nothing mandatory about it.

This dudes right can't keep spending 700 billion on defence every year

 

[Flopper]

Here are a few agencies (defiantly not all) Take your pick.

I really think we go about cutting the budget the wrong way. There is no way Congress can determine just what all of those agencies do and what effect a budget cut will have on their work. Couple that with lobbyist and supporter payoffs to guarantee certain programs are not touched, the entire process is a joke. Imagine the Board of Directors at General Electric which has dozens of subsidiaries with dozens of departments operating all over the world would try to reduce it's budget in the way the Congress does. It would be ridiculous. Congress should decide on a percentage to cut the budget, say 3%, pass a law requiring the President to cut 3%. The President decides which activities are not to be touched and instruction the departments to make the required cuts. The heads of Departments, bureaus, and agencies, know where the waste is and what can be cut without jeopardizing their mission.

Makes sense. However, that is still a lot like letting the fox guard the hen-house. Here are the budgets submitted (by presidential administrations) recent years.

2005 US budget – $2.5 trillion
2008 US budget - $2.9 trillion
2009 US budget - $3.1 trillion
2010 US budget - $3.6 trillion
2011 US budget - $3.8 trillion

Here are the defcits tha congress approved (excluding the 2011 projected deficit)
2005 Deficit -$317 billion
2008 Deficit -$454.8 billion
2009 Deficit -$1.5 trillion
2010 Deficit -$1.4 trillion
2011Deficit -$1.4 trillion (most are expecting this to $1.6 because we will will need to bail-out states)

Here is the net savings on budgets by fed agencies
$1.6 billion

IMHO government is way, way to inefficient to coordinate budget cuts or restructuring. If a private (efficiency) firm were hired to audit/reorganize fed agencies, with the incentive of a percentage of savings (for payment), it would be more realistic.

I worked as a supervisor in state government. Our departmental had over a 3 million dollar budget. Every year we submitted our budget request which was always larger than than the year before. If I did not increase it my boss would. If I were asked to cut my budget 10%, I could do it in 15 minutes and there would be no reductions in services. Government supervisors and managers know where to cut, but at higher levels of government it's a dog fight to get as much money as you can.

We need to stop legislators and Congressman from micromanaging and let people that know where the waste exist do the cutting. Let Congress pass a law that forces the administration to cut a specified amount. If we did, I have no doubt we could cut a hundred billion or more without degrading services at all.

 

[Londoner]

Could you name a single country that is trying to reduce their deficit by spending more and has actually succeeded?

America during the postwar years . . . until Reagan bankrupted us with structural deficits based on tax cuts and military spending.

 

[Flopper]

The chances of getting US deficits down to zero and finding a new planet to live on are just about the same. Congress is proving this to be true right now.

Remember if the gov sold off all of its (estimated) $13.4 trillion in assets (Nation parks, buildings, lands, gold, dams, etc,) to pay for public debt if wouldn't be enough to cover the $15 trillion that is owed. That doesn't even consider the $41 trillion in unfunded liabilities such as SS, medicare, pensions, e.g.

The best bet is massively cut spending and try to directly stimulate growth (on the human capital level). This would allow GDP growth to outpace deficit spending. What the Fed is doing now is only creating bubbles. Bubbles not only in emerging markets (where much of the capital is going) but on a domestic level as well. The combination (domestically) of deleveraging, inflation (in a year or two), high commodities, shrinking dollar, financing (unwanted) war/security and increasing income disparity is very, very dangerous. Sooner or later the taxpayer will realize what's going on as his (her) standard of living continues to diminish. Maybe not, Americans (as a whole) seem to have great confidence in their government.

I agree we need to reduce the deficit. But why do we need to reduce the debt?

Working on public debt would more of a longer term goal. I believe that it will be necessary because other countries (like China) will be jumping on the currency peg game. Exporting countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, India, and others are already on the rout for bleeding the US. This is the "excuse" that the Chinese tells the US all the time; ... if we we didn't do it (manipulate currency) some other country would.

I don't see how small reductions in debt really benefits us. I guess if we paid off a large portion of the debt we would be consider more credit worthy, but do we really need that? We have about the best credit in world.


About 75% of the debt is held within the US. Several trillion is held by government as intra governmental loans.

 

[DiveCon]

Could you name a single country that is trying to reduce their deficit by spending more and has actually succeeded?

America during the postwar years . . . until Reagan bankrupted us with structural deficits based on tax cuts and military spending.

wow, you really are fucking stupid
the deficits continued to INCREASE
and the debt from back then is still there

 

[Sail Away]

I agree we need to reduce the deficit. But why do we need to reduce the debt?

Working on public debt would more of a longer term goal. I believe that it will be necessary because other countries (like China) will be jumping on the currency peg game. Exporting countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, India, and others are already on the rout for bleeding the US. This is the "excuse" that the Chinese tells the US all the time; ... if we we didn't do it (manipulate currency) some other country would.

I don't see how small reductions in debt really benefits us. I guess if we paid off a large portion of the debt we would be consider more credit worthy, but do we really need that? We have about the best credit in world.


About 75% of the debt is held within the US. Several trillion is held by government as intra governmental loans.

Some how we'll need the the latitude to for future monetary base expansion as these other countries pull the currency peg game. This, of course will lead to larger deficits which in turn adds to debt. We can't continually pull the QE lever or devaluation strategy with there being some degree of recourse in the world's currency valuations. That is someday losing the status of "world's base currency". I'm only talking of the $15 trillion in external (public) debt. The $41 trillion internal debt (includes unfunded liabilities) doesn't matter to the rest of the world. That $41 trillion will need to be worked out between the US citizens and US gov. Which of course is again, laughable.

Of course the concept of working on the public debt is absolutely absurd. If congress can only cut $32 billion out of a $1,500 billion 2011 projected deficit, overall public debt is the lease of our worries.

 

[Sail Away]

I told my joke to some folks this morning at coffee:

So, a Republican landslide congressional election (which ran on the premise of fiscal conservatism) promised $100 billion in cuts and could only deliver $32 billion, in the wake of of a projected $1,500 billion deficit (2011).

Punchline: That's 1/50th of the annual deficit!!! That's 1/3 of the deficit spending for January alone!!!

Ha, ha, ha...ho, ho....he, he, he.

No one else thought it was funny. It seems they have concerns of their future well-being. What a bunch dummies.

Well, I think it's funny. You GO Republicans or Democrats or whoever is in charge.