Section 1: All surplus monies in the Federal governement
2. treasury be mandated to be used to increase the quality
3. of life for a majority of American Citizens.
4. Section 2: The order of priority for distribution of
5. surplus funds shall be as follows: Health care for the
6. young and elderly; social security, eduction, youth work
programs, arts and recreation progams.
8. Section 3: The use of the surplus for a tax cut shall
9. be prohibited.
10. Section 4: A war or national emergency shall take
11. precedence over this act.
Define “surplus.” That’s after paying off debt? Without tapping into next year’s budget and sans rollover from the previous fiscal year? Howsabout long-term expenditure commitments, should we pay those off early?
Pepper, it’s a great thought, but I don’t think we’ll ever have a real surplus in the US. And if your idea were implemented, we’d be assured of never having one.
No.
It is the tax payers money and should be given back. If YOU want to support those causes with YOUR share of the tax with a DONATION go ahead. Don’t spend MY money, give it back and I’ll do with it what I see fit.
:rolleyes:
Yeah, WiredGuy, I really want the government to send me a check for a buck. Shall we establish a new federal agency for the disbursement of surplus funds? And to determine exactly what percentages everyone gets? And then to spend part of that money to mail every taxpayer a tiny check?
Not hardly. Perhaps a better idea would be, in the even of a surplus, to approve tax cuts for the following year.
You’re getting your funding and flow-based systems mixed up. As andros mentioned, “surplus” refers to year by year flow, i.e. the govt taxed more than it spent this year. You’re interpreting it however to mean that the govt has a non-negative total balance. This just ain’t so thankfully, else government bonds would be a thing of the past.
Long live the National Debt.
regards,
pan
It makes sense to pay your bills before spending more money. I.e. Balance the debt before spending more. And if there is more after paying the debt, I want it back in either a tax cut/break/or check which ever works best. But I’m tired of dumping federal money into social problems. That is the states job not the federal governments.
Why can’t the states do this?
In addition to the comments made by others, how much has to go to health care before you can start spending on social security?
No matter what goals you have, no matter how you prioritize them, the idea will not work unless you also include a way of distributing those funds.
Incidentally, y’all should be aware that despite the current Federal government “surplus,” the National Debt was still increasing for the last 2 years. (See http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm for the exact figures.)
This is because the Federal budget works by adding the balance of all “off-budget” items (especially Social Security) into the total balance. Social Security surplusses, and other off-budget windfalls, cannot be used to pay for on-budget items. Interest and Principal payments on the National Debt are considered on-budget items.
In fiscal year 1998, the government announced that we at last had a Federal budget “surplus” to the tune of 70 billion dollars. But in fact, the Federal “on-budget” balance for fiscal year 1998 was a 30 billion dollar deficit.
Ooops, I forgot my disclaimer in my OP. This is NOT my idea, I did NOT write this, and right now, I don’t have feelings on it either way. I just have to write a speech in the affirmative, and one for the negative.
Several problems with your ideology, Pepperlandgirl.
[ul]
[li]A significant portion of the overage should be returned to the taxpayer. Through poor accounting practices, the government has taxed its citizens more than is necessary to fund all the programs it intends to fund. The excess monies should be returned to its earner. (If your parents intended to give you $10.00 but accidentally handed you a $100.00 bill would you let them know that they made a mistake and return the money or would you keep it because, after all, they gave it to you?)[/li][li]Your being for distributing the surplus is quite naive. If you want to do it most fairly, start with infrastructure. All of the schools, food, medicine, etc is worthless without a means to deliver them. Building and maintaining roads so that these products can be adequately delivered is critical and should be ahead of ANY of the items that you’ve listed.[/li][li]A lot of people will want the military listed above anything on your list. They would certainly have a good argument.[/li][li]The constitution makes the federal government responsible for a number of things that you’ve not mentioned.[/li][li]Prohibiting a tax cut is not only naive, it’s foolish. Each and every time a tax cut has been enacted it has been followed by economic growth. The stagnant economy of the early 60s was boosted by the Kennedy lead tax cut. The boom of the 80s was lead by a Reagan initiated tax cut.[/li][li]Having more money in my pocket is certainly an increase in the quality of life – your number one objective. A tax cut accomplishes this quite well.[/li][li]Reducing poverty should be high on the list. But simply handing money to the impoverished is a poor return on the investment. Teaching them a trade and employing them is a much better idea. Oh, and a tax cut for the “rich” means that the people that are EMPLOYERS are better able to hire more EMPLOYEES.[/li][li]Funding the “arts” does not result in art – only entertainment. The vast majority of art that has endured through the ages is due to the artist’s desire to create – not his desire to get paid.[/li][/ul]
This is so much revisionist history crap! The only “boom” in the eighties was the noise the stock market made when it crashed in 1987! Okay, defense contractors got fat through deficit spending on the military, but I don’t think anybody is suggesting we go back to the “tax cut and spend” malarkey that Ronnie & The Repugnicans were selling. Those policies were so effective, we ended up reading Bush’s lips (n-e-w t-a-x-e-s!) and being saddled with the highest budget deficit in history!
Pay off the national debt; it’s the responsible thing to do.
Which is why, of course, people like Leonardo and Michelangelo never had patrons to support them while they fulfilled their desire to create.
Fear Itself wrote:
At no time throughout the entire history of the United States has the National Debt ever been completely paid off.
As I was trying to hint at before, this is a Good Thing. No National Debt means no government bonds. No government bonds means no stable medium or long term risk-free rate of return in the domestic currency. And then you can kiss goodbye to any semblance of stability in annuity rates and life policies, not to mention the myraid other uses for government debt.
regards,
pan
You sound like a Democrap with his nose out of joint. Several items that you can check out simply don’t support your claim. Start with the growth of the GDP and the increase in federal revenues. Then look at the increase in federal spending for entitlements (assumed liability) and for discretionary spending (items actually under the control of the then current administration and congress). You should find that the bulk of that deficit was due to entitlement programs enacted by previous administrations but payable “in the future”. Kind of like Clinton’s economic promises were shaping up until a Republican legislature came to be. Now there WAS a sizeable increase in domestic spending during the 80s. For example, the military had to be rebuilt after the horrible experiment of the 70s. And the legislature had its own agenda. (If I recall, Democrat Howard Baker insisted on increasing domestic entitlement spending by huge sums and worked them into the budget in exchange for allowing the so called “star wars” research.)
True, the market did take a dive in '87. It was a temporary dip. A balanced portfolio had recovered 100% of its value in under 18 months and for any other 18 month period during the past 20 years far outpaced most other investment strategies.
In fact, the nation’s current economic growth has been going on for nearly TWENTY years. It’s only blip being the mild recession during the Bush administration. (Which was, by the way, over prior to Clinton being elected. Before you give BC too much credit remember that today’s economy is a continuation of the Bush created economy!)
As part of his election campaign Bush said “no new taxes” and reneged. You’re very quick to vilify him for this. Clinton went a step further and promised a “middle class tax cut”. Instead, the nation was saddles with the largest tax increase in its history. Where’s your rage here, sir?
SouthernStyle wrote:
Howard Baker is a Republican.
Southern Style, a few points:
1 - Jimmy Carter created 13 million new jobs during his 4 years, a rate of job creation of more than 3 million per year. No president before or since has matched this record.
2 - In contrast, Reagan’s administration started out with the worst recession since the Great Depression, including the first and only instance of double-digit unemployment since WWII. It should be pointed out that every Republican since and including Eisenhower started out their administrations this way. Recessions are very useful for throwing people out of work & subduing any impulse they may have for asking for more money or benefits at work. It helps, in other words, the natural Republican constituency.
3 - Naturally, the combination of high unemployment, increased defense spending, and the tax cut forced the national debt to balloon, without which we wouldn’t be discussing anything on this thread.
Pepperlandgirl: there’s no surplus. As has already been pointed out, the debt continues to increase. What’s decreasing is the publicly held portion of the debt, because the increase in the debt and then some is being absorbed by Social Security.
Damn. Who the heck WAS president of the Senate during the 80s? For some reason Baker’s name occurred to me instead of the correct one.
Uh, pantom, have you seen a graph that compares the military budget and the budget deficit during the 80s? Methinks you’ll see that the lines do not converge.
You are ascribing this stability to the existence of national debt. I don’t follow that. These things are stable for no other reason than our confidence in the USA not to default on those debts. That confidence can be shaken in various sets of circumstances, and in fact the interest rates do go up and down based on various factors, among them being the degree of confidence which the public has in that government.
In contrast, if the government would pay off [where did the phrase “pay down” come from?] all its debts, there would surely be other industries to fill the void. Surely there would be some companies which the public would judge to be as relatively stable as the USA government had been.
I am not an ecocomics professor.
I don’t even play one on TV.
Didn’t even take Economics in school.
Flame away!