Instapundit has an excellent tool where you can fiddle around with spending and taxes and figure out how to balance our budget. I came up with my plan:
A 20% reduction in military spending.
A 20% reduction in Medicaid spending.
A 74% reduction in non-defense, discretionary spending.
A 10% increase in payroll taxes.
Income and corporate taxes remain as they are, as do Social Security and Medicare spending.
Under this plan, the budget goes in to surplus in 2014 – but has the drawback of going back in to deficit in 2018. But not nearly as much as we are now – in the $200 billion range.
To me, though, it shows that it can be done – and done by the crucial 2014-15 time frame when we are currently at risk of real default. Of real national bankruptcy.
The drawback of the tool is that it isn’t finely tuned enough – I’m sure I could find things to significantly cut the Social Security/Medicare budget without lowering benefits. Essentially, that is why I had to cut non-defense, discretionary spending so much. I cut defense on the rock-solid theory that there is a lot which can be cut there without affecting readiness. As for my cuts to Medicaid, I am certain that if we block granted out funds to charitable hospitals and medical facilities, we can provide superior care to the poor at lower cost – the huge bureaucracy we use now to do it is likely eating up a huge amount of money, mis-allocating resources and generally screwing things up. People who actually do health care can likely do it better than the bureaucrats in charge. I don’t think we’d actually go back in to deficit under a plan really crafted by me, down to the penny (and what we really need for this discussion is a line by line list of budget items…give us the dollars and cents spent on each department and bureau along with the subsidiary organizations, all grants, all scheduled payments to contractors as well as how much we pay each employee and a description of what they do…then we can really figure out what to cut).
In reality, I think we can get to a surplus by 2015 – and keep up a $500 billion a year surplus for as long as we need to pay off our debts for good (and, remember, even if we’re even – no surplus, no deficit – we’re paying off debt…the big surplus devoted to debt repayment means we’d be out of debt by 2015 or so; and then we can slash taxes like no tomorrow). And that must be the goal – followed by a constitutional amendment prohibiting the government from issuing bonds except during a declared state of war.
Anyways, play around with it, yourselves – see what you can come up with.
Blogs For Victory 
like this……….
flat tax
Federal Spending Changes
-$1068 B -30%
Military
-$255 B -35%
Medicaid
-$28 B -10%
Medicare
-$213 B -36%
Social Security
-$153 B -20%
Other
-$418 B -35%
Federal Taxes
-$188 B -9%
Income Taxes
+0
Payroll Taxes
+0
Corporate Taxes
+$30 B +15%
I balanced the budget and it stays balanced. No new income taxes and no new payroll taxes. I finally got rid of NCLB and the DHS and the welfare looters and in general 35% of discretionary spending. I made our allies pick up their share of the cost of freedom by shutting down the bases in most of Western Europe but still manage to have the largest military in the world by far.
Unlike Mark I didn’t ask younger people to pay more taxes (+10%) to continue to support the Bush increase in Medicare. I only decreased medicaid by 10% because the states wind up picking up the tab for any cuts to medicaid.
you forgot Oboma care…….repeal….repeal…repeal and flat tax.
ANOTHER racist jacka$$ spews his ROT
“All States Rights Are Slavery: ‘Tell The Tea Party’…‘Allow The Negro to Fight’ –
Jessie Jackson Jr. Lays Out Left’s Twisted Arguments for Big Spending, Big Gov & D.C. Representation in Congress
Where is Obamacare in the budget and did I cut that area?
Bardolf,
I don’t think we’d have to increase payroll taxes if we could really get a line by line budget and figure out what to cut…even with the insufficient info available at CBO I managed to cut $25 billion out of the Dept of Education budget without affecting actual kids getting educated. There is a whole bunch of flapdoodle in the budget.
Bardolf,
An honest question and please correct me if I am off base here but I have seen you advocating for closure of foreign-based US military bases. Some I can see and some I cannot; however, it costs us the same to operate a military base anywhere in the world as it does to run Swamp LeJeune, NC or 29 Stumps in Ca. The pay, outside of combat and dangerous duty sites, is the same. So my question is—is what do you propose to do with the several hundred thousand military and civilian personnel? Send them to the unemployment ranks as there really is not housing within our continental bases for them. This would be half of the “savings.” Build more bases within the US to land lock our military.
I am really interested to your final plan for these folks even if you haven’t thought it that far in advance because I would also like to see some of these folks (foreign countries) start footing the bill but also see an outcome that would not help a need for quick retaliatory ability in this day and age.
dbschmidt
Yesterday the ASCE -American Society of Civil Engineers released a report on how U.S. economy and family budgets will fare if America fails to fund surface transportation improvements
*****************
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The nation’s deteriorating surface transportation infrastructure will cost the American economy more than 870,000 jobs, and suppress the growth of the country’s Gross Domestic Product by $3.1 trillion by 2020, according to a new report released today by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The report, conducted by the Economic Development Research Group of Boston, showed that in 2010, deficiencies in America’s roads, bridges, and transit systems cost American households and businesses more than $129 billion, including approximately $97 billion in vehicle operating costs, $32 billion in delays in travel time, $1.2 billion in safety costs, and $590 million in environmental costs.
******************
Rather than putting the hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the unemployment line I would like it if there were ways to have them build up the infrastructure in the US. That said, ultimately the size of the military would be noticeably reduced to match the reality of the types of wars the US should be engaging in the future.
Maybe I am naive but it seems that US soldiers are talented folk who could do any number of things to move our country ahead in the civilian arena. If they can’t contribute to the US economy without being employed by the government, no amount of budget trickery is going to save us from going down the toilet.
Ultimately we need to make young people explorers again. They need to be tinkering and trying out new things which fail 99.9% of the time but make the .1% a lasting contribution. We need to push space travel for mining and commercial purposes IMO. Also sea exploration and more. A story from the BBC a few weeks ago really surprised me because there is no reason that Americans didn’t make the discovery.
*****************************************
Japanese researchers say they have discovered vast deposits of rare earth minerals, used in many hi-tech appliances, in the seabed. The geologists estimate that there are about a 100bn tons of the rare elements in the mud of the Pacific Ocean floor.
At present, China produces 97% of the world’s rare earth metals. Analysts say the Pacific discovery could challenge China’s dominance, if recovering the minerals from the seabed proves commercially viable.
****************************************
In a great deal of respects I agree with your response; however, one must recall that the original Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, and IIRC a DoD project, bill was a whopping 28 pages long and allocated $25 billion ($188 billion in today’s dollars) is today’s “Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act” that as an addendum is over 293 pages of special interest works.
I would also have to agree with you that the military personnel are the makers of the society and do so without trying to pat myself on the back for just being a member of that great group of folks; nevertheless, so are a great majority of those unintentionally unemployed at present. Maybe it is time for a two-fer.
Recall those from the military that we can while closing bases to rebuild our infrastructure because the “additional cost” would really be minimal and these would not be “busywork” jobs but real career style employment. Same can be done for those that are outside the military with drive as we start by building a southern wall across the border that allows no access without permission.
We, Americans, are the nation that has never found a feat too impossible and for those that really want to work can be part of the next “Hoover Dam” project. Maybe we could call it “Don’t give a Damn dam” but still be open for business for those seeking a better life legally.
Here are some specific areas that could be cut.
Personally, I don’t think we, as a nation, have the collective (sorry for that word) wisdom, discipline and foresight to fix this until after it all comes crashing down, but that’s just me.
No, it is not just you Spook. Lets wait and see who gets the repub nomination. If is is another progressive, then, start to worry.
Our current situation is not due to the American citizens being under taxed, but due to the federal government over spending. – Ronald Reagan 1986
I don’t think the tool works, I changed Corporate taxes to ZERO like they should be and it told me we lost tax revenue rather than gained it. I guess the assumption they have is that if you make it easier and less costly to do business in the United States, no one will do it.
They also need a button to reduce regulation, I’m sure I can increase tax revenues a ton by reducing regulation.
Just another liberal media tool.
ROFL
start by cutting all govt paychecks over 35k/year by 30% or down to 35k
then do the same thing to every budget in every department of the federal govt’…including the IRS and EPA and DOE…the only exclusion…the military…no cuts for R&D…15% across the board for the rest of the military…payrolls excluded below 50k…
last, but not least…shut down lots of government “departments” whose existence is beyond the scope of the constitution…things like the “national economic council” duplicate state agencies…agency for national aids policy duplicate DOH work….office of the first lady that is not a constitutinal office nor should it be, ever…many of the dept of agriculture agencies…that excede the boundries of the constitution…and delve into non-enumerated powers…same for the DOE, and other govt agencies…
in the end…you could probably cut government in half…at less than half the cost…just by cleaning out the rats nest and returning the powers the fed govt usurped from state and individual rights…back to the states and the individuals where it belongs
js
…back to the states and the individuals where it belongs
but je$$e jr the one who sought to buy 0’s seat says that is raaaaaacist.
seems the slaves dont stray from the plantation.
Since nobody else is willing to even try to balance the budget it has come down to my plan vs. Mark’s plan.
Mark has reduced by “74% non-defense, discretionary spending” without telling you what that means. He doesn’t think he benefits from roads, will wipe out the Department of Veteran Affairs and Commerce in addition to gutting the National Science Foundation which is supporting most of the advance in US science. He didn’t cut back on medicare although Bush increased it as a gimmick to get the elderly vote. Instead he prefers to raise payroll taxes on the people who are working today.
He refuses to raise corporate taxes under the completely discredited belief that corporate taxes are what is keeping companies from investing in the US economy. Doug even wants to set rates to 0 which is what caused the Irish economic collapse. The Laffer curve has been discredited. If you sell at a loss you can’t make up for that by selling in volume. You simply can’t trust a guy who can’t make the hard decisions and says the tools just aren’t sophisticated enough to work his voodoo. The US is trillions of dollars in debt and Mark thinks 25 billion from the Dept of Ed is the key to everything. Typical politician not willing to tell the people who have most benefitted from America’s largesse that they will have to share in the austerity.
Cuts for the poor (medicaid) and taxes on the working class (payroll tax) but no sacrifices for Mark’s constituency (medicare) or the rich (corporate taxes).
“Doug even wants to set rates to 0 which is what caused the Irish economic collapse. ”
To be fair, Doug was making fun of the right-wing talking points that corporations are suffering under oppressive taxation and that cutting taxes is always the answer. The rest of your comment is dead on, though.