Fiscal conservatives, what/how would you change the budget

Great Debates
1

Over 70% of government spending goes to a handful of programs.

Social security, medicare, medicaid, public education & military.

http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/index.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-11-26-medicaid-spending_x.htm
Social security - $695 billion

Medicare -$453 billion

Medicaid - $290 billion (not including state medicaid. Supposedly the federal government pays about 57% and states pay about 43%, so total would be about $500 billion total)

Public education - In 2005, it was $536 billion for K-12 and $373 billion for tertiary education. By now the numbers are probably closer to a trillion

Military - $664 billion (supposedly several hundred billion more as other military programs are covered in various discretionary budget items).
So you add the numbers up and you get about 3.3 trillion on 5 programs. Probably closer to 3.6. I think total government spending (state, federal and local) is close to 5 trillion.

So what do you do? Abolish medicare, medicaid and/or social security? Cut the military? Privatize education?

Would you change the military or public education?
Granted, fiscal conservatives opposed the creation of social security, medicaid and medicare. And they oppose the creation of new entitlement programs.

But what do you do?

Do you keep the programs, or do you change the programs to make them more efficient over the long term? That was a major goal of the Obama admin, to reform health care to cut the long term budget deficit by several trillion dollars in lower medicare & medicaid spending.

2

If a program is a money loser then mitigate it to the smallest size it can be to maintain it’s true function. When social security was enacted it was never intended as a universal program. Give people their money back to invest and shrink the program down to cover the truly needy. It’s been demonstrated in other countries as well as municipalities in the US.

As for general fiscal responsibility it’s just a matter of common sense. When the Pentagon has all the C-17’s they asked for don’t appropriate funds to buy more just because there are people in your district who would benefit.

3

From the list you presented, I say military only, cut everything else.

Note: This is my “ideal world where we would end up in a few years” answer. If my job were to cut the federal budget for next year and for the few years following, things would be more complicated.

4

Most of that is paid for by the States, which don’t generally run longterm deficits. I don’t think cutting education will do much to balance the federal budget.

But in anycase, no cuts made to current spending programs really make any difference in the long term financial picture, since any cuts you make made up for after a few years of continued exponential growth in the cost of health expenses. Even cutting Medicare/Medicaid doesn’t make much difference, since whatevers left will grow to make up the difference in a few years.

Of course, you could cut all federal health spending to zero, but even that doesn’t really solve the problem, since you’ll end up with a large (and increasing) population that can’t afford the increasing cost of HealthCare, and now have no gov’t program to help them, which is a) bad, and b) pretty unrealistic, since voters are unlikely to allow it.

The rest of our fiscal problems are pretty easily fixed by cutting spending and increasing taxes, but until Healthcare costs are made to grow at the rate of GDP growth or less, there isn’t really any point in dicking around with the secondary issues.

5

As a fiscal conservative, why would you leave military alone? Shouldn’t fraud, mismanagement, and malfeasance bother you just as much if the military does it as when Medicaid does it?

Shouldn’t you also ask, “just how much military do we need?” Establish a minimum and work from there?

$664 billion is a damn lot of money, why not leave everything else alone and try to cut that in half first? Maybe limit things to one invasion at time?

Seems weird you would give that one aspect a free pass.

6

It’s simple, Rand Rover despises all forms of welfare, safety net programs, etc. and views them as a drain on society.
It will be interesting when he reaches retirement age, if he will refuse Social Security.

7

Are we talking about what’s politically possible, or what we think is the ideal set of choices?

I’ll go with the ideal set:

  • Cut the budget for the Dept. of Eduction by 40%, which would put it back to the kind of spending levels it had before Bush II. It has become an extremely inefficient agency. Savings: 18.68 billion dollars.

  • Instead of increasing the Dept of Agriculture’s budget by 8.8%, I’d cut it by 10%. 2.6 billion.

  • HUD is getting an 18.5% increase. Eliminate that. HUD can make do with what it had last year. About 8 billion dollars.

  • The EPA doesn’t need a 35% hike in budget. 3.5 billion.

  • I’d like to know where that 41% hike to the budget of the Dept of State is going. 25 billion dollars.

  • I would means-test Medicare. About 200 billion. I would institute a program of advancement of the retirement age by one year every three years, until it was at age 70 within 15 years. I’d be screwing myself over pretty good, but I’ll take the bullet.

  • Start reducing Social Security benefits starting on a sliding scale going forward as people retire (i.e. people who retire now get all the benefits - people who retire a year from now, a slightly smalller benefit, etc.) Couple this with one of Cas Sunnstein’s ‘nudges’ - The requirement that by default an employer must pay into a retirement plan for you, but you can opt out if you wish. This would result in a lot more people saving for their retirement. Amount: Priceless.

I’m sure I could find a lot more discretionary money to cut. Legalize drugs, cut the prison population in half. End all farm subsidies - there’s a hundred billion more.

But the elephants in the room are Social Security and Medicare, and they highlight the biggest fiscal problem we have - an increasing number of old people who have been promised high levels of retirement care, and fewer working people to pay those benefits.

You have two basic chocies - you can force the elderly to pay more of their own way (they are the richest generation after all), or you can put increasingly high taxes on young people to pay for the retirements of the old people. I don’t think the latter is sustainable. So we need to start making old people carry more of the load. That doesn’t mean old poor people. It means wealthy old people with million dollar homes do not need as much government support as those with nothing.

8

I would dismantle at least half of the nukes immediately. I would cut the military bases in half. We have about 800. I would slash the military budget. We keep buying expensive big fancy complicated weaponry and get beaten by countries with no navy or air force at all.We are preparing ourselves to fight yesterdays wars.
Terrorism has to be fought on an intelligence level. We need middle east linguists and spies who can get real intelligence.

9

The problem with cutting the budget on any of those programs is knowing what can be cut and what should be cut. Simply cutting the programs outright is a practical impossibility, IMHO. Assuming that is the case (and I’d like to see the argument showing HOW you could completely cut them), you are left with working around the edges, perhaps looking for ways to economize or raise efficiency…which isn’t really going to buy you all that much in terms of cost savings. Why working around the edges? Because a large percentage of the budgets for those programs goes to things like salaries, retirements, benefits, etc, and I have serious doubts that anyone is likely to get 10’s of thousands of people simply tossed out of their jobs, or cut their retirement or benefits.

Gods know…it’s the third rail of American politics to even contemplate touching this one. There are whole bureaucratic empires, as well as public perception, political agendas and legions of special interest groups and entitled citizens who would go nuts if any major changes were actually proposed to the system…so, you are left with attempting to ‘fix’ the various problems from within the system, perhaps economizing here or cutting costs there, but pretty much resigning yourself to the fact that the beast will continue to soak up increasingly larger amounts of our budget for…well, for as long as we can afford to let it ride.

Personally, if I were God King I’d rather change the system to a more private LIKE one…sort of like a 401k system where you pay into it what you want (pre-taxed, perhaps mandatory) and the funds are managed in a similar way to how mutual funds or private sectors 401k funds are managed. To me that would mean that the money would be ‘real’, and that vast amounts of capital would be turned back into the system, instead of just becoming part of federal tax funds (and thus available for politicians to us for all the stuff politicians want to use it for). Unfortunately, back in the real world, this will never happen for a variety of reasons ranging from distrust of certain people concerning anything that is similar to the private sector to the fact that it would take a huge bite out of federal funds (so politicians and the bureaucrats wouldn’t be too happy).

Pretty much the same as Social Security. Myself, I think that we should either move to a single payer UHC type system OR a private system similar to what I’d like to see for SS. Unfortunately, back in the real world, neither is likely to happen, as, again, partisans on both sides will do everything they can (for political as well as philosophical reasons that seem good to them) to prevent any radical change away from the status quo, and politicians and bureaucratic empire lords are unlikely to relish change either.

This is the real 800 lb gorilla. What to do? Damned if I know, and I work in the school system, as a large number of my clients are schools or public libraries. As with the examples above and as noted by the OP about the military, these numbers are only the tip of the ice berg, as I’m fairly confident there are subsidiary programs and discretionary spending aspects that would drive the numbers up even higher.

I think the problem here is similar to the above, in that neither the states NOR the federal government have direct control. Instead we have a kludged up cluster fuck of a system, neither fish nor fowl, but something in between, and both with a death grip around the throat of the other, strangling the system and giving us a system that costs a hell of a lot while not really giving us our moneys worth.

Though I hate to say it, personally I think that we need a federally regulated and uniform system that uses general taxes to implement the system (and set standards, regulations, teaching methods and curriculum, etc). To me, it’s either that or let each state do its own thing from it’s own budget, without federal ‘help’ or ‘guidance’ (or funding), which I don’t see as really workable. And in this case I don’t think that the private sector model would really work well either.

Unfortunately, for many of the same reasons that the other two above can’t really be (realistically) changed, neither can this one, not at a fundamental level. So, again, you are stuck with having to work within the system as it exists in the real world, and basically working around the edges. The only real difference is there are a lot more little empires and groups of people with a stake in keeping the system moving along in approximately the same way as it is today…which means there is even less likelihood that there will be a chance for a fundamental change.

And that brings us to the liberals boggy man…defense. :wink: Unfortunately for the liberal types (as with the other 3 programs and conservatives), the opportunity to do some real budget cutting here are limited. Oh, you could work around the edges, and perhaps even cut some major programs (like cutting the Raptor program, say) which might save you a couple billion here or there. Unfortunately it’s a drop in the bucket, as the majority of the budget goes to mundane stuff like paying soldiers salaries, paying benefits, paying for infrastructure and retirement, maintenance of existing weapons system, with part going to R&D and the like. For all of the reasons for the other 3 programs you won’t be able to really take a bite out of this, budget wise.

Personally, I’d like to see our military get restructured to reflect the changing threat environment we are facing today. I seriously doubt that the US will be fighting any set piece battles in the future, so I’d like to see that emphasis reflected in our military structure. I doubt this would save us much in actual funding (we’d still need to have the capability to fight such a battle or war, even if it wasn’t our emphasis), but I think it would be in our best interests, and certainly I think we could save SOME money (a billion here, a billion there…eventually we’d be talking about real money! :p).

Well…it might have been his goal, but I doubt he’ll be much more successful than Bush was in substantially reforming any of the above programs. Oh, he might (and probably will) manage to save a couple billion…maybe even 10’s of billion…but that’s really just a drop in the bucket. And he’ll be fought every step of the way by the opposing party, much as the opposing party fought Bush every step of the way and ultimately lead to the defeat of his own attempts at reform of Social Security. Obama will probably be marginally more successful, but whatever he ends up with will be reform from within the system, and that’s only going to go so far or ‘fix’ so much. In the end, bureaucratic inertia will prevail, and whatever we get will just be a jury rigged ‘fix’, while the monster continues on pretty much unaffected and unchanged.
-XT

10

I could get behind most of Sam Stone’s recommendations, at least without more info than I have now.

I’d also remove the cap on Social Security contributions, though. Not sure what that would add to the pot, but right now it’s essentially a tax on lower through middle class earners that kicks off as soon as you start to hit upper-middle class/wealthy wages. Why should a much higher percent of my income go to this than someone who makes much more than I do? I’ve always assumed that I’ll never see much, if any, Social Security money, but see it as a greater good to society not to have the elderly eating cat food.

11

Because you’re trying to maintain the pretense that your payments into Social Security are for your benefit, and not just another income tax? I mean, if someone pays ten times as much into this supposed Trust Fund, you’re not going to give it back when they retire, are you?

12

Yes, but pretense is all that it is. I’m saying, let’s drop the pretense and just call it income redistribution, which it is. I’d also like to cut payouts to people who have done well enough on their own, although I get a little uncomfortable with anything that rewards you (with SS payments) for not preparing for the future.

13

What I really want from SS is insurance against two things: youthful poor investment and old age poverty. At a certain age, most folks just can’t work anymore. And if they were stupid and failed to invest adequately in their youth, they just won’t have enough income to live on. You can argue all you want that we should just trust people, but when it comes down to it, we don’t want our streets packed with homeless and begging elderly. SS needs to provide just enough to live on. Giving SS money to all the rich folks just doesn’t make sense. It drives up the total cost to everyone. It’s almost like increasing fire insurance 10 fold and paying people off if their houses don’t catch on fire. If you retire wealthy, you won! You don’t need the consolation prize.

14

You don’t want insurance against disability?

15

That too… I was contrasting it with “give a monthly SS check to Bill Gates”, which I don’t really see as a benefit of the program.

16

Just to be clear, I despise such programs when done by the government.

Also, I won’t “refuse” SS–since I have (and will continue to) pay a lot into SS and the government in general, I’ll take every dollar of that I can get back.

17

Wesley,

I’d like a site on the other “300 billion plus per year” that is covered in other discretionary budget items. To say that there is at least another 30% of DoD’s budget hidden in other budget items is ridiculous.

I know there is some funding in the DHP (defense health program) that does not come from DoD, but I can’t figure the other $300 billion plus, even with the VA thrown in.

18

Defense is no sacred cow to this fiscal conservative. I’m married to a military man and am appalled by the amount of waste and inefficiency there – why – it’s as if it’s another branch of the federal government! :eek:

Most spending, save for Medicare/SSN, and including defense, should be scaled back to pre-Bush levels on an inflation adjusted basis, for starters.

Medicare/SS are the big gorillas in the room. The illusion surrounding SS as a retirement plan should be removed – just a safety net for seniors and disabled, means tested like any other safety net.

Medicare is far more tricky and I’ll defer to the many other debates on health care for it.

19

Since you will get back far more than you put in, you’ll be one of the leeches you so despise and prefer to cut off.

20

What would your proposal be for people who reached retirement age in the years 2007-2009? If they had all of their retirement savings in the market (i.e. not involved in a government-run defined benefits plan) these people would be effectively destitute and coming back to suck on the government’s tit when they run out of money.

To answer the OP:

I can’t tell you how to cut medicare and medicaid without knowing how much of a budgetary shortfall they have (i.e. how much spending differs from FICA receipts). If they run at-or-near the black, then there’s nothing wrong, because it’s effectively self-funded.

So, according to the Wikipedia page on the budget:

$940 billion is received from payroll taxes
$1438 billion is spent on things that payroll taxes are supposed to cover

first step: increase the payroll tax by a percent, increase the SS wage base by ~10%. whatever shortfall is left needs to result in lowered payouts so the program is a net neutral.

second, that figure of 660 billion supposedly includes the costs of iraq and afghanistan, so i’ll just say that that’s all that’s being spent on guns n’ stuff.

then again, it’s a nice federal job bank/welfare program as it provides jobs to both soldiers and countless numbers of engineers and scientists. i think the best way would be to drop military spending as much as humanly possible (i.e. enough to pay soldiers, and maintain the military) for 3-5 years. building the next best weapon can wait a little while. maybe the soldiers can take a pay cut while we’re at it.

the rest of the departments, there should be no problem lopping off 10-15% of their budget.

the problem is, of course, that many many people are employed by the federal government directly or indirectly. chopping their jobs or reducing the spending of the federal government won’t be pretty from a jobs and economic activity standpoint.

of course, that’s only one side of a budget… :smiley: