The Penny Plan

What rational person couldn't get behind this plan? Congressman Connie Mack's (R-FL) plan is simple yet effective...it begins after stopping all automatic 7% baseline increases...then just takes only one penny (1%) per dollar off the budget per year...

 

The one percent would only save about 35 billion a year or 245 billion by 2018.

 

I wouldn't have a problem with such a general means to handle the debt, if I could trust the bastards farther than I could toss the Washington Monument.
1 percent is inadequate. There have been grand announcements of fixes to this or that going back to the brief period when the country was actually a republic, all of whom were ignored or abandoned as soon as the ink was dry.

 

Wouldn't the first year really be an 8% "cut"... since baseline increases would be stopped...?

Right now we are spending about 25% of GDP....1% per year reduction in REAL cuts would reduce it down to 18% of GDP in about 7 years...

 

Agreed....which is why this plan probably wouldn't work unless we elect a tea party President and congress next year that is actually dedicated to changing business as usual....

 

Yes, I think it would. What no one seems to recognize is that that these plans all lack any real detail and the devil is in the details. Also Once an agreement is reached and there is legislation, all it takes is wording in a bill that sets aside this agreement. You can bet that will happen when revenues rise and spending slow down.