This Bloomberg News articlesays that President Obama’s 2012 defense budget is $671B. Like septimus suggests, that $541B for 10% might be 10 year numbers? And looking at this PDF chart, it appears to be.
I wouldn’t do the deal. Not because of suspected Republican perfidy, though, but because sucking 1.5 trillion dollars out of the economy in one year is sheer madness. You’re talking about reducing GDP by 10% in one year. That would make 2008 look like a cakewalk.
I may not be a math major, but in what way does taking back the exact same amount you give alleviate the $1.5 trillion deficit?
“Hey, Dave! What about that $100 you owe me?”
“Can I pay it off in installments? I’ll slip you $20 a month until it’s paid off, o.k.?”
“Well…o.k.”
“Also, because I need to pay off some debts, could I borrow a bit each week off that-say about $20 a week?”
“WTF??”
I would say the concept of 1:1 tax increases to spending cuts is pretty reasonable. The White House’s deficit commission recommended 3 times more spending cuts to tax increases, which I do not think is prudent.
So, in general, I would view the deal as acceptable, except for the point just made that it is completely laughable to try to meet that extremist Rand Paul “balance the budget this year” stupidity. This has to be phased in over several years.
Here’s the kicker: once the economy gets going again, there is going to be a lot more tax revenue coming in, providing surpluses to actually pay down the debt. Trust but verify and all that, but most liberal Democrats in DC would jump at this deal.
Excellent question.
How about if the Reps make the spending cuts and Dems decided who the tax increases go to. Does that make a difference for anyone?
So the Reps would cut abortion, free speech, medicare, medicade and education and the Dems would then subsidize everyone who got their services cut, and we’d end up with an even more screwed up health care system that’s neither universal nor free market. Help me out, but I’m not seeing how splitting cuts and spending along party lines is workable or would result in a stronger nation. :dubious:
And while it is true that we are trying to go for what the OP is demanding, it is still the case that there is a reason why solutions to this issue are not made by looking at what it could do in just a year from now.
And I must say, for a shorter one also, going cold turkey is likely to generate more unrest than good in a shorter period rather than the recommended approach to apply the solution during a longer period of time.
Hence the point of my OP. Let’s say the Reps and the Dems get together this year in a bipartisan fasion and create a bill that increases taxes $15 billion every year and reduces spending by $15 billion every year so that at the end of 10 years there is no deficit. Does either side trust the other to live up to their promises over 10 years?
It doesn’t, but I don’t think that’s what the OP is suggesting. There’s a $1.5 trillion annual deficit. The OP is suggesting raising taxes so that the revenue increase will take care of half of that and cutting spending so that the spending cuts will take care of half of that.
What is a fair share for the wealthy exactly? By what standards will it be determined?
No law can be perfectly fair, but there can be reasonable agreement on what is not fair. A tax system where Warren Buffet pays a lower tax rate than his secretary is not fair.
I’ll say.
In your link, it seems the Senate passed their version 36-35! How was that kosher?
This is not the way to balance the budget.
The first thing to look at is the fact that tax revenues are down because of the lackluster economic growth. Even under Bush with his tax cuts, his pre-recession tax revenue was around 18-19% of GDP in the out years of his last term before the recession hit. Right now, tax revenues are closer to 14% of GDP.
So let`s assume that as the economy recovers, tax revenues will of their own accord grow back to the 18-19% level. That alone will cut the deficit nearly in half, but it will take a few years for those tax revenues to show up.
All the data about the budget can be found here: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy12/hist.html
A few interesting tidbits from the tables:
Bush increased funding for education from $57 billion in 2001 to $91 billion by 2008, and Obama doubled down and increased it to $127 billion by FY200. You can lop at least 50 billion out of that, since that money seems to have gone down a rat hole and not really had much of an effect.
Spending on income security has ballooned under Obama. It was $431 billion under Bush, and is up to $622 billion now. Part of this is because of the recession, but even later on after the economy is recovered Obama plans to keep it around $530 billion. You can plan on cutting 100 billion out of that per year just by going back to 2008 levels.
Obama`s been pouring money into transportation - from 77.6 billion in 2008 to 91.9 billion in 2010, growing to 117 billion by 2016. Get rid of the stupid high speed trains, and freeze the budget at 2008 levels, saving 20-40 billion per year.
The Department of Homeland Security now has a budget of about $48 billion per year. Since theyre now putting their fingers in non-security issues like copyright violation, Id cut half their budget just on principle.
Interest on the budget is a killer thats going to grow really fast. $196 billion in interest payments was made in 2010. By 2016, thats going to be $562 billion, and thats using the administrations rosy assumptions for interest rates. If interest rates go up more than predicted, within five years interest on the debt could exceed the military budget. Thats why fixing the deficit cant wait.
About half the deficit is caused by declining revenues due to the recession. The other half is due to increased spending under Obama. The revenues will return on their own if the government gets its fiscal house in order. The Bush tax cuts are not going to be repealed - even the Democrats dont want to do that other than for the richest Americans - which would amount to only about $70 billion per year. No ones going to raise taxes on the middle class and families.
So lets be realistic - lets assume that at best case, with the repeal of the Bush tax cuts on the rich and a recovered economy you can get tax revenue up to 20% - which would be about a point and a half higher than the historical average. That seems plenty high to me. So do that, then cut the budget to make up the difference - you dont have to make instant program cuts - just hold the increase of the size of government to be 1% below the rate of GDP growth and youll get there eventually assuming the economy recovers.
Under George Bushs last year, government was 20.7% of GDP. For 2011, its forecast to be 25.3% of GDP, and its never forecast to come below 22.6% of GDP again. So even if you had tax revenue that matched the historical average, youve still got a gap of about 4% of GDP between revenue and spending. It would be very hard to make this up with tax increases, as it would require a tax bite larger than the U.S. has ever seen. The only way you could do it is with a VAT, but I don`t see the political will for a VAT any time in the near future. So like it or not, what you really have to do is find a way to get government back to about 20% of GDP. The easiest, least painful way to do that is to just hold government spending below the rate of inflation for a decade or so.
The problem with doing that is that the U.S. may not have that kind of time. Its not clear to me that its going to be able to find buyers for all that debt - The last round of quantitative easingends in June, and the government had better hope that there are enough private buyers for all those T-bills that it was buying up that it can still float the debt. Debt crises can happen very rapidly, and the U.S. is in uncharted territory.
Quoth etv78:
Um, because 36 is greater than 35? Why wouldn’t it be kosher?
Yeah, sorry guys, but your party has earned this reaction.
If Eisenhower was still around, I might consider the Republicans a creditable place to look for financial stability. But the Republican party no longer has any financial sense - they spend more money than the Democrats. And collecting money by borrowing is a lot worse than collecting money by taxation. The Democrats have become the party of relative fiscal responsibility.
:rolleyes: Because only 71 Senators voted?
71 Senators voting is 20 more than the Constitution requires, so yeah, it’s kosher.
It just seems like such a small # of voters, don’t ever remember such a small % voting.