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Someone posted this on facebook, and normally I just ignore the crap that I see on facebook. But this has me wondering, is it for real? Or at least close enough to matter? I knew the budget was in the gakker, but holy hell really?

That doesn't seem very balanced...
They might need to work on it.

I know right? Like I said I knew it was off by alot.....but I mean.....this cant be for real can it?

Won't the cuts take a while to come into effect?
I mean some will be instant but others will be based on stages of cuts and other things...

You live in a country, not a household. A nation's economy is determined by many factors, most of which the government has some degree of control over.
If any country simply eliminated all spending beyond revenue threshold, demand would dissapear from the economy and you'd be facing the worst recession of all time.

Well obviously you cant really compare a household to an entire nation, that much I wont argue with. But spending THAT MUCH over what they actually make?

The fact that the US government has a deficit is news to you?

lol replace credit card debt with total debt, and I bet most americans are right around that (college debt, credit card debt, home loans, etc.)

Not this fella, no sir

KingCracker wrote:Not this fella, no sir

well ok me neither, but the point is most americans have a lot of debt!

The biggest debt most people have is the mortgage on thier home. It is on average their biggest asset. Unsecured credit card debt is another matter entirely.


Yes those are the right numbers, and yes is ugly and disturbing. This is why so many people cringe and knee jerk when anyone in the Government says "we need to spend more money" on what looks like a somewhat useless thing, plan, whatever. Unemployment extensions, increase in benefits and pay for teachers, etc. And to some extent even on things that may be useful. New fighter jets, etc... We just do not have the money.

Lol, new fighter jets useful?

In many cases we spend more on an individual new fighter jet, singular, than some programs have funding for in total.

as I actually posted "may be useful"

Same question.

The only real use we have for fighter jets right now are strike fighters, and those aren't very useful either because other things do it better for less.

The A10 does the strike capability better for less for example. So do UAVs.

Shadowseer_Kim wrote:as I actually posted "may be useful"

More useful than withdrawing over a trillion dollars of demand from the economy?
Fighter jets won't be much use when your country is in ruins.

Joey wrote:

Shadowseer_Kim wrote:as I actually posted "may be useful"

More useful than withdrawing over a trillion dollars of demand from the economy?
Fighter jets won't be much use when your country is in ruins.

Sure it will.
They can use them to go live somewhere else...

Keep telling yourself that when we crash like the Soviets and start selling off our massed arms.

I know Joey,

I am not even arguing that they are.

I know we do not have the money to spend on pretty much anything and the only real solution at this time, is budget cuts, severe budget cuts, doing away with redundant departments and programs in the federal government.

Department of Education is a prime example of one to get rid of. People complain left and right they do not want the kids tested to a national standard, and that is primarily what the DoE does, follow through with policies like "no child left behind."
Personally I think kids should be tested to a national standard, but then I dream of our kids actually being educated too.

That and send back the money to the states that is given to them, accounting for about 10% of the average local school budget. If the tax money just stayed local instead of sending some to Washington, taking a bite for federal workers and sending it back, that could be a huge savings.

Realistically the entire DoE could be run by 5 low wage employees in the basement of whatever building has an extra room, stuffing and licking envelopes.

Joey wrote:More useful than withdrawing over a trillion dollars of demand from the economy?
Fighter jets won't be much use when your country is in ruins.

Sod their economy. We need them to spend money on those new fighter jets so that we haven't wasted all that money on new aircraft carriers.

This is absolutely correct. Although I know it's a concern however it's a little misleading when you include the debt as a line item when payment on the debt is in the budget, unless you put payment on the debt as it's own line. The truth is deficit spending is reckless and irresponsible. A balanced budget amendment or act is needed that has a clause for war or national emergency (I prefer declared war as it forces congress to do it's goddamn job and keeps the Executive in check) but specifically noting that spending on defense is a direct and specific constitutional requirement so that defense spending is the last one cut; not first. Don't take that to mean I don't think Defense spending is out of control it simply has less (as in no) constitutional interpretation. Pay the debt, keep the military strong reduce the waste. And remember to vote AustonT in 2036.

AustonT wrote:A balanced budget amendment or act is needed that has a clause for war or national emergency (I prefer declared war as it forces congress to do it's goddamn job and keeps the Executive in check) but specifically noting that spending on defense is a direct and specific constitutional requirement so that defense spending is the last one cut; not first.

That idea is a disaster waiting to happen unless we first do MASSIVE reforms and cuts to defense before the balanced budget is put in place. Paying for defense takes up close to a third of our revenue right now, and it's only slated to increase in percentage as time goes on given historical trends. It grew by roughly 13% from 2009 to 2010, and if it grows consistently at that rate it'll only take fifteen or so years (depending on revenue changes) for it to reach 100% of revenue and then exceed it.

AustonT wrote:(I prefer declared war as it forces congress to do it's goddamn job and keeps the Executive in check)

How quaint and 20th century.

Shadowseer_Kim wrote:I know Joey,

I am not even arguing that they are.

I know we do not have the money to spend on pretty much anything and the only real solution at this time, is budget cuts, severe budget cuts, doing away with redundant departments and programs in the federal government.

Department of Education is a prime example of one to get rid of. People complain left and right they do not want the kids tested to a national standard, and that is primarily what the DoE does, follow through with policies like "no child left behind."
Personally I think kids should be tested to a national standard, but then I dream of our kids actually being educated too.

That and send back the money to the states that is given to them, accounting for about 10% of the average local school budget. If the tax money just stayed local instead of sending some to Washington, taking a bite for federal workers and sending it back, that could be a huge savings.

Realistically the entire DoE could be run by 5 low wage employees in the basement of whatever building has an extra room, stuffing and licking envelopes.

You think the education of millions of school children can be run by "5 low wage employees"?
America's government spending is so high because America is so rich and it's such a large country. Of COURSE government is going to be less efficient when you have a nation as large and diverse as the United States.
Some Americans seem to have almost a fetish for their own government's aparrent squander of resources, it's quite strange.

KingCracker wrote:Well obviously you cant really compare a household to an entire nation, that much I wont argue with. But spending THAT MUCH over what they actually make?

Welcome to the Tea Party.

If we did do a balanced budget, I would have to say that defense should be at most ten to fifteen percent of the budget unless we're in a declared war against a major state (IE not terrorism).

Psssst Melissa, the Defense budget is in the 10%-15% of the overal budget already.


@Joey - the Department of Education does not provide the Education for millions of American children. Local School Boards and the like do most of the work. 90% of all public school funding is collected on the city, county and state level. The DoE primarilly takes in the amount every tax payer sends them via the IRS who takes a chunk, takes a chunk to pay themselves, then divides it up and sends it back to each school district. See how I mean about redundant and wasteful? I just do not see why they mainly deal in the transfer of 77.4 Billion dollars according to the estimates for 2012. If every state just did this for its schools instead it would be more efficient. So yes, 5 guys in a dark basement cubicle with a printer and a stack of envelopes would hammer out the details of whatever the current Presidents plan is to make sure our children are meeting some standards, and mail off the plan to everyone. Probably could just email it, but this is the Federal Government we are talking about.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/factsheet_department_education/

Boring.

When you're in recession you have much reduced income (less people earning incomes to tax, less company profits to tax) and greater expenses (paying more welfare). That right there explains the extreme, unsustainable element of the budget. Once the US recovers from the GFC revenue will naturally grow, and welfare will naturally reduce. That 'oh my God the deficit is almost as big as total revenue' thing will, more or less, go away, naturally, as the economy recovers.

You'll still be left with an underlying budget deficit, though. If you go back to pre-GFC but post Bush tax cuts, you'd be looking at deficits around the $200 billion mark, which is sustainable long term, but not desirable. That kind of deficit could be fixed without too much panic, though, you'd cover most of it with a return to pre-Bush tax cut rates of tax, or with a moderate number of cuts (if you cut defence spending to an amount proportionate with other Western nations you'd save more than $200 billion a year). Do both and you'd have a healthy surplus.

That would still leave one big, long term issue, though, and that's healthcare. Right now the US government is spending more than any other country per capita on healthcare, and that number is growing more than any other country. You might argue that beecause you're a private system, government can't be spending that much... well it is, and that's just how bad your healthcare system is. And it's in future healthcare that the US government starts to actually look unstable. The problem there is that healthcare reform is a really tricky subject, as we've recently seen.

The chances of a second round of reforms making introducing further efficiencies look pretty remote right now.

AustonT wrote:The truth is deficit spending is reckless and irresponsible.

This is completely and utterly wrong. There are many very good reasons to run short to medium term deficits. The US has a very good reason right now (really bad economic climate).

Those really expensive fighter planes support a whole lot of jobs I heard.

Shadowseer_Kim wrote:Psssst Melissa, the Defense budget is in the 10%-15% of the overal budget already.


@Joey - the Department of Education does not provide the Education for millions of American children. Local School Boards and the like do most of the work. 90% of all public school funding is collected on the city, county and state level. The DoE primarilly takes in the amount every tax payer sends them via the IRS who takes a chunk, takes a chunk to pay themselves, then divides it up and sends it back to each school district. See how I mean about redundant and wasteful? I just do not see why they mainly deal in the transfer of 77.4 Billion dollars according to the estimates for 2012. If every state just did this for its schools instead it would be more efficient. So yes, 5 guys in a dark basement cubicle with a printer and a stack of envelopes would hammer out the details of whatever the current Presidents plan is to make sure our children are meeting some standards, and mail off the plan to everyone. Probably could just email it, but this is the Federal Government we are talking about.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/factsheet_department_education/

Boring.

The IRS and the Department of Education "take a chunk"? They're government deparments spending money on beurocracy, it's not like they're creaming off profits. If this education system was decentralised then it'd mean poor states get worse schools due to lack of subsidy from richer states, yeah?

sebster wrote:

AustonT wrote:The truth is deficit spending is reckless and irresponsible.

This is completely and utterly wrong. There are many very good reasons to run short to medium term deficits. The US has a very good reason right now (really bad economic climate).

Agree to disagree, I hold this as a fundamental belief in both private and public debt.