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-Wack the military by 50%
-Eliminate social security for anyone under 65.
-Cut the budget of all other federal government agencies by 50%
-Eliminate all tax or direct money subsidies.

Problem solved.

 Frazzled wrote:
-Wack the military by 50%
-Eliminate social security for anyone under 65.
-Cut the budget of all other federal government agencies by 50%
-Eliminate all tax or direct money subsidies.

Problem solved.

How does unemploying several million people over night solve any problem?

 Ouze wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Would ye be happy if the deficit was cut by cutting funding to the military?

Why do you hate freedom? Money that goes to the military is never squandered - not even a penny - and every cent goes directly towards making sure America isn't overrun by The Queen.

They've invaded America without our knowledge and with our consent through... tv...

 Da Boss wrote:
Would ye be happy if the deficit was cut by cutting funding to the military? Or is it only entitlements ye want cut?

Here's a hint. Near 20% cut in military budget, deficits still sky high.

You stop spending money in someplace, they just spend it elsewhere.

One of the big entitlement issues is Social Security, and it's also one of the biggest budget red herrings of our time.

We have a cap on the taxable amount for the payroll tax. Currently, only the first 106K is taxed at 6.2%, nothing beyond that is taxed. That cap was put in place by the Reagan administration, and is basically the instrument of the manufactured Social Security crisis. SS would be perfectly capable of funding itself going forward, if only we removed said cap.

6% off my $Texas!? How dare you!!

... but yeah, I've heard that before from a couple of sources.

 djones520 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
-Wack the military by 50%
-Eliminate social security for anyone under 65.
-Cut the budget of all other federal government agencies by 50%
-Eliminate all tax or direct money subsidies.

Problem solved.

How does unemploying several million people over night solve any problem?

Solves the budget problem and adds a nice surplus.

 Forar wrote:
6% off my $Texas!?

$Texas!?

Was that intentional, or a Freudian slip (type)?

Either way, I laughed.

 DogofWar1 wrote:
One of the big entitlement issues is Social Security, and it's also one of the biggest budget red herrings of our time.

We have a cap on the taxable amount for the payroll tax. Currently, only the first 106K is taxed at 6.2%, nothing beyond that is taxed. That cap was put in place by the Reagan administration, and is basically the instrument of the manufactured Social Security crisis. SS would be perfectly capable of funding itself going forward, if only we removed said cap.

I'm down with that, if its separated from the US government.

One issue with the military is that in the modern day you need a military capable of responding quickly to a crisis. In an era where you can move 100,000 troops within a matter of a couple days or weeks, including heavy equipment like tanks and naval carriers, you don't have 6 weeks to train a military through basic training.

While the odds of a major land war are extremely low, the argument is that without a standing military, if that extremely low possibility comes to fruition, and you lack a standing military, then you're caught flat footed and screwed.

The answer to that is to have a smaller, but more technologically advanced and thus effective force. The problem is, the US has gotten stuck somewhere in the middle. We want the nifty new technologies, but we also are keeping the standing armies. The result of doing both is that our military is easily without equal. The downside is it costs a ****TON of money.

 Da Boss wrote:
Would ye be happy if the deficit was cut by cutting funding to the military? Or is it only entitlements ye want cut?

All of them... just don't single out only the military.

FWIW: Entitlements is the big bopper.

You only need a large force if you're invading somebody big. Nowdays anybody big has fusion bombs and there'll be none of that thank you.

 Frazzled wrote:

I'm down with that, if its separated from the US government.

I think SS as it currently exists needs to be at least managed by the government; there are ways away from that, but they all run into problems. I think the government management could be more hands off, middleman-like, but I think under the current system it needs to be there.

The biggest thing the government gets involved with in terms of SS is raiding the fund for programs. When the SS fund gets raided, that hurts, and Congress should not be, or have been allowed to, touch it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
You only need a large force if you're invading somebody big. Nowdays anybody big has fusion bombs and there'll be none of that thank you.

Well, you've got to tell that to the supporters of a large standing military out there.

Me, personally, I'm for shoving 500 mad scientists in a state of the art facility out in Nevada, throwing all the money we give to private contractors at them, showing them these pictures:







saying "Make it happen," and then enjoying out massive technical advantage we'd have, enabling us to not have a large standing army of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, but rather 1000 Space Marines and a couple dozen Gundams and T-Rex with lasers.

or robot suit TRexes with lasers!

Except we have that massive technological advantage, and because of it we've been drastically cutting down our force, and people scream "The technology is to expensive, no one is even close to that, there is no need for it!"

Just admit the truth, you won't be happy till the military is gone.

That's not the truth, but the US military budget is astronomically, obscenely large.

Are "entitlements" really that much more than the military spend?

 Da Boss wrote:
That's not the truth, but the US military budget is astronomically, obscenely large.

Are "entitlements" really that much more than the military spend?

Entitlement spending is about 3-1 to Defense spending.

Does that include stuff like Medicare and scholarships to universities, or is it only limited to stuff like social welfare and food stamps?

Sorry, I am actually ignorant!

 Da Boss wrote:
That's not the truth, but the US military budget is astronomically, obscenely large.

Are "entitlements" really that much more than the military spend?

Yep.. by a factor of 3-5.

EDIT: ninja'ed.

 Da Boss wrote:
Does that include stuff like Medicare and scholarships to universities, or is it only limited to stuff like social welfare and food stamps?

Sorry, I am actually ignorant!

Simple things like the money paid out for unemployment payments are nearly as much as the DoD budget.

 Da Boss wrote:
Does that include stuff like Medicare and scholarships to universities, or is it only limited to stuff like social welfare and food stamps?

Sorry, I am actually ignorant!

This might be better at explaining it than I am:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/12/the-us-federal-budget-deficit-cbo_n_1144648.html

Apparently 1.3 trillion is dedicated to 'military' needs that's almost split between defense (things that go boom) and non-defense (vets benefits etc...)

 Da Boss wrote:
Does that include stuff like Medicare and scholarships to universities, or is it only limited to stuff like social welfare and food stamps?

Sorry, I am actually ignorant!

SS, Medicare and Medcaid more than doubles the spending for Defense...

Add in the other "mandatory" spending... it's almost triple of what the defense's expeditures.

Seems like making corporate america pay higher wages could alleviate some of that, by getting low wage workers off government money.

But, thank you for providing info and links!

 Da Boss wrote:
Seems like making corporate america pay higher wages could alleviate some of that, by getting low wage workers off government money.

But, thank you for providing info and links!

I'd rather we just look at cutting wasteful spending before we go into screwing with the private sector.

Crap like this.

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/10/16/top-10-examples-of-wasteful-federal-spending-in-2012/

People always say "Well, when your talking trillions, millions mean nothing." Well yeah, but when your talking hundreds to thousands of these little wasteful projects, those millions add up real damn fast.

 Da Boss wrote:
Seems like making corporate america pay higher wages could alleviate some of that, by getting low wage workers off government money.

But, thank you for providing info and links!

Making them?

Huh?

 Da Boss wrote:
Seems like making corporate america pay higher wages could alleviate some of that, by getting low wage workers off government money.

Noooooooope.

Mandating a minimum wage that is liveable. Works in other places, don't see why it couldn't work in the US?

 DogofWar1 wrote:

 Forar wrote:
6% off my $Texas!?

$Texas!?

Was that intentional, or a Freudian slip (type)?

Either way, I laughed.

It's a reference to a series of skits SNL did with 'Sean Connery' on Celebrity Jeopardy.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/12203

As we are posting pie charts:



I've never understood whom the US is preparing to fight...

Electrolytes from the Eighth Dimension, duh!