After hearing over and over again that we need to FIX the deficit by republicans who want to cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans (AGAIN) to do such a thing I decided to pull out this old email i had a year ago detailing ACTUAL POLICIES that just might fix such a problem.
There are really 2 issues here, The actual deficit (total money we OWE) and the yearly deficit that keeps adding to that. Basically the mortgage VS the mortgage payment.
tackling the structural deficit is the only way to bring the US government's fiscal house in order. Such a belief also does not NEGATE the need for a massive (one or two time) trillion dollar stimulus to kick start the private sector.
On a facebook back and forth one of my self identified "independent" friend, (a conservative who's embarrassed to admit it) after discussing the debt for about 10 min just (im imagining here) threw up his hands and stated:
"It's Situation Hopeless no matter what."
Much like their opinions on global warming it seems to me that "independents" who claim they are not experts (covering there butts when they constantly turn out to be wrong) but throw there political power (voting and cocktail party discussions) behind conservative ideas, have run the country into the ground and now just say "eh were all screwed, damn partisan hacks, if only people were more 'independent' like me" Truly believing that it is the "way we talk to each other" and not the actual policies that are the problem.
well with global warming We might have drug our feet for so long it might be
Depressing story1
2
and the most depressing.... FOXNEWS!!!!!!!
God i had to take a depressed shot of whiskey after that one... All i know is that I'm gonna go down kicking and screaming!!!
But onto a less depressing problem, one that not only CAN BE FIX, but from a policy standpoint, could be fix fairly easily....
Of course the problem is too big for a one stop shop solution, especially sense we are in Great depression 2 and the government has to simultaneously "spend a lot of money" (to makeup for private sector losses... ECCON 101) While reducing its long term debt.
Step 1: RAISE FRACKING TAXES!!!!... We pay less percapita in taxes then ANY TIME IN THE HISTORY of US income tax. (no thats not true, the first income tax was like 1 percent, and a real progressive tax started in like ww1.) but you get my point. facts
NOW, for the majority of the history of income tax in america the top rate paid well over 60% ... am i asking for that?.. NO.. Thanks to the rapid redistibution of wealth to the top 5 percent over the the past 30 years, taxing the top 5 percent at like 50% (cuz they have/make all the money) would pretty much solve the problem) But we all know if we go to a 50 % rate on the top 5 percent of americans, then our eyes all turn slanted and we become Communist, so that just can't happen... so lets increase it back to clinton levels, 36, and 39 percent rates on the top 2 brackets, that on guestimation get us roughly 600 billion extra in revenue, meaning we only need to cut 400 billion in yearly spending... ( i dont have a CBO to crunch these numbers for me, so i may be about a 100 billion or so off... so maybe 40 and 41%?)
YES RAISING TAXES in a bad economy is "generally" bad But as the 93 Omius bill, the 80s and 2000s prove REPublicans don't know CRAP about the economy... more factsso, just keep reading...
STEP 2: MILITARY CUTS: the military expenditures are rougly 1 trillion a year (including wars, VEts, DOD, yada yada) this is where i got most of my guestimations
A.)GET THE FRACK OUT OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN (saving of 200 billion a year)
The latest Medical cost of the survivors, (roughly a billion a year) only gets worse the longer the war goes on... So that Billion a year is just with us.
B) lets sell a carrier division or 2 100 billion dollars for a Almost fully operational Nimitz class vessels and support ships, to be sold to GB, FRANCE, CANADA, Australia?(not Germany or Japan... THEY LOST, and they need to be reminded every so often), or maybe just NATO in general?.. (yes we'd kinda be buying it from ourselves, but with investment and long term maintenance with help from our allies...
hell if the Chinese want to "forgive" our debt to them, lets fracking strip a aircraft carrier or 2 and send it there way. (desperate times call for desperate measures)
Then we send 4 more of our 11 battle carrier divisions to dry dock and prepare to them to fight the chinese in 40 years (and we might know there tech cuz we just sold it to them). Saving 15 billion a year (ball park couldn't find figures on the yearly cost of a battle carrier division, i just guess from the total naval budget)
a) i'd also be for selling at an (increased rate, cuz we do it all the time) any of our exess military equipment to our allies. I'd prefer to sell our "cool shit" to NATO nations (including germany... just non of our "super cool" shit). you wanna keep the "cool shit" in the family. every piece of equipment we sell means less maintenance fees yearly (again no way to guess, so i wont put a number)
C) Retool the military, the smart way NOT THE RUMMY/Dummy WAY
a) DOUBLE OUR RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT budget. (80 billion to 160 billion) We need NEW KINDS OF SHIPS, we need Rapid response vehicles that can be deployed to places like Somalia, cuz the Reps, made Clinton pull the NATO/UN force out of Somallia over 4 dead soldiers in the 90s and now its really a problem.
We need "PT BOAT Carriers" NAVAL vessels that carrier high range Apache helicopters, and clearly SNIPER seal teams (those guys are FRACKING COOL) MORE SOPHISTICATED unmanned drones, and increase training of Special ops teams
ALL of these programs BEING MUCH FRACKING LESS EXPENSIVE then building (not bigger) just more aircraft carriers.
b) Cut the ford class Aircraft carrier, (shouldnt the name have tipped everyone off on how stupid this idea was?) (5 BILLION)
c) CUT MISSLE DEFENSE by 2 thirds and move the money to AGUIS cruiser development and research (saving 6 billion a year)
d) cut f22 (did it, but still in the budget when i did these calcs) savings 5 billion yearly
e) STOP BUILDING SUBS - 14 ballistic missile submarines (able to blow up the planet 6 times over and 56 guided missile and attack subs easily defeat the second largest sub fleet of the Chinese with there 56 very scary DEISLE/ELECTRIC (ww2 tech) (and 4 nuke powered) submarines. (saving 4 billion a year)
f) I could go on about which stupid ass congressional interests keep other dumb fracking programs like the Striker, V-22, Zumwalt...etc, but in general stupid ass programs i would cut is somewhere around 30 billion. (savings 30 billion)
g) Generally Scaling back spending on all other military programs... i'll low ball that at about 50 billion cuz cuts in one area, may mean increasing in another like counter terrorism, or general research above and beyond to replace overpriced equipment and programs... yada yada... (saving - 50 billion yearly)
h) reduce general over seas deployment, we have about 100,000 troops in both europe and Asia,
1)down to 50,00 in europe, (NATOs new carriers can help pick up the slack) (saving 50 billion a year)
2)down to 70,00 in Asia, (saving 20 billion a year)
(again no CBO so im ball parking here)
So lets add all this up shall we?..
Now, im considering any "selling of property" like a 1 time transfer as going directly to the debt, instead of treating it as income for the year. so the Aircraft carriers, other equipment... yada yada.. RIGHT TO THE DEBT.
so i just ballpark saved 300 billion a year in military spending. ABSOLUTELY NO detailed "cost saving issues" so just guess what a real audit could do. I didn't mention/touch blackops, homeland security, "space weapons" or the end of the world 2012 Ark ships, i know little about. (but if i were president i would know about them, and do some fracking cutting, maybe not on the Ark ships...).
so now my budget which would take effect probably about 5 years after proposal.. (this stuff takes time) would add 300 billion in reductions to the 600 billion in revenue, to reduce the yearly debt to 100 billion a year (we'd be back to reagan levels). Also, none of these numbers take into account the economy. If the economy bounce back 100 billion in taxes would easily be made up. (and sadly the opposite is true too) Oh also in any legislation passed it need to point out EVERY FRACKING TIME that our goal is to PAY OFF THE DEBT, not just get us to solvency so some other asshole can come in when we are running a surplus and claim "its your money" and tax cut us into this same fracking whole again.
Now, if anyone wants to know how to "fix the economy" i'd be happy to hand you that paper too...
Also entitlement spending is just as bad as the Discretionary or general budget. However Medicare/cade social security are more of a political issue then it is an "accounting one" reducing benefits, increasing taxes, shifting program financing yada yada... i obviously have an opinion but that needs to be discuss and solved outside the "discretionary spending" sphere cuz its budgeted separately, and supposedly it "pays for itself" So different paper too...
Addendum;
now obviously, as i pointed out many times much of these numbers are ball parks, but when we're talking 10s of billions of dollars, "ball parks" unquestionably get us on the Right track.
I am more then willing to listen to other ideas and add them into my plan. I am also prepared to listen to reasons why certain parts of my plan may or may not work, and adjust.
However after 30 years of history, if your response is (or anything close to) "You're a Communist and we should fix the budget problem by cutting more taxes, cut welfare/unemployment, HUD, education, and NASA (in-total all about 300 billion in spending, oh and completely ignore Military spending) and we'll grow out of the problem...
"Then your a child who has walked into the middle of a movie and you have NO FRAME OF REFERENCE... and you should shut the frack up Donny.
PB