Now that we Amis have a nice tax cut, how to reduce spending to cover it?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ned
However I do agree with the NPR cut, but would extend this to public broadcasting and support of the arts in general. NPR is representative of all of these. It and they have become so far left in their political orientation as to be completely unacceptable.

IMO, the question of whether government should support these at all is entirely independent of ideological content of specific programs. On the scale of the Federal budget, though, the amounts are trivial, and it's a lot less limited powers infringing, or rights infringing, than say, the Department of Education or the war on drugs.

If you take ideology out of the picture, and look at a matrix between proper exercise of Federal power and fiscal impact, NPR and NEA have to be pretty far down the list. Killing off unfunded mandates to the states is also a higher priority, though one without a direct fiscal impact for the Federal government.

[Dinner]

BTW for anyone who's interested here is a link to the complete national budget.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Environmental Assessors can do well though most of the consultants end up doing Phase I & II work and living hand to mouth. You really have to work your butt off in order to compete in a low margin business like EA. Still, it’s one of those businesses which someone can break into.

As a Geologist I work in the environmental field and I've thought about trying to start my own small constancy in 10 years or so. The big problem is most of the large (read: profitable) jobs are multidisciplinary so you either have to have a large staff who knows about each specialty or you end up outsourcing (both eat up profits in no time). Thus the only way I can think of to get into the business is to work for small clients who mostly want Phase I/II work so they can complete due diligence prior to sale or for mortgage lenders who are trying to decide wither a piece of real-estate is worth owning or not. Both are a commodity type service.

I know a couple of people who do that here (southern Cali, not Baja), as individual consultants. One's a Chem Ph.D, who specializes in air quality permits and does Phase I and II work, the other a Marine Bio Ph.D who does fisheries and riparian habitat stuff, also Phase I and II work. They both bill around $120 an hour, and are in a lot of demand with smaller developer firms who get to know them and spread the word, because as clients they don't like the cost and bloat of the bigger firms. If you're a little fish, you have to expect to work for little fish, but if you develop a good reputation for cost and good service, you get a lot of referral clients.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Lastly, BBC has an excellent article about how Bush buried a Treasury Department report which stated the current Tax and spend attitude of the Bush Administration was completely unsustainable and that the US would be unable to meet its social obligations to baby boomers (who are already beginning to retire) due to the record deficits. This tax cut was absolutely criminal.

They may have got their tax cut passed but this will be an issue in 2004, especially if the economy is bad.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Lastly, BBC has an excellent article about how Bush buried a Treasury Department report which stated the current Tax and spend attitude of the Bush Administration was completely unsustainable and that the US would be unable to meet its social obligations to baby boomers (who are already beginning to retire) due to the record deficits. This tax cut was absolutely criminal.

The current tax and spend, or borrow and spend situation is unsustainable, but I'd rather see tax cuts with spending cuts, than the present levels. Social Security and the boomers is just a ticking time bomb, so the Feds need to get some balls and phase out of that business entirely. Due to the huge vested funds into the SS system and how much dicking around with that money is ingrained into budget gamesmanship, the phase out has to be gradual, and has to be set up to not screw people who are mostly paid in, but the political case needs to be made now, and made continuously, that SS is just another Ponzi scheme, and something which has to be kicked back to private pensions and related systems.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
The current tax and spend, or borrow and spend situation is unsustainable, but I'd rather see tax cuts with spending cuts, than the present levels. Social Security and the boomers is just a ticking time bomb, so the Feds need to get some balls and phase out of that business entirely. Due to the huge vested funds into the SS system and how much dicking around with that money is ingrained into budget gamesmanship, the phase out has to be gradual, and has to be set up to not screw people who are mostly paid in, but the political case needs to be made now, and made continuously, that SS is just another Ponzi scheme, and something which has to be kicked back to private pensions and related systems.

Don't look for benefits for the elderly to be cut. The elderly will be more powerfull politically when the boomers retire than they ever were. No, unfortunately work will probably be taxed so much it will be ridiculous. There is some hope though that the boomers will be sympathetic.

[Arrian]

MtG, as I'm sure you know, just mentioning Social Security is political suicide.

The blue hairs have immense political power. Unlike most other demographic groups, they vote.

-Arrian

[Dinner]

MtG: It sounds like your friends do pretty well for themselves. Maybe I should go to grad school and pick up an extra degree.

Everyone else: So where do we cut? The three biggest budget items are Social Security, Medicare, and the Military. The first two are off limits because anyone who touches them is a political corpse so that leaves only the military as the major cut point and lots of smaller cuts in just about everything else.

So where can the military cut corners? Well, it doesn't make sense to pay to develop a new wheeled APC since we already have the bradley, and the Sea Wolf attack sub is not needed, the F-22's only competetor is the F-15 but it costs twice as much, and why the heck do we need a Super Honet (upgraded F/A-18) to be an air superiority fighter when we already have the F-15 and the F-22? Kill the sub the armored vehicle and one of the planes.

What's next? The new "super rifle" is a total peace of crap (weights to much, costs to much, breaks to often, and needs batteries(!!!!) so it gets cut. We still have base closings to consider; remember we have five bases all doing basic training but we have half the forces of 12 years ago. They closed Ord but I bet we could close 2 more and still get by just fine and the other branches could probably find similiar underused bases. Much of the nuclear arsonal is a waste so we should sign another treaty with th Russians (maybe even get the Chinese in on it too) and get ride of it.

Anything else? Yep, Bush has passed a million and one subsidies on to big business. Everything from Agrobusiness, to steel, to paper & pulp produces have gotten cash out of Bush during is quest to get reelected. All the subsidies need to go. Hopefully, Bush will be smart enough to sign a treaty with the Euros forcing them toi ditch the subsidies as well (lord knows they are ten times worse). Still, I doubt this will close half of Bush's massive deficit so we're still going to have to cut way over the 20% mark (remember we left S.S. & medicad walk free) in order to balance the budget.

Will Americans stand for a 33% cut to education, to infastructure, and to every other government survice? I doubt it. That is why even after the massive cuts we will still have to roll back much of Bush's three tax cuts.

[Japher]

We can first take back that 15 billion we are giving for the AIDS "cause"... what BS

[PLATO]

I agree with MtG on social security. The problem is that with any phase out (even gradual) you have a smaller and smaller number of people paying in while you have a larger and larger (at least initially) group of receipients. In order to make this even remotely feasible, a limitation to the receipients receiving the amount actually paid in will be the minimum necessay to be able to maintain any type of Social Security program. (And even this appears doubtful).

The only possible solution is a whopping tax increase. If this happens it will probably come in the form of mandated pensioning rules for business. However it goes down, the economy is looking at a severe hit it the next fifty years.

[Kidlicious]

Deficits will be necessary. That's all the more reason to try to keep them to a minimum right now. Otherwise it's going to make borrowing tough and expensive.

[PLATO]

Kidicious, you are right on. Let's don't forget the massive inflation spiral the government will force to try to devalue its debt when this happens.

[GePap]

I say Republicans and the president get some guts, and tackle Social security straight on: they should do what they truly want to do, abolish the whole system! Think of the savingsd! Just by that, all the tax cut is payed for. But be sure to do it in 2004, abou 2 months away from the elctions, and make sure to claim full credit for it! The people of the US will surely vote how they would feel with that!

As for the side argument. The rich in this country benefit more from the systems in place than anyone else. Does someone who makes 120,000 k a year pay more in income taxes? Yes (like my family), but we also get more out of the system than someone who makes 30,000, and my family does not lack anything we need cuase we pay for programs that help someone making 30,000k. I higly doubt that anyone here making 100k plus (or thier family) lacks something they need, though perhaps you may lack somehting you want. Well, tough.

[Dinner]

Money Magazine has a great article on the $44 trillion dollar hole we're going to have in our budget once the boomers retire and Bush gets his latest tax cuts.

Bush is resorting to creative accounting that is so shameless that even Enron would have blushed. Can you believe the administration is claiming it will only be an $18 billion dollar short fall once you project out growth for 75 years!!!!!!!!!!!!! WTF? 75 years of uninterrupted prosparity is what Bush is counting on to get us out of his budget mess? This idiot needs to be shot for his incompetence.

BTW here's the quote from the CNN/Money article that I'm using as a source.

It's important to keep in mind, however, that the $44.2 trillion is a theoretical number -- the White House, which chooses to project just 75 years into the future, sees an $18 trillion shortfall -- and any number that goes too far into the future is likely to be fraught with uncertainty.

[Dinner]

Here's another great quote from Money Magaizine/CNN dealing with the Treasury department's own internal evaluation of Bush's lastest tax cuts (see BBC article linked to above):

Gokhale asserts that fixing the massive shortfall he projects -- assuming the government chooses not to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits -- soon will force the government to pick from an array of even nastier poisons, including:

boosting individual and corporate taxes 69 percent

raising payroll taxes 95 percent

cutting non-Social Security and non-Medicare spending 56 percent

eliminating all other federal government spending

or some combination of each of these four measures

Dispite what Rush Lame-brain may say Bush is leading us into a financial train wreck of epic proportions all because he can't control his spending nor his desire to give handouts to political friends.