“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
- H. L. Mencken
Yep…simple. Just cut EVERY discretionary spending item we have and we can start paying down the deficit.
2010 Deficit: $1.342 trillion
2010 Discretionary spending (everything except Social Security, Unemployment/welfare, Medicare, Medicaid and interest payments on debt): $1.378 trillion
So, if we shut everything down, INCLUDING the entire military (all of it), we’ll have $36 billion left over to pay down the debt. That is currently $14.521 trillion so if we take all that leftover money and reduce the debt we’ll be done in four hundred years.
Easy peasy…
I hate to rain on your parade, but this optimistic assessment is flawed. For one thing, it assumes that present tax revenue continues despite no Federal spending on energy, education, science, transportation, etc. You must have been smoking Republican weed if you think the economy will not collapse in your scenario.
(I have some easy-peasy solutions of my own to offer, but the details are fit only for BBQ Pit.)
I think if you read his post a little more carefully, you will understand that the comments about completely shutting down government operations (except for Social Security and Medicare) and the resulting retirement of the debt 400 years later, is in fact a clever critique of the view that “all we have to do is stop spending so much.”
Thanks.
You are correct that my post was meant to be sarcastic. I certainly do not advocate a complete shut down of government.
Anybody who thought my post was anything other than satire directed at satire has been smoking some sort of weed, Republican or otherwise.
Read the link I provided (not a very long piece). It’ll explain it in broad outlines that should suffice for now.
The only kind of Republican weed I have ever heard of are the unwanted dandelions that the hired help meticulously pull from the fairways and greens at the country club… and I don’t think anyone smokes that stuff.
I indeed misunderstood your sarcasm, leading me to conclude that you are far more clever than I am.
I read it, thanks. My own quirk is that I don’t consider any article by any news source to be a reliable method of learning about any topic. They are enough to get me interested in subjects. I just simply don’t trust journalists to get their facts straight. It’s not a bias issue; it’s more of a “I don’t believe they understand what they are writing about” issue. I will likely read the Ways & Means Committee report, which is 134 pages. Again, thanks for the information.
Originally Posted by Susanann
My plan is a lot easier and less complicated: Reduce spending.
Who cares about Mencken, the best solution when a country, or even a family, is spending more than their income, is to reduce spending. Since when ever was mencken a credit counselor? What does mencken know about bankruptcy?
Anyway,** it does not matter how much debt you have, you cant borrow your way out. **
I dont care how much the Democrats want to keep spending more and more, I dont care how much the husband or wife complains that they want to continue to charge more and more on their credit cards, or any other fancy talk. If you are in debt and spending more than your income, and if you already maxed out all of your credit cards and if you already have taken out a second and a third mortgage on your home, the simple, obvious, best, solution out of your problem is to reduce spending.
YOu can pretend to play games, you can plead that it is “necessary” to buy a new wardrobe each spring or say it is necessary to start another war, or you can try to bargain by promising to cut spending 8 years from now if only everyone will raise your card limit, but it wont work.** The only solution that works is to cut spending. **
To reduce spending down to the point where the debt limit was irrelevant, we would have to cut the current outlays below the current revenue for the immediate term - we’re not talking about gradually phasing out programs or privitizing things, we’re talking about shutting down vast swaths of the government dead cold, possibly stopping sending out social security checks, etc.
“Cut spending” is a fine suggestion to a long term debt problem. It’s an utterly catastrophic suggestion as to how to avoid the current debt “crisis”, a crisis which was completely manufactured by the Republican party who decided to hold the country hostage over a procedural matter.
Of course in the family scenario the arriving income is completely independent of their spending. A nation’s economy is not. Take away 20% of the US GDP (government spending) and you wind up with a complete crash that will make that sick feeling in your stomach back in 2008/2009 feel like a tingle of joy.
Democrats supported by good majorities both wars and Wall Street bailouts.
Yes because Keynesianism worked so well.
Also we should stop regarding Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid as something untouchable. We can as I’ve said raise the retirement age for jobs that do not involve physical labour.
Just the opposite. If I were clever I’d have known to include a smiley-face to avoid confusion. And I’m sure you’d have interpreted my post as intended if there was a mouseover-popup called “Summary of septimus’ posts and rationality.” Although I’ve debated here off-and-on for many months now, there are only a dozen or so Dopers whose alignment is clear in my memory. Sometimes I think I should make a crib sheet to keep track of you guys. 
Oh, nothing could go wrong with that idea.
Your views on the Iraq War and Keynesianism are both incorrect, as has been explained to you in previous threads. You ignore the ignorance-fighting done for your benefit, wait a few weeks silently, and then repeat the same misconceptions.
And what’s with this conflation between Social Security and the present debt-ceiling “crisis.” Surely you know SocSec has a present surplus of about $3,000,000,000,000.00 To conflate the coming demographic bust with today’s political crisis is to show immense confusion.
Here’s what I would do:
(1) House GOP passes approx. 1.5 trillion or so in spending cuts that 5-10 Senate Dems and the President can support. GOP Senators and a few Dems in the Senate pass concurrent resolution. Bill goes to Obama.
(2) House Dems + the GOP members who were willing to raise the debt limit if there was 1.5 trill in spending cuts pass a bill to raise debt limit however much is necessary to get to 2013. Senate concurs.
(3) Obama signs both bills.
(4) House Dems introduce bill to extend only the middle class tax cuts of the Bush cuts and that cuts some loopholes and generally does the revenue-raising Obama is proposing now.
(5) GOP do whatever they want, but Obama lets the tax cuts on the rich expire.
The 60 or so members of the GOP kamikaze caucus get their spending cuts without taking a toxic vote to increase the debt limit. Vulnerable House Dems get to raise the debt limit without voting for the spending cuts. Obama gets to be at the center. And Republicans get their spending cuts and can fight the tax changes, knowing that they can both score political points for opposing the expiration but not actually own the deficit consequences.
I think the GOP would go for it, and I think the Dems would go for it, and I think it’s a better deal than anything that is plausibly on the table.
It would mean cooperation with Obama.
So, no.
It minimizes it though. The only vote the craziest GOP loonies have to take is to cut a bunch of spending. You’re telling me they don’t take that vote? If so, the plan is still a win for the Dems.
They aren’t largely dealt with in separate processes, though. The debt ceiling is almost always raised as a matter of course whenever an appropriations bill requires it. In fact, the House usually has a rule that automatically approves an increase whenever the House approves an appropriation requiring it. The House decided not to enact that rule again this year, though, so that they could have a bonus chance to cause a crisis.