Do you believe there is a solution to the United States' financial situation?

[Asher]

Cut entitlements, raise retirement age and eliminate all the jobs programs pretending to be military acquisitions. Lower overall tax rates and eliminate exemptions. Done.

Lower the tax rates, that's the fastest way out of a deficit fo sho.

[Dinner]

The left doesn't want to eliminate foreign aid because the left cares if people in other countries are poor? That shouldn't be hard to figure out.

905 plus of foreign aid that the US spends isn't to help poor people. It's foreign military aid; meaning it is aid money given to foreign governments to buy US made military hardware or US designed hardware to be built in foreign countries. The US government just doesn't give much in the way of development aid. The main agency which does that is the World Bank and the IMF both of which are self sustaining and don't take regular US Federal government money.

[Dinner]

Lower the tax rates, that's the fastest way out of a deficit fo sho.

Funny how every time they lower tax rates the deficit goes higher. I mean it's like someone thinking if they quit their $80,000 per year job and get a $40,000 per year job then there will be more jobs and thus his income will eventually go up. The hard truth is the extra 0.1% to the annual growth rate is swamped, completely swamped, by the 5% interest debt racked up as a deficit. That's why even the Fed Chairman (and in fact all Fed Chairman) have said there is no such thing as a free tax cut which pays for itself; spending has to be cut by an amount equal to the tax cut. The problem is tax cuts are popular but spending cuts are unpopular so politicians always will agree to cut taxes but never will agree to cut spending enough to pay for tax cuts.

[Dinner]

Sell the midwestern and southern states to the CHinese.

They're pretty much useless anyway. 90% of them don't even pay net taxes, the ****ing free loading welfare queens.

[Hauldren Collider]

Lower the tax rates, that's the fastest way out of a deficit fo sho.

Lowering tax rates and eliminating exceptions would increase revenue. Overall people would be paying a higher actual rate, but without all the negative incentives that the current tax code has.

[Asher]

The businesses would get hit the most by that; you're fine with that?

Amazon just took their ball and went home, abandoning Texas over taxes. What's to stop lots of companies from setting up shop in the great white north, where corporate taxes are much lower? Unless you mean DRASTICALLY lower tax rates...

[Lorizael]

I really do understand. And unlike pansy ass liberals, I'm not afraid to cut every ****ing federal program under the sun. I can manage my own affairs, and protect myself and my family from whatever imagined or perceived threats our "leaders" want to throw at us.

I'm not afraid to abolish the Dept. of Education, the NSA, 3/4 of the military, and ALL foreign aid.

I'm not afraid of a free society.

Well, if you want to live in the 18th century, go right ahead. Our current level of technology cannot support a modern civilization without cheap labor and debt.

[Elok]

Why does the left's imagination go barely farther than cutting entitlements and raising taxes?

Foreign aid should be close to zero before we cut anything at home.

And that includes the huge sums we send to the UN, the IMF, and every other globalist money pit.

Er, foreign aid is close to zero compared to what we spend at home.

EDIT: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/factsheet_department_state/

I don't know about the UN or IMF or whatever, but the State Department got about $50 billion for its TOTAL budget last year. That includes all the dough we give to every country we help, and it's slightly less than the interest on what we spend on the military.

[Arrian]

HL was almost making sense... until the "foreign aid" canard came up. Cutting that is fine, but will have almost no effect. We have to also cut things that actually matter.

SS - raise retirement age. This has already been done. It makes sense. One obvious problem is that this produces no savings right now. It's good for the long-term picture, though.
Medicare - There have to be benefit cuts. Significant ones, unfortunately. This is the biggest problem in the budget going forward.
Medicaid - I'd like to leave it be. This may not be possible, but it's certainly my preference.
Military - I'd take an axe to that budget, and we'd still have the most powerful military in the world.

DOD spending $721.3 billion Base budget + "Overseas Contingency Operations"
FBI counter-terrorism $2.7 billion At least one-third FBI budget.
International Affairs $10.1–$54.2 billion At minimum, foreign arms sales. At most, entire State budget
Energy Department, defense-related $20.9 billion
Veterans Affairs $66.2 billion
Homeland Security $54.7 billion
NASA, satellites $3.4–$8.5 billion Between 20% and 50% of NASA's total budget
Veterans pensions $58.4 billion
Other defense-related mandatory spending $7.5 billion
Interest on debt incurred in past wars $114.8–$454.2 billion Between 23% and 91% of total interest
Total Spending $1.060–$1.449 trillion

Of that, you can't cut the interest on the debt (until you repay said debt), so that's off the table. Let's also leave Veterans Affairs out. DOD, the ongoing wars + Homeland defense = ~$800B. I say go take that down to half ($400B) and see how things go. Of course, one has to actually identify $400B in cuts, which is a lot harder than saying "cut it by half!"

Other - I'm fine with reducing the size of the federal bureacracy (e.g. getting rid of the Departments of Agriculture, Education, etc) though it should be noted (as w/military cuts) that job losses in a weak economy will place additional strain on the safety net.

Tax policy - I'd rip out all subsidies and tax deductions and start over. I would not, however, go the S-B route and reduce the number of rates. Lots of rates are just fine. In fact, I'd add new ones at the top. I'm cool with removing corporate income taxation, though the revenue needs to be replaced. I remain unconvinced that removing capital gains taxation is good public policy. The spending cuts would be phased in (and perhaps some of the tax code changes as well?) over, say, 4 years.

The deficit is roughly $1.5 trillion. I'm gunning for a a small surplus, so a total swing of $1.6T. My military cuts only get me 1/4 of the way there. 3/4 of it will have to come from the "butter" side + tax increases ($1.2T). One can hope that economic recovery will play a part in closing the gap. Let's assume that it gets us 1/4 of the way home ($400B). Given that $400B is roughly the difference between federal revenue in 2007 and 2011, I don't think that's totally crazy. That leaves 1/2, or $800B. Let's do half of that in cuts and half of that in tax increases. That means $400B in "butter" cuts - Medicare/aid, SS, and the sorts of things that Rand Paul took a swing at (Dept. of Agriculture, for instance).

Actually doing that would suck. Job losses and tax increases in the midst of a tepid recovery from a recession will suck. But it's gonna suck at some point. The longer we delay, the worse the situation will become.

-Arrian

[Ben Kenobi]

Canada actually will have some advice for the US, although the US is still in much better shape than Canada in 1996, when they hit peak debt of 101.7 percent. US is at present 96.7 percent of 2010 GDP in debt.

That gives the US a cushion of about 570 billion dollars.

Current deficit is 1.653 trillion for fiscal year 2010, if you include total debt increase.

The solution is simple. Cut everyhing across the board to 2007 level spending. Eliminate Obamacare, and all new domestic spending. 5 year domestic spending freeze.

[Ben Kenobi]

Arrian:

If you are cutting half out of the military, I'd like to see domestic spending cut in half. I'd rather cut both by a quarter. 200 billion off the military and 1.5 trillion out of domestic.

getting rid of the Departments of Agriculture, Education, etc

Add Obamacare and we have a deal.

I'd rip out all subsidies

Why not just go to a flat/fair tax system? Short and sweet.

In fact, I'd add new ones at the top.

Tax cuts would actually increase revenues. There's no need to increase taxation as revenues are dropping. Spending must go down to match revenues.

I remain unconvinced that removing capital gains taxation is good public policy.

Capital gains elimination will increase revenues longerm for a short term reduction. More private investment in both jobs and business.

That means $400B in "butter" cuts

Not nearly enough. You'll need 3x the butter cuts to balance the economy. I'd split the difference of a 600 billion military cut if you'd agree to twice that ion butter cuts of 1.2 billion dollars.

One thing I haven't noticed you saying is asset sales. The Federal government owns a significant amount of land in the wesetern states. They should sell all of that land off. 193 million acres at 8000 an acre gives you 1.5 trillion dollars. Say they sold off 10 percent a year, that would bring them roughly 150 billion. So you do 400 billion in military cuts, 1 trillion in butter cuts, 200 billion in land and asset sales.

[Agent Sox]

My opinion is that in the long term America has bigger problems than money. And so eventually America may fall, but there will be a successor of sorts.

[Ben Kenobi]

That's why even the Fed Chairman (and in fact all Fed Chairman) have said there is no such thing as a free tax cut which pays for itself

Then why not tax 100 percent? There's no free tax increase which pays for itself.

Increase taxes, and people will quit their 80k jobs to work 40k jobs in low tax jurisdictions. Who;'s better off the guy who works at an 80k job who pays half that in taxes, or the guy who makes 40 k without any tax at all?

[C0ckney]

Then why not tax 100 percent? There's no free tax increase which pays for itself.

Increase taxes, and people will quit their 80k jobs to work 40k jobs in low tax jurisdictions. Who;'s better off the guy who works at an 80k job who pays half that in taxes, or the guy who makes 40 k without any tax at all?

yes who could possibly argue with that airtight reasoning

[giblets]

The solution is simple . . . Eliminate Obamacare

That would increase the deficit