GOP/Paul Ryan FTW!

[Al B. Sure!]

Considering the trouble those Texans caused last time, the Mexicans might want to be paid to take it back. Rebellious lot those Texans.

Texas is going to be mostly Mexican in about 10 more years anyway... and the reactions that folk like Sloww and Docfeelgood would have would be too hilarious to miss out on. It's all not as absurd as it sounds. Countries used to do this all the time when they had debt problems. Why because it's 2011 we can't do it now?

But seriously, though. What's with all the public lands? Sell that ****.

[Egbert]

They might revolt again and join Mexico.

ISn't the Alamo still standing? Put it to use again.

[Al B. Sure!]

Seriously, though, am I missing something?

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior which administers America's public lands, totaling approximately 253 million acres (1,023,855 km2) or one-eighth of the landmass of the country.[1] BLM also manages 700 million acres (2,832,800 km2) of subsurface mineral estate underlying federal, state and private lands. Most public lands are located in western states, including Alaska. With approximately 10,000 permanent employees and close to 2,000 seasonal employees, this works out to over 21,000 acres (85 km2) per employee. Its budget is $960,000,000 for 2010 ($3.79 per surface acre, $9.38 per hectare).[2]

Then the Forest Service manages 193 Million more acres and has an annual budget of $5.806 Billion.

I'm seeing stuff indicating that 28.7% of US land is public land.

Sell that ****.


Is the government even supposed to own assets? Dave Floyd?

[Dinner]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...04-03-10-33-40

GOP 2012 budget to make $4 trillion-plus in cuts

By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Republican plan for the 2012 budget would cut more than $4 trillion over the next decade, more than even the president's debt commission proposed, with spending caps as well as changes in the Medicare and Medicaid health programs, its principal author said Sunday.

The spending blueprint from Rep. Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, is to be released Tuesday. It deals with the budget year that begins Oct. 1, not the current one that is the subject of negotiations aimed at preventing a partial government shutdown on Friday.

In an interview with "Fox News Sunday," Ryan said budget writers are working out the 2012 numbers with the Congressional Budget Office, but he said the overall spending reductions would come to "a lot more" than $4 trillion. The debt commission appointed by President Barack Obama recommended a plan that it said would achieve nearly $4 trillion in deficit reduction.

Ryan said Obama's call for freezing nondefense discretionary spending actually locks in spending at high levels. Under the forthcoming GOP plan, Ryan said spending would return to 2008 levels and thus cut an additional $400 billion over 10 years.

Speaking broadly about the proposal, Ryan said it would include:

-A "premium support system" for Medicare. In the future, older people would choose plans in the marketplace and the government would subsidize those plans. Ryan said that would differ from the voucher system he has proposed in the past. Those 55 and older would remain under the present Medicare system.

Ryan acknowledged that the "premium support system" would shift more costs to Medicare recipients, especially what he called "wealthy seniors." He did not define at what level someone would be considered wealthy.

-Block grants to states for Medicaid, the health program for the poor. Ryan disputed reports that the plan would seek savings of $1 trillion over 10 years from Medicaid, but would say only that the details would be in the plan.

"Medicare and Medicaid spending will go up every single year under our budget. They don't just go up as much as they're going right now," he said. Ryan said governors have told members of Congress they want "the freedom to customize our Medicaid programs. ... We want to get governors freedom to do that."

-A statutory cap on actual discretionary spending as a percentage of the economy. While Ryan did not specify the amount during the interview, he said it would be at a higher level than proposed by Obama and would return the government to its "historic size."

-Pro-growth tax changes, including lower tax rates and broadening the tax base. Ryan said overhauling taxes would boost the economy. The plan will not propose tax increases.

Ryan was a member of the bipartisan debt commission but voted against its final recommendations, saying they failed to reduce spending on health care. The commission also endorsed tax increases along with painful spending cuts as necessary to dealing with the debt problem.

"We're not going to go down the path of raising taxes on people and raising taxes on the economy. We want to go after the source of the problem, and that is spending," Ryan said Sunday.

Ryan didn't mention how the budget plan would address Social Security.

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia was skeptical that Ryan's proposal could achieve its targets without damaging social programs. He also questioned whether reductions in defense spending and seeking more revenue through tax reform would be part of the plan.

"I don't know how you get there without taking basically a meat ax to those programs who protect the most vulnerable in the country," Warner said on CNN's "State of the Union."

"I'll give anybody the benefit of a doubt until I get a chance to look at the details," he said, "but I think the only way you're going to really get there is if you put all of these things, including defense spending, including tax reform, as part of the overall package."

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., part of a six-member group of Republicans and Democrats forging their own budget proposal, said that the lawmakers would be looking for "real balance" in Ryan's plan and wanting all options considered.

"I think we'll come at it differently," Durbin said on "Meet the Press" on NBC. "The idea of sparing the Pentagon from any savings, not imposing any new sacrifice on the wealthiest Americans, I think goes way too far. We have got to make certain that it's a balanced approach and one that can be sustained over the next 10 years."

Ryan criticized Obama, telling Fox that the president was "punting on the budget and not doing a thing to prevent a debt crisis, which every single economist tells us is coming sooner rather than later in this country."

"You have to address the drivers of our debt," he said. "We need to engage with the American people on a fact-based budget, on stopping politicians from making empty promises to people and talk to the country about what is necessary to fix these problems."


************************

I especially like the part where dip**** Sen. Mark Warner worries that we can't make the cuts without "harming" social programs that "protect the most vulnerable". Way to inject emotion into rational debate, ****heel. Hey, did you ever stop to think that NOT "harming" social programs is just going to cause the deficit to spiral out of control? Guess not, seeing as how that is exactly what is happening. Idiot.

Let's get this plan passed

The hard ****ing truth.

[Dinner]

You could easily solve the deficit with spending cuts. Unlike top marginal tax rates, spending only has a zero lower bound.

Remember that I only referred to short term elasticities. Long term elasticity will probably prove larger, meaning that less can be raised over the long haul by "taxing the rich".

In the end, federal state and local spending amounts to >40% of US gdp (and rising). This is unsustainable when we appear to be unwilling to tax the majority of Americans.

Jesus Christ, I should tell everyone you fiddle little girls because that is as creditable as the crap you've spewed.

The hard truth is people like the spending we have even though they claim they don't want to spend any money on government. Reality is they have to spend money but they love to pretend they don't have to spend money. Americans are ****ing drooling idiots.

[David Floyd]

Jesus, you can call me an idiot and likely get away with it, but I seriously doubt you can get away with calling KH an idiot. Even DanS ate some crow recently in an argument with him. I'm not saying I'm sucking his dick, I'm just saying that you're probably attacking the wrong person in this thread

[Egbert]

Jesus, you can call me an idiot and likely get away with it, but I seriously doubt you can get away with calling KH an idiot. Even DanS ate some crow recently in an argument with him. I'm not saying I'm sucking his dick, I'm just saying that you're probably attacking the wrong person in this thread

What's the problem with calling KH an idiot? He's a deranged lunatic.

[Al B. Sure!]

What's the deal with the public lands, though? A quarter of American land is public. Granted, quite a bit of that is probably public for good purposes or is desert that no one would want anyway, but as big as America is, even if only a fraction of that public land is good, selling it would probably get some bank in.

Am I missing something?

[notyoueither]

It is bad form to sell the family farm to feed your crack addiction?

[Hauldren Collider]

Look what I found:


That's it! Holy ****. Sell that **** to private investors! 76.1% of Nevada is public land?! Who the hell thought of that one? Sell that desert!

Look at all that prime land in Cali and Oregon that is public.

Who would ****ing buy it? It's desert.

[Hauldren Collider]

Jesus, you can call me an idiot and likely get away with it, but I seriously doubt you can get away with calling KH an idiot. Even DanS ate some crow recently in an argument with him. I'm not saying I'm sucking his dick, I'm just saying that you're probably attacking the wrong person in this thread

Oerdin reads thinkprogress. That's really all you need to know about the perceptiveness of his political opinions.

[rah]

Who would ****ing buy it? It's desert.

Las Vegas is a desert.

While I agree that a lot of the land is undesirable, there is considerable desirable public lands.

[Wezil]

I'd love to own a hunk of desert.

[Imran Siddiqui]

But why sell it when you can use it to conduct alien experiments

[korn469]

Well accoording to wikipedia (I didn't have time to do quality research) federal spending for 2010 is 3.456 trillion, and federal revenues are 2.162 trillion. Out of the spending is 197 billion in interest. Since you can't cut that, I would cut all other spending by 38% over 5 years (so each year everything would would experience a 7.6% decrease in spending) bringing spending down to about 2.217 trillion dollars per year. At the same time, I would increase taxes by 10% over five years (increasing revenues by 2% each year) so that revenues came 2.378 trillion dollars per year.

Once the budget had stabilized at a small surplus, I would put in place a balance budget amendment that would only allow spending to grow by 95 cents for every dollar of growth in revenues. Also if there was a yearly decrease in revenue, caused by tax cuts or a recession spending would go down by 1.05 dollars for every dollar of decreased revenue. I would use the small excess to pay down the debt so that hopefully economic growth combined with very modest payments on the debt could decrease the debt to 20% or less of gdp. Granted that would take FOREVER!

Since I'm doing all of this, I would also have the Fed raise interest rates to somewhere between 3-6%, I would have them undo quantitative easing, and make the fed's primary purpose to fight inflation.

With the huge cuts to every part of the government, I would have all departments look for savings. I would try to find all redundancies and weed them out. I would require the STRICTEST adherence to the most conservative accounting practices possible. I would prohibit the budget to be balances through accounting tricks. Some easy cuts to make would be a 38% pay cut to all currently serving politicians. Also any non current members of congress that didn't serve for 20 years would lose ALL of their retirement pay and government health coverage. If the average senior is going to suddenly see massive cuts in their income then congress should have to feel the pain as well.

That's what I would do for starters.

Other things I'd like to see.

1) Simpler individual taxes with far few loop holes that is still progressive.
2) Far lower corporate tax rates with as few loop holes as possible. Keep the overall revenue the same, but lower the rate, and lower the loopholes.
3) Possibly a small (less than 5%) federal VAT/sales tax. I would want to see it on the total sales price of EVERYTHING though. If we're going to have a consumption tax have it be on all aspects of consumption. From the dollar menu at McDonalds, to hundred dollar bluray players, to cars though cost thousands of dollars, to million dollars houses, to multi billion dollar corporate mergers and acquisitions. (a 5% tax on AT&T's 39 billion dollar bid for T mobile would certainly help bring in some revenue).
4) Way more focus on having actually competitive markets in the US.
5) Get rid of both gotcha capitalism and the socialization of risks. Companies that thrive on screw consumers should have to face consequences, and companies that have made a series of terrible choices should go bankrupt. The only bailout I feel ambivalent about is GM's. I think industrial capacity is a good thing. Not only would I HAVE not given the banks anything, if they still borrow hundreds of billions of dollars to keep the financial system afloat, I would have given it to credit unions, or created a brand new credit union.
6) Decrease red tape, but tighten regulations. I would have all industries have simpler, easy to understand, easier to follow regulations that had a larger impact on regulated industries. I think requiring FDIC insurance is a good example of a simple regulation. Only allowing the total values of all loans on a house to equal no more than 75% ltv would have totally prevented the housing crisis in america.
7) Encourage a better industrial policy. Modify and improve on Germany's policy (in 2009 for example Germany exported more than the US).
8) Try to limit income disparities and rebuild/revitalize the middle class.