You can participate in this by taking this survey which allows you to specify where to cut and where to increase. Your Uncle Dave would slash defense spending more than half, eliminate farm subsidies, eliminate the high-speed rail and raise funding for education.
An innovative study has found that when a representative sample of the American public was presented the federal budget, they proposed changes far different from those the Obama administration or the Republican-led House have proposed.
The biggest difference in spending is that the public favored deep cuts in defense spending, while the administration and the House propose modest increases. However, the public also favored more spending on job training, education, and pollution control than did either the administration or the House. On average the public made a net reduction of $146 billion–far more than either the administration or the House called for.
In other words, the public takes a considerably more humane view of spending than either party, is considerably less beholden to the military-industrial complex, and doesn’t seem to care if the super-rich get a bit offended.
The study was the combined effort of a think tank, the Program for Public Consultation, and the polling firm Knowledge Networks. They presented an elaborate questionnaire to more than 2,000 respondents.
Given the goal of cutting the deficit, the average Americans did the job — cutting it way more deeply, in fact, than either the Democratic or Republican proposals call for.
Ironically, the political subgroup that did the worst job was the slice of respondents who identified themselves as Tea Party sympathizers. They were the least likely to raise taxes and also the least likely, when faced with actual programs, to make cuts.
The next worst were Republicans, then Democrats. Independents raised taxes more than Republicans and cut spending more than Democrats, ultimately reducing the deficit by a whopping $195 billion.
Bobbo, you’ve gotten one part of the Social Security problem, now extend it further. The problem doesn’t start when Social Security takes in less than it pays out. Because the government has been raiding the trust fund, and is in deficit, the problem starts as soon as the surplus from social security for the year is less than the surplus the previous year. Not only must it have a good balance sheet, it must also keep that same surplus year after year. Any time it drops, the government has to borrow money to adjust for that.
As for my ‘lying’, any drop in the stock market would not affect the government’s books under Pres Bush’s proposal, because the accounts are individually owned. It’s not a matter of the government taking the money and investing it to make more money, which was Pres Clinton’s proposal, but rather to reduce government liabilities in the future by having people own the accounts.
An alternative proposal by Sen Thompson is to index benefits to inflation and not wages, which is what happens with the first check.
Fixing Social Security is simple ! Just remove the ceiling on taxable wages !!! Who ever heard of tax with a ceiling ??? Get the Millionaires and Billionaires (we have more of them now than ever before in our Nation’s history !!!) to pay their share !!!
So are you going to have Social Security pay the billionaires and millionaires an equivalent amount in benefits when they retire?
That’s it : Tweet Tax
A penny per tweet, $10 tax if while driving +
a penny per email +
a penny per junk mail
we can all retire early.
Two words: FLAT TAX
No deductions, credits, shelters, exemptions, whatever.
Gross income from any source * X%
#61–tcc3==I’ve not notice you do this in your prior posts, but on this thread you constantly mischaracterize what I clearly post. I only do that when a subject is very important to me, I misread something entirely, or I’m drunk. So, what are you drinking?
I post the SS non-banked obligations are going to be paid back by printing money which will devaluate it and you wonder why I think borrowing is the only way to pay something back. And you do that overnight with time to think about it.
Very bad form, why you have reserved this associational non-think for me, is beyond me, but crack another beer for me.
#64–Lyin’ Mike==gee, after being correctly identified as a liar for years you for the first time I recall address the issue in that term? Amusing. what has your attention to the truth?
Lets see. It was your post No 6: “Go back in time and pass GWBush’s Social Security reform proposal. This would have decreased the budget deficits starting in a few years, while increasing the recent deficits. The long term impact would have fixed Social Security.”
Now, Lyin’ Mike: what is the PURPOSE of SS? To pump dollars into the stock market so it can be ripped off by Wall Street, or to provide a secure retirement income stream for old people?
Your proposal does not fix the need for a secure retirement income stream: it TOTALLY DESTROYS IT.
Your only defense to being a liar, Lyin’ Mike, is to recognize you are a big old doody head. No one else can tell the difference Lyin’ Mike, but you can set the record straight should you choose.
I don’t know that the few replies to you on this thread constitutes a conspiracy. I’m not trying to mis-characterize or twist your words.
The only reason to print money or borrow it is to make up a deficit. In many ways our current deficit is caused by a Republican fantasy about proper taxation (none). Taxes need adjusting so we can pay our debts, both foreign and domestic.
tcc3–no where did I imply a conspiracy. I think you need to pay closer attention to the words actually used rather than the idea’s you associate with those words?
Your choice. Another way to approach a deficit, or to fix a deficit caused by looting a single purpose fund, is to not steal the money in the first place. And yet Algore was made fun of for suggesting a locked box. Now, those laughing dolts get to have their SS benefit paid in devalued dollars. Everyone cries, nobody wins==except the SUPER RICH to whom the benefits of all this bad policy flow.
We still agree in the main about the outcome/results–I suppose the specific paths by which we arrive are secondary in importance. Still, I like the detail to match the conclusions as much as possible.
Details. Truth. Accuracy. Needling things.
Treating the symptom and not the cause is the hallmark of the last millennia or so’s worth of failed governments. -ours included.
-and here we have a pointless survey that still, does not address the causes, only the symptoms. -ignore it.
we *never needed* government in the first place..
By and large it is the governing bodies and the churches of the planet that have destroyed our being sovereigns as well as any perceived “wealth” we may have had, personally and collectively.
Removing the concept and ability for a corporation to be a “person” would go a long way in solving a lot of hidden issues.
Solve the deficit?
Simple: The concept of “interest” should have never been born. -abolish it. -NOW. It serves no one but the corrupted money handlers.
-that aside..
Delete all governments
Delete the ideology and concept of “money” and monetary system
remove the idiotic idea that “growth” is directly related to “more” (and/or consumption) from the mass mindset.
expose the global scientific dictatorship.
-delete globalism.
educate the people as to the true nature of reality.
let the people learn to govern themselves in hierarchy-less manner.
How you go about this? -well, that would make for a lively debate.
Find your path, Live Free.
-s
Budget Deficit for 2015: -69.3 B
Percentage of long term Social Security deficit solved: 125%
That’s without a VAT. Without a reduction in SS benefits. Without an increase in the corporate tax. Without decreasing our costs in Afghanistan and Iraq. I increased the taxes on everyone making 500K and above and the smallest allowed increase on people making over 200K and nothing on everyone else. When we get the debt (not the deficit) down to say 5% of GDP, then we talk about bringing some of the programs I stripped back.
From the OP:
The biggest difference in spending is that the public favored deep cuts in defense spending, while the administration and the House propose modest increases.
It is easy to see why. The public is approaching the budget from the standpoint of eliminating the deficit entirely and paying down the debt. The Federal government is not.
These are pretty easy problems to solve, really. I heard the solution on the “news” last night:
Send U.S. troops to Libya to “guard” the oil so… like… you know… nothing bad happens to it.
😀
The primary problem with Social Security is that the government doesn’t have the money to pay for the benefits promised. So the government needs to come up with more money, or cut benefits. George Bush’s proposal was to cut the promise part out of the benefits by letting people own the accounts themselves. So the government cuts its guarantee off the books. If you think that Wall Street is going to steal all the money, then you stick to traditional treasury bonds as the investment, as it always is.
@AdrianeB, I love your proposals.
I took it down to a $4.5bn surplus and chose not to correct any of the social security shortfall because I want that system to collapse anyways. What I do find interesting about the exercise though is that it seems to make the assumption that all tax increases are a net positive economically, with no downside of potential loss of revenue elsewhere (like lost income taxes due to layoffs, or increased expenses due to new people on the public dole due to joblesness). It’s probably just that they wanted to simplify the exercise though.
I take it that from the lack of comments, you can all agree on my plan mentioned above.
Now it’s time to implement it. Let’s all tell our congresscritters that this is the plan that WE THE PEOPLE demand, and stick to it!
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