Challenge to fiscal conservatives - what spending do you want to cut?

[Anonymous]

(And please don't say "all of it." That's a dodge and you !@#$ know it.)

I could be biased but it seems most conservative/Tea Party types haven't really put together many proposals nor do I see them on Internet comment boards. Paul Ryan has suggested replacing Medicare with a voucher system but that does not (1) address the immediate needs of Medicare or (2) have any safeguards against the vouchers becoming as over-inflated as Medicare is (allegedly) today.

My ideas:
1. The GOP’s tax phobia is understandable. Less so is their unwillingness to alienate their “keep government out of my Medicare” wing. Sorry, taxes are going to have to return to Clinton era rates on the over $100k crowd, which includes myself. If the Bush era tax rates couldn’t create jobs faster than under Hoover, something else is at play here.
2. Impose FICA taxes on all wages.
3. Capital gains and dividends over 250k are taxed as normal income.
3a. Mortgage interest over 5% of income is not deductible.
4. Freeze Social Security as we know it. Replace COLA’s to Social Security with a means-tested supplemental program, weighing income over the past 5 years or something so a random stock sale or 401k withdrawal doesn’t completely blow up your income. This will at least reduce the increase in Social Security spending and ensure the pain is given to those who can most take it.
5. Reform Medicare so it does not even kick in until 10% of income is spent (at least an initial step). For whatever reasons, American patients seem more willing to undergo extraordinary effort and expense to extend the last few years as opposed to European patients, so I understand most of the gap in healthcare costs is among the over-65s especially in last year care.
6. Allow doctors to pay off med school debt by doing work for Medicaid, say $5k of debt is erased if you do $10k of Medicaid work.
7. Get out of Europe and Northeast Asia. Europe is at peace and the DRPK and PRC fear our carrier-based forces WAY more than the smattering of ground forces we have in Korea. Reduce our nuclear arsenal by 75% but only if Russia also agrees to that. Continue getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan although those may be the Korea and Germany of the next 20-30 years. Reduce spending on large land combat vehicles (e.g. tanks and APCs.)
8. Attempt as much as possible to insource functions now done by contractors. To make this easier, make the hiring process even more honest—no more BS “we already have someone in mind” postings, for example.
9. Cut the rest of civil government 5% or so if number 8 won’t do enough. Odd how the teabaggers focus mostly on this and not the elephants in the room.

[Anonymous]

FWIW, I do think Ryan's plan is at least worth discussing.

I don't know how sustainable the current social welfare system is, and I'd rather see it retooled than eliminated.

Endless deficit spending didn't work that well for Japan (at least not to the tune of 200% debt/GDP), and I'm somewhat hesitant to advocate it here.

Another idea I've proposed is tying corporate and high-earner (incl. dividend and capital gain) tax rates to the unemployment rate. Basically, if companies start hiring, their taxes go down, at least somewhat mitigating the effects of higher labor costs. If companies start laying off American workers, there's an additional cost to doing so.

[Anonymous]

I like OP's #6 -- that's some good out of the box-type thinking. However, would that really make a dent in Medicaid spending?

We need to terminate the line of credit we currently have for the IMF until we balance our budget.

As a conservative, I hate the talk of the entitlements taken away for those who need them and I do think that there needs to be a slight raise in taxes (yeah, I said it!). After all, why does the budget need to be balanced on the backs of the poor? However, there is a lot of spending out there that the general public isn't even aware of. For instance, how much is the Federal government subsidizing the private airlines? I don't even know, but I'm sure it's to an extent that would make Joe Public cringe when he sees the cost of his ticket and baggage fees. Perhaps we should let the airlines face strict competition between themselves. However, I don't claim to be well-versed in HOW that could be done.

I'm also in favor of EVERY Federal department being forced to tighten it's belt. Excess programs, budget, and personnel need to be looked at and assessed. Do we really need to spend $$$$ to achieve our missions?

[Anonymous]

OP again (I plan on being fairly active here).

#6 might not save that much on Medicaid, but it'd reduce med school debt which is a factor in high medical costs. It'd also enable more doctors who are publicly minded to work at a clinic making $80k a year as opposed to having to become a high-end specialist making $400k a year.

I don't know to what extent the AMA has set up a formal pro bono program the way the ABA (lawyers) do pro bono work ...

I'd have no problem (at least on first glance) with terminating the IMF line of credit, but if that causes Greece-sized defaults, that could lead to a monster (Spain or Italy-sized defaults) that gets out of control. I also don't know if it's actually costing us anything or not ... but if China isn't paying itself share, it's time to let an Asian run the IMF/World Bank for a change, in exchange for Asia paying its share of IMF/World Bank funding/guarantees.

OTOH, I'd have favored a "people's bailout" back in 2008, where the gov't was authorized to borrow $2 trillion -- but then kick in $500 billion if the UE rate went above 9% for three straight months, another $500 billion if it went above 10.5%, etc.

It would have included things like expanded welfare, turning unemployment insurance into some form of hybrid workfare (*), and community college as a right (not required) for all and the funding to make it possible. Then you can go back to CC after say 20 years in the workforce (so you can retrain for the jobs of today).

(*) Basically you spend 5-20 hours a week doing something useful, like working at a library (to enable them being open on Sundays), daycare for 3 y/o and older kids (working with actual teachers to ensure no nutjobs got in), picking up trash, etc. I'd rather pay someone $500 a week to do this than pay them $300 a week to do nothing.

[Anonymous]

And ... crickets chirping ... surely there's actual ideas running around out there.

[TheManWithAUsername]

Anonymous wrote:I'm also in favor of EVERY Federal department being forced to tighten it's belt. Excess programs, budget, and personnel need to be looked at and assessed. Do we really need to spend $$$$ to achieve our missions?

Every politician makes that observation, and runs in part on the fantasy that it will occur. The exact amounts of the cuts are left unsaid. Anyone providing a real answer to the OP needs to provide at least round numbers.

[Anonymous]

The mack /penny plan is good for me . freeze spending. across the board cuts of 1% fro 8 years. At that point the budget is ba
lanced. Then loosely tie the budget to 19% of GDP allowing for wars and emergencies. VERY reasonable.

[Anonymous]

Mack Penny is the best plan. It is almost impossible to cut any way other than across the board and share the sacrifice. It would be good to axe all the really uneccissary stuff like PBS, arts endowments, dept of education, dept of energy, EPA, Obamacare, NIST, Union kickbacks ect.. and roll their budgets into ss and medicare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mack Penny is the best plan. It is almost impossible to cut any way other than across the board and share the sacrifice. It would be good to axe all the really uneccissary stuff like PBS, arts endowments, dept of education, dept of energy, EPA, Obamacare, NIST, Union kickbacks ect.. and roll their budgets into ss and medicare.

That does not happen to be across the board. As a result, it will practically save you nothing.


PBS: 0.4 Billion. Great start!
National Endowment for the Arts: 0.14 Billion. You're on a roll.
DOEducation: 77B - this will have to come out of state taxes, so it saves the country nothing
EPA: 9 Billion: Now there is nothing to keep anyone from putting smokestacks up near your neighborhood. Bye bye Republican-created agency.
Department of Energy: $29 billion. Now there is no one to secure the nuclear stockpile or invest public funds in new energy technologies.
Obamacare: -3.1B. Yes negative. When you get CBO to say otherwise, let me know.
NIST: 0.5 Billion. Glad to see you close with a winner.
Oh I forgot: Union kickbacks. You are going to have to point to a specific budget cut on that one.

Grand total:$113 Billion, most of which just transfers education costs back down to the states.

Thanks for playing. When you stop coughing from the smog over DC, catch your breath and come up with the rest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mack Penny is the best plan. It is almost impossible to cut any way other than across the board and share the sacrifice. It would be good to axe all the really uneccissary stuff like PBS, arts endowments, dept of education, dept of energy, EPA, Obamacare, NIST, Union kickbacks ect.. and roll their budgets into ss and medicare.

That does not happen to be across the board. As a result, it will practically save you nothing.


PBS: 0.4 Billion. Great start!
National Endowment for the Arts: 0.14 Billion. You're on a roll.
DOEducation: 77B - this will have to come out of state taxes, so it saves the country nothing
EPA: 9 Billion: Now there is nothing to keep anyone from putting smokestacks up near your neighborhood. Bye bye Republican-created agency.
Department of Energy: $29 billion. Now there is no one to secure the nuclear stockpile or invest public funds in new energy technologies.
Obamacare: -3.1B. Yes negative. When you get CBO to say otherwise, let me know.
NIST: 0.5 Billion. Glad to see you close with a winner.
Oh I forgot: Union kickbacks. You are going to have to point to a specific budget cut on that one.

Grand total:$113 Billion, most of which just transfers education costs back down to the states.

Thanks for playing. When you stop coughing from the smog over DC, catch your breath and come up with the rest.

Add in foriegn aid ...roll it all into medicare. The freeze budget, reduce 1% a year for 8 years. SOFT LANDING...just call me Sully...brace for impact.

[Anonymous]

Good job, Foreign Aid. $50 Billion. Now we have no allies in the middle east or Africa. Well done!

[Anonymous]

the problem with the last 50 years is that we have been spending to maintain an empire, but without the imperialism or conquest. what is the point of having army bases in korea, england, germany and japan if not to rape and pillage? never before has an empire done so little for the home country. yes, it served as a deterrent to soviet aggression and perhaps future chinese aggression now, but is that worth the cost? I don't see it.

[Anonymous]

#1 as for cuts, they obviously have to be in medicare, SS and defense. Discretionary spending is fine - maybe just lower the rate of increases to a manageable percentage.

Medicare - why not start out with the Ryan plan? Block grants to states that increase much lower than the current increases (is that essentially it?). Let the various states compete to see what is the best program.

But if the Ryan plan is too toxic, then raise the medicare age. Raise the SS age. Lower the inflation index. Defense can be a simple across the board cut of 5%, than lower the rate of increases or even freeze for a few years. These steps alone probably add another trillion or so in cuts.

#2 let the Bush tax cuts expire.


problem solved, back to lowering debts (as a percentage of GDP) and back to AAA rating.

[Anonymous]

No tax increases?
Why do oil companies get away with not paying more in taxes? It's outrageous, given the U.S. is subsidizing military action that enriches them.

[Anonymous]

The administration and congress are in a desperate struggle to prop up our phantom economy. We borrow from abroad to buy products made from abroad. Our population has too many sectors that are non-competitive and consume at a high rate. The economy is out of balance with too few producing actual products and too many employed in Government, law and finance. THERE WILL BE ANOTHER DOSE OF STIMULUS. It will be the lethal dose that will decimate the dollar and crash the economy. The world is on to our game. China can decouple form us and provide for thier own huge market. Get as far away from the U.S. dollar as you can. Brace for impact.