Let's balance the budget; what would you cut?

[Dinner]

Everyone likes to say "I'm for smaller government" and "I'll cut the waste" but really those are just mindless talking points unless you're willing to name exactly which programs you would cut to balance the budget. We need to find $1 trillion in savings if we want to even get close to balancing the budget without raising taxes so, specifically, what big programs would you cut?

I'm interested in this because Republican Politicians can never seem to find real cuts and instead fiddle around with symbolic savings of a few pennies here and there. What big programs would you cut or eliminate in order to add up to $1 trillion per year?

Here's the graph for the 2008 budget (Bush's last budget):

The President's budget for 2008 totals $2.9 trillion. Percentages in parentheses indicate percentage change compared to 2007. This budget request is broken down by the following expenditures:

* Mandatory spending: $1.788 trillion (+4.2%)
o $608 billion (+4.5%) - Social Security
o $386 billion (+5.2%) - Medicare
o $209 billion (+5.6%) - Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)
o $324 billion (+1.8%) - Unemployment/Welfare/Other mandatory spending
o $261 billion (+9.2%) - Interest on National Debt

* Discretionary spending: $1.114 trillion (+3.1%)
o $481.4 billion (+12.1%) - Department of Defense
o $145.2 billion (+45.8%) - Global War on Terror
o $69.3 billion (+0.3%) - Department of Health and Human Services
o $56.0 billion (+0.0%) - Department of Education
o $39.4 billion (+18.7%) - Department of Veterans Affairs
o $35.2 billion (+1.4%) - Department of Housing and Urban Development
o $35.0 billion (+22.0%) - Department of State and Other International Programs
o $34.3 billion (+7.2%) - Department of Homeland Security
o $24.3 billion (+6.6%) - Department of Energy
o $20.2 billion (+4.1%) - Department of Justice
o $20.2 billion (+3.1%) - Department of Agriculture
o $17.3 billion (+6.8%) - National Aeronautics and Space Administration
o $12.1 billion (+13.1%) - Department of Transportation
o $12.1 billion (+6.1%) - Department of the Treasury
o $10.6 billion (+2.9%) - Department of the Interior
o $10.6 billion (-9.4%) - Department of Labor
o $51.8 billion (+9.7%) - Other On-budget Discretionary Spending
o $39.0 billion - Other Off-budget Discretionary Spending

The Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan are not included in the regular budget. Instead they are funded through special appropriations.[

So what gets cut? Let's see if we can solve the budget problem amongst ourselves.

Edit: Iraq & Afghanistan cost about $100 billion per year.

[onodera]

Cut down military and welfare/unemployment spending, end the global war on terror. Social security is pensions, right? Relocate all old people to Philippines and halve their pensions.

[Kuciwalker]

Winding down Iraq and Afghanistan + ending the health care tax exemption probably does most of the work, especially in the long-term.

[Berzerker]

halve military
end foreign aid
end corporate subsidies
end drug war
end "war on terror"
increase funding DoJ/CIA/Intel

thats a start, then I'd get into the entitlement programs followed by tax cuts once the debt is under control

[DanS]

A better question for me is: What wouldn't I cut?

[Dinner]

Winding down Iraq and Afghanistan + ending the health care tax exemption probably does most of the work, especially in the long-term.

Iraq and Afghanistan amount to about $100 billion per year. Do you honestly think removing health care tax exemptions would raise an additional $900 billion per year? I sure don't.

halve military
end foreign aid
end corporate subsidies
end drug war
end "war on terror"
increase funding DoJ/CIA/Intel

thats a start, then I'd get into the entitlement programs followed by tax cuts once the debt is under control

-Halving military saves about $240 billion
-foreign aid - $2-$3 billion. (Sorry but not much there)
-War on drugs - DOJ's total budget is $20 billion and WOD is only a fraction of that but let's just call it $5 billion
-War on Terror - $145 billion

You've only saved about $400 billion not counting the increased spending so you need to find another $600 billion per year in cuts.

[Berzerker]

foreign aid is way more than 2-3 b, thats a drop in the bucket. We probably give that much alone to Egypt or Israel. And the drug war cost more than 5 b, what do we spend on prisons in this country? How about crime control because of black market violence? You cant go by the DoJ budget, the pols and the states have all sorts of ways to fund it. And you ignored corporate welfare, thats ~100 b right there without even getting into the massive bailouts. You dont think I could balance the budget? I spent 5 minutes cutting the deficit in half and I didn't even touch entitlements/welfare

[Kitschum]

Kill DHS and Missile Defense and most of the US contingent in Korea. Abolish the Senate, the Electoral College and the Vice President. Since I don't know that much about internal politics I'd cut 20% out of everything equally and raise taxes to cover the rest.

[Ben Kenobi]

Eliminate:

$324 billion (+1.8%) - Unemployment/Welfare/Other mandatory spending
$209 billion (+5.6%) - Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)

$51.8 billion - Other On-budget Discretionary Spending
$39.0 billion - Other Off-budget Discretionary Spending

Eliminate:

$56.0 billion (+0.0%) - Department of Education (Not Fed responsibility)
$12.1 billion (+13.1%) - Department of Transportation (Not Fed responsibility)
$35.2 billion (+1.4%) - Department of Housing and Urban Development (Not Fed responsibility)
$10.6 billion (-9.4%) - Department of Labor (Not Fed responsibility)
$69.3 billion - Department of Health and Human Services (Overlap)
$24.3 billion (+6.6%) - Department of Energy (Not Fed responsibility)


15.0 billion - Trim 65 percent Department of State and Other International Programs .
96 billion - Trim 15 percent of social security by lowering maximum eligibility.
40 billion - Trim 15 percent of Medicare.
20 billion - Merge and trim 65 percent of dept of Interior/Agriculture

There, balanced budget. What's so hard about this?

[RoboCon]

Eliminate everything except
$261 billion - Interest on National Debt (at least until we have the military power needed to invade the nations we borrowed money from)
$481.4 billion - Department of Defense
$145.2 billion - Global War on Terror
$34.3 billion - Department of Homeland Security

Homeland Security takes over the responsibilities of the Department of Justice
Department of Defense takes over the responsibilities of Social Security and Welfare - the elderly and unemployed can be put to work clearing minefields

[DaShi]

I'd put a stop on Social Security until the last baby boomer was dead.

[Dinner]

Wow, Ben doesn't think regulation of interstate commerce isn a Federal responsibility. He must have never read the constitution.

[David Floyd]

I'd axe the following:
Department of Education (has done NOTHING to improve education)
Department of Labor (makes it harder for businesses to operate)
HUD (this basically exists for one segment of the population, not the general welfare as mandated by Article 1 Section 8)

I'd eliminate some things in the DoD and Intelligence Agencies - for example, administration would go way downhill, as would PR spending, and federal requirements designed to promote "fairness" in procurement. **** all that. I'd increase military commitments in Japan and South Korea, open significant bases in Taiwan, and try to re-open Clark AFB in the Philippines, as a "Contain China" strategy. I'd also drastically increase NASA's budget, but put it under an US Air Force 4 Star and fold it into the DoD.

Outside of that, we need to take a hard look at "Mandatory Spending", aka 65% of the budget, aka items that are neither mandated nor authorized by the US Constitution. The exception to this are our debt payments; the rest, we can simply cut if we have the political will to do so. One thing I would support is making voting contingent on NOT receiving direct government aid (Medicare/Medicaid/Welfare, for example). How can you trust people who receive government benefits to vote against those benefits, regardless of any other arguments against said benefits? You can't, so I'd support a Constitutional amendment along those lines.

What to call this world? Floydtopia

[Imran Siddiqui]

I like it how people are axing the Department of Labor . I wonder what they plan to do when businesses screw them over on wages or pensions or health care...

[Dinner]

I think I'd repass pay go that no increases in spending (including inflation increases for manditory spending) without cutting something else.

-Cut military spending by 50% saving ~240 billion
-Eliminate all off budget expenditures, if they want to pass this stuff it needs to go into the budget ~$90 billion
-War on Terror is ended but spending on intelligence goes way up so let's just call it ~$90 billion
-Homeland Security, ditch it all but the border patrol and airport screening ~$15-$20 billion
-Cut department of education by 20% ~ $11 billion
-Eliminate entire department of housing and urban development ~ $35
-Virtually eliminate Department of Energy keeping just enough to regulate the power grid ~ $15-$20 billion
-Cut 75% of the Department of Agriculture including all subsidies ~ $15 billion
-Iraq & Afghanistan get cut by 75% - $75 billion
-Eliminate virtually all welfare and restrict unemployment to just 6 months instead of 2 years (as is current) ~ $150 to $200 billion
-SCHIP if the states want it then they can pay for it ~ $200 billion

Other Changes:

SSI remove the cap on the SSI tax and make it so that every dollar earned or gained through investment must pay SSI no matter the source ~ Unknown amount but several hundred billion no doubt.

Repeal the Bush tax cuts for only the wealthy.

Medicare - have a dedicated medicare tax of not less then 1% of all gross earnings.

While we're at it the tax code should be greatly simplified with a special eye towards streamlining and eliminating loopholes which normally just amount to corporate welfare; eliminate virtually all deductions.

I'd also free up SSI to invest in anything it wants not just T-Bills hoping they get a better rate of return then T-bills.

Result: That's cuts of about $936 billion, at least, with the possibility of more. It would also include an unknown but large amount of new tax increases to pay for unfunded future SSI and Medicare liabilities.