Comments on: Watch: Former Republican Senator Slams GOP For Anti-Tax Extremism

By: montanabill

montanabill — Thu, 31 May 2012 12:44:00 +0000

There is probably no way that the budget can be cut enough in just a few years to get the debt under control. When you consider the 1% plan, remember that you are cutting an automatic 3-4% growth before the 1% reduction. It will still take a recovering economy and some inflation. The inflation is currently guaranteed.
You are absolutely right about Social Security. For a historical perspective, look up the plan as enacted by the Roosevelt administration and follow the broadening of entitlements by subsequent administrations. People who, during their working years, envisioned Social Security as their pension plan were simply making a bad decision.

By: DurdyDawg

DurdyDawg — Thu, 31 May 2012 07:31:00 +0000

Sounds logical to me.. Too bad logic has flown out of the GOP window.

By: johninPCFL

johninPCFL — Wed, 30 May 2012 22:57:00 +0000

Cut the budget 1%, that’s $38B of the current spending of $3.8T. We need to reduce the costs by $1300B to be balanced at present, so we’d be incrementally cutting for 50 years (the number gets smaller every year, and that’s assuming zero growth in any program and zero interest on the existing debt) before we began to pay the first dollar on the existing debt.

The “looming crisis” is that for the very first time in their existence SS will be collecting less than it’s paying out. The rot about “lock-box” and “raiding” is crap, the fund contains interest-paying bonds as its support. The real issue is that people collect 3X their total lifetime contribution, and there is no real-world financial instrument that pays anything close to a high enough interest rate to support that level of return.

When employment comes up, the input/outgo ratio improves, but there will be fewer workers than retirees in the next thirty to fifty years. I talked extensively with my dad years ago about SS, and he was quick to point out that SS wasn’t designed to be a pension, it was designed to supplement the savings and pension that people would accumulate over their lives.

At 15% of salary, it has become most people’s defacto pension.

By: montanabill

montanabill — Wed, 30 May 2012 12:40:00 +0000

I would submit to you that there is far more than 10% waste in any government program because there is little, if any, accountability. As I’ve said before, I like the plan where all automatic increases are stopped and everyone’s budget is cut 1% per year for a few years. That plan stops the uncontrolled growth of government while having a very minimal impact on current operations. It would only take a few years to get the deficit and debt under control. The proposed ‘tax the rich’ plans, even at Obama’s estimate of $4 trillion in 10 years, ($400 billion/year) wouldn’t put much of a dent in deficit spending either, nor does anyone really think that’s a valid number. Besides, every new spending proposal calls for using that money. Most of the justification for ‘tax the rich’ is based on the less than 0.1% of the ‘millionaires and billionaires’ who live solely off capital gains. The vast majority of them pay more than 50% in state, local and national taxes. Add a flat tax to the 1% plan so that everyone has skin in the game and significantly lower capital gains taxes. I believe that plan would allow this country to get it’s finances under control while giving business the stability and competitive rates needed to compete in today’s world.
As you so correctly point out, there is a looming crisis in both Social Security and Medicare that will be difficult to solve and any solutions will be painful. I certainly hope the Affordable Healthcare administration, as presently constructed, will go away. As constructed, that agency will become the biggest vacuum of money while lowering health care available for the majority of us. We need health care availability for the lest of us, but not at the expense of lessening health care for most of us.

By: johninPCFL

johninPCFL — Wed, 30 May 2012 02:04:00 +0000

There is 10% waste in any large organization, be it government or private industry. Say you could cut all the waste in the entire $3.8T government spending. You’re still over $1T short of closing the deficit.

Decide you want to push out the SS retirement age? Change it for all the 54-year olds? Great. Only it wont make any difference in the spending shortfall until the rate of retirement is exceeded by the death rate. The only way to reduce the SS spending next year is to change the retirement age for next year.

Decide you want to change the Medicare entry requirements for all the 54-year olds? Great. Only it won’t make any difference in the spending shortfall until the death rate exceeds the entry rate. Medicare spending rates could be reduced immediately if the Medicare overhead could be moved or blended into the Affordable Healthcare administration. That is the bulk of the $50B per year reduction in Medicare costs (surely you’ve heard of the $500B reduction in Medicare.)

By: montanabill

montanabill — Wed, 30 May 2012 01:04:00 +0000

As long as the Democrats offers to cut spending refer to cutting proposed increases to spending, call me Grover. However, if the Democrats ever really put a proposal to cut real spending (and not just on the military) on the table and the Republicans can’t find a way to either raise taxes or cut some loopholes as part of a compromise, then I’ll campaign for the compromise.

By: montanabill

montanabill — Wed, 30 May 2012 00:53:00 +0000

Perhaps everyone needs to travel to Washington to see things first hand. I’m a fan of NASA, but have you ever been into their building in Washington? That’s bureaucrat bloat on a major scale. How about the Dept of Education? We are falling rapidly in comparison to other countries, yet we have increased their budget from $18 billion in 1982 to $68 billion in 2012. That’s a huge increase and they are demanding more. Are the results going to continue to be inversely proportional to the funding? While you are in Washington, check out Interior and see if you can figure out what all those people in that building do besides count the days til their next vacation or government funded retirement. Move on to Transportation. More of the same. Proceed to the beltway and get a glimpse of the fancy office buildings fully packed with ‘consultants’ living on the government teat. Want a study on how high a frog can jump? Just tack it on to the billions wasted on most of these groups’ studies.
Next time anyone reading this goes to Washington, take time off from visiting the monuments and see if you can get past the guards to watch the people we pay in action. You might just change your mind about not being able to cut spending some place.

By: Postman27

Postman27 — Wed, 30 May 2012 00:43:00 +0000

Sorry montanabill; the Democrats couldn’t compromise because the “Republicans refused” to. They took out their entrenching tools, dug in and absolutely refused to increase taxes. Like the commission reported, it takes “both” to turn this around.

By: johninPCFL

johninPCFL — Tue, 29 May 2012 22:12:00 +0000

Yep. The House, and Congress in general, are being completely irresponsible. They’re playing to the cameras instead of conducting the People’s business. In the meantime, CRs continue, meaning that the only spending bills being passed continue the $1T+ per year spending deficits.

In the meantime, ~40% of the fedbudget is discretionary, meaning only about $1.5T could be cut if everthing that could be cut was. No military, no Medicaid, no foreign aid, no CIA, no police matching funds, no homeland security, no FAA, no FBI, no NASA, no NOAA, no National Parks, no FEMA, no Minerals Management, no EPA, no OSHA, no NLRB, no Highway programs, no DOE, no National Labs, no University R&D, no CDC, no Secret Service, no Congress, no SCOTUS, no Presidency. Fortunately, the USPS is self-funded so we could receive notice of all the agencies that were gone.

By: montanabill

montanabill — Tue, 29 May 2012 21:51:00 +0000

The House rejected a version of the Simpson-Bowles plan, 382-38.