As long as the GOP won't consider any tax increases nothing worthwhile will happen.

The government is getting plenty of my money. The problem is out-of-control spending, not that they aren't sticking their hand into my pocket often enough. Between income tax, social security tax, medicare tax, gas taxes, property taxes, fees, sales taxes, I think they're getting plenty from me.

Where do you want them to cut from? It's easy to scream about out-of-control spending without telling anyone where you'd like it cut from.

Easy, cut 25% across the board, and then an additional 25% from all entitlement programs.

All the entitlement programs are a good start. Education for another; I understand helping to bring schools to rural areas, but pretty much everything else it does is a bloated bureaucracy that is not actually improving education anywhere. I've come around to agreeing that defense spending is out of control, with too many folks lining their pockets for very little return, although I also remember what a mess Clinton turned it into with the way his cuts were done so I'd like to see them done smarter.

But you also aren't going to come anywhere close to raising an additional $1.6 trillion through tax increases, either. Mind you, I will say that I'm all for closing various loopholes that let profitable companies shift all their profits to overseas subsidiaries (I guess that counts as a tax increase, so maybe I'm being a bit wishy-washy here), and frankly would just like to see the Fair Tax brought in and the income tax code scrapped for the abomination it's turned into, although I'm sure the government will manage to screw that one up, too, but right now governments are just spending way out of control.

It's not just federal, states need to get this reined in as well and stop relying on the Feds to bail them out. North Carolina's state budget has shot through the roof in the 15 years I've been here. Just returning to the 1996 budget levels adjusted for inflation would be a huge win for the state.

Abolish Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Cut defense spending by 90%. Nothing else.

I'd take that, too ;) But $1.65 / $3.7 = 45%, so I'm not also looking for a 10% increase in taxes as well, which is what it would roughly take after those cuts to get balanced, unless maybe you get that from cutting all those corporate income tax shelter loopholes.

Education is a miniscule part of the federal budget. Eliminating it completely would barely even put a dent into the deficit. And a good portion of that isn't going to actual schools, but to subsidizing loans so that people can attend college.

Nonetheless, you would like to see an end to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. What do you plan on doing with old people who need medical care or housing? Force them to live on the street or just die?

I don't think we can cut defense spending by 90%, that's where I disagree. "Provide for the common defense" is the only one of those programs actually delegated to the federal government, and I don't think we can do that with a $100billion budget (which is about where you end up even if you include all defense-related spending, not just DoD. I could see cutting it in half to $500billion maybe (including all non-DoD, so DoD is getting just a cut of that, not all of that directly) by getting rid of some of the big money-wasting strategic projects, but we still need a Navy and an Air Force, even if just as transport to move troops to where they are needed, healthcare for our troops, and the like. Although I'm just pulling that figure out of the air, I'd need to take a much closer look to see if that can go down or up much. But $100b sure seems like way too little for a key component of what our federal government is actually supposed to be doing for us.

Easy if it was a computer game. Telling everyone on Social Security that their income is being cut by 50% would seem to lead to some problems. As well as telling doctors/hospitals that all their Medicare/Medicaid patients will be paying 50% would seem to have a large impact on the health care system. Not to mention having to tear down those VA hospitals/clinics and cut their pay (they did only risk their lives for us, no biggie).

As you said, it's easy. This won't cause any problems.

Whereas defense spending is the very last thing I'd cut & previously paid Social Security is ethically untouchable. The others are negotiable points but only over time.

Which really just illustrates why so little gets done. We're a nation badly in need of a divorce due to irreconcilable differences but nobody can figure out a way to handle the property settlement, we don't want to upset the children, and we lack the courage to leave a loveless marriage.

Most people want the same things. This "divorce" stuff is just drummed up crap from cable news networks or blowhard radio hosts. Have a candidate get up and say he wants to cut defense, social security, and medicare and he won't get elected in any part of this country.

There are no irreconcilable differences when it comes to the biggest parts of our federal budget. It's just most people think we can somehow get spending under control and leave those things alone.

It's still money that could be put to much better use. That department as a whole is pretty much a complete waste of taxpayer dollars. We can't just cut the big spenders, we also need to get rid of all these other growing fiefdoms as well. Education was one easy example target for me.


Maybe get their family take care of them like we used to (and like my own family recently did with two grandmothers)? Maybe let one of the many aid organizations set up for this handle it much more efficiently than the government ever does?

Medicare/Medicaid elimination probably goes along with REAL healthcare reform where we get back to a system that gets money from patients to healthcare providers without sucking up huge chunks of money on the middlemen and the paperwork to appease them and thus making it easier on families to take care of their elderly members, and frankly probably also goes along with taking bigger advantage of hospice and less dependence on expensive treatments and hospital stays that extend lives by very short durations at huge costs.

Even if we don't cut social security completely, we can look into raising the retirement age for it to be better in line with what the program was originally intended to do.

It's actually " . . . provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States . . ."

Most of what we currently call "discretionary spending" falls under the General Welfare umbrella.

Don't forget Southerners that believe the world began going down hill in 1860.

I haven't had a show in years, and rarely watch any of them. Trust me, that isn't where I got it from.

That's fine, but the people have voted time and time again that they don't want that. There are not many candidates running on the "abolish Social Security" platform for a reason. I'm all for massive reforms (but as Jon said, you can't stop paying people who paid in for the last 40 years), but ultimately voters are not in favor of messing with Social Security.

I agree with some of what you've been saying on this. Couple problems though.

1) It's easy to say don't spend big money on a treatment for an 85 year old guy, but when it's your loved one, you'll think differently. It's an idea much easier on paper than in reality. None of us want to send our cancer stricken senior to die because treatment would be too expensive for someone that age (even if it is more practical).

2) Very few elderly people can afford health care. You'll have to be in the top few percentile to pay for it on your own.

3) Most importantly, people want Medicare. You can't get elected in this country by telling people you want to eliminate it. Heck, a Republican President, House, and Senate passed a massive expansion of it less than a decade ago. There is no side of the political spectrum that wants what you're saying.


I agree on this, although it will need to be grandfathered in. We also need to start giving younger people more incentive to save for retirement and put less burden on the program. I don't know why we limit things like the Roth IRA like we do. We should be heavily encouraging people to contribute and for companies to match these things.

I'm just saying that on the major budgetary issues in this country, there is really not a lot of difference. Both sides are much closer than you are stating.

Defense spending is out of control. It absolutely can (and should) be cut by huge amounts.

Our defense spending is like 18x that of the #2, and combined with our NATO allies it's over 20x higher than the highest non-ally.

(Disclaimer: I saw those numbers the other day in a magazine - I don't recall if they were multiples or percentages...I know it makes a significant difference, but I'm at work and don't have the magainze or the time to go find the numbers).

Regardless - the point is the same. Our defense spending is way out of whack to where it needs to be, and it's contributing in a very large part to the massive acceleration of our national debt. Same thing happened to the Romans, and their massive military machine sure as shit didn't save them.

I agree with military spending, but I think it's worth noting that spending on that does create jobs in this country. Someone needs to build those fighter jets, those bombs, etc.

Saw an interesting discussion on CNBC the other day about the budget. The private sector is not going to help grow our economy for the coming years, and housing won't either. Something needs to drive it and some can argue that government should temporarily. That when you cut a defense budget by 20%, you are costing a lot of people jobs. You are hurting private businesses that sell those people food, clothes, etc. It's just not as easy as some of you guys make it sound.

I understand that view, and it is correct in that regard - spending on defense does create jobs and pump money into the economy here - I just think that it tends to not be the most efficient spending, and that the multiplier-effect that you get from defense-spending is less than the multiplier-effect you'd get if say (for sake of example) you took the guys who make the treads for the tanks and put them to work making electric cars, or solar panels or making "Consumer device X."

Maybe that's just a perception thing though.

Not to mention the Necessary and Proper Clause. John Marshall did away with this silly idea that Congress can't do anything that isn't specifically written in the enumerated powers section way back in 1819. His argument heavily focused on this. Consider the states rights sections of the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution...



There's a key word missing in the Constitution's version.

Federal taxation is at it's lowest level since Truman and there's no way the country will give up all the government benefits that have come since then. I'd prefer to go back to the Clinton rates for everyone, but at a minimum we have to let the upper rates return to Clinton levels if there's any hope of balancing the budget.

Also, no automatic spending increases on any federal program that is greater than the rate of inflation.

This.

I don't understand how if everyone is struggling and less money is coming in (ie, inflation), why the government budget needs to increase by 5+% across the board each year?

It's like me taking a pay cut at work but then maxing out credit cards so that I can add 2 more movie channels to my satellite bill, eat out more often and buy nice things for my girlfriend. At some point in time, you need to atleast slow down the bleeding on spending and a start would be to stop the mandated spending increases.

But I thought that if we didn't pay doctors and hospitals whatever they want that the country wouldn't have healthcare anymore!

That's the whole "Bread and Circuses" problem with Democracy that has brought down so many others before, and it's a reason we have a Representative Democracy so that the reps can do the right thing, not the thing that gets them re-elected. Instead we have politicians that promise to take care of everybody, leaving nobody to actually pay the bill, and all the "poor" are more than willing to keep voting for them. And since these policies help mean the group of "poor" or at least folks who perceive themselves as "poor" keeps right on growing, putting more of them in office. That's why entitlements are unsustainable, and yet we keep growing them. Socialism in action, and it's bankrupted plenty of countries.

So as long as we keep Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and keep growing their ranks and running these programs well beyond their original intents, we will be driving this country to bankruptcy.

Arguing that military spending creates jobs is all well and good but its one of the least efficient ways in which to do that as its not a cyclic instance - someone spends money to make a weapon and that is purchased and either sits or causes destruction.

Someone spends money creating a new type of computer, that computer is then purchased and used in a constructive manner to potentially create even more jobs ....

Yes. There's a legitimate concern about the impact on the economy - there were some very publicized base closures in the 80s and 90s that essentially killed cities across the country and the livelihood of everyone that lived in them. People remember what a political issue that was, but it's a ridiculous reason to spend taxpayer money - "because we're already spending it." As are reasons such as "but X group isn't going to like that." We're way past the point at where fixing the federal government's fiscal situation would have anything other but a drastic and bad impact on a lot of people. Too bad. This is exactly why some people complained about waste and corruption and pointless spending in decades past. It's too late now to just trim the fat.

Why not then keep the people in those bases employed by the government but use them for something productive instead of military purposes? - get them to rebuild the road infrastructure perhaps, bridges, etc. ... at least then that money is going into something constructive rather than destructive?

Please note I'm not trying to argue for the entire country becoming pacifist or having no defense - just the US is spending what 20x more than any other nation on the planet on defense, cut that down to 10x and reroute the rest of the money into constructive things which will help revitalise the economy further.

Get your filthy Euro-logic out of here! It's got no place in our society!!! ;)

I am all for more live-fire combat exercises!

There is nothing more productive than a strong military used well. We could stand improvement on the latter bit I'll grant you.


But that's the wrong comparison, as we don't face a single enemy but rather a collection of them.

Social Security and Medicare aren't just for the poor.

That may be a problem, but it isn't the problem you describe.

You realize even if you aggregate all of our enemies we still far outstrip them in defense spending (and that's even before considering that they start from a much lower technological base and are geographically isolated from us and lack the technology to adequately bring the war to us).

It's not even close to 20x. In 2009, the US spent $663 billion (don't know if that also includes the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), second was China at $98 billion (roughly 6.7x). But if you look at spending as a percentage of GDP, The US spends 4.3% of GDP on defense vs. China's 2.0%, Russia's 3.5%, UK's 2.5%, France's 2.3%.

List of countries by military expenditures - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Yes, yes, LOL wikipedia as a source. This is the source for the numbers on the table: SIPRI Publications )

The budget issues will ultimately require more than just moving money around, I think.

Edit: Of course, the main issue with the military is what we're spending the money on. The biggest security threat to the U.S. is terrorism, and though I'm not a military spending expert, it seems like we're still preparing for a more traditional World War. I have no doubt that we could spend much less on defense and the nation could still be much more secure. I'm just saying that in that transition - there will be economic hardship, and there's just no way around that. That has to be accepted. The economy and labor force would eventually adapt. States all over the country are making tough money decisions - the federal government has always just REFUSED to do that.

Since FDR, we have been told the government will take care of us. That's really just like the factory workers of our parents' generation and our grandparents' generation. Eventually, just like those factory pensions, the government is going to get to a point where it can't pay it out.

Everything would be fine if our population pyramid had a broader base, but it doesn't. Things are going to get worse, and we are better off cutting our losses. I've done calculations before and the amount I put into SS would pay for my parents to live with me. Not to mention if I got a cut of what my brother put in as well.

The other problem is that the government has taught us how to not save our money. We should provide for our retirement, and not have the government do it for us.

Unfortunately, the lifelong politicians benefit from our dependence upon the government and are able to milk it for their own benefit.

The reality is that really America doesn't particularly face any more 'enemies' any more than the rest of the western world does - yet the rest of the western world seems to be managing just fine with reducing their armed forces ...

Also can you explain how you see a strong military as 'productive' and exactly what your definition of 'strong' military is - America accounts for 40% of the entire WORLDS global arms spending* ... do you not think that accounting for 20% of the worlds arms spending would be enough to maintain a 'strong military'?.

*Military budget of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you include the wars then the figure for 2011 is between $1.060–$1.449* trillion admittedly only 15x China's current spending.

Before 2010 the cost of the wars wasn't included in the budget figures which is why there's a big discrepancy between the figures (it also depends heavily on whether you include costs such as veterans, pensions, debt interest etc. in the figures all of which are very real but conveniently left off by politicians when required - all countries do it, if you want to see real statistical artists at work watch the UK government change how it calculates its unemployment figures every few months).

This is an article which sums up how I see things personally ... it demonstrates simply that while America spends a lot of time buffing up its military prescence its losing its influence not through military might but because other countries are outstripping it technologically and economically. The fact that politicians are proposing cutting back further on education and suchlike is only going to make this worse as time goes on ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...nding-us-china

*Military budget of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (references to various docs at the bottom were this comes from)

So do you advocate the government then paying everyone a lump-sum for what they've paid into SS in their life and just shutting it down? Or do we just lose all that money that we've paid in?

What about people who don't have the room for their parents to live with them and don't have the ability (financial or otherwise) to move to get that room, or build that room out?

What about people who don't have the financial savvy to save that money in a responsible manner, or don't have the financial net worth to hire somebody to do it for them? Or are we just going to let them fall on their faces and then as a society have to absorb the cost of what happens when they fail?

There's practical issues you're not considering.

I think you misread the wiki chart. DOD spending + "Overseas Contingency Operations" is the DOD budget + the wars, and that makes $721 billion. To get to $1.449 trillion, you are including all kinds of things that undoubtedly are not included in China's (or anyone other country's) number.

To me the saddest thing with societies challenges is that people are simply looking at them in fiscal terms which shows frankly just how far mankind has to go before he's truly civilised.

It dumbfounds me that a race with such incredible wealth does its best to ensure that its inefficiently distributed to the extent that the vast majority of the inhabitants of the planet either eat poorly or work themselves into the ground and have stressful lives .... when to be frank people should be working less and having healthier more enjoyable lives - where's the 4 day week and robot butler I was promised when I was a kid .... come to mention it aren't I meant to be commuting to work with a jetpack by now? ;)

Ok fair enough, still think its farcically high though ;)

fake dola,

I'm all for cutting defense spending in half (or at least bring it down to 2.5% of GDP, in line with that of most other industrialized nations spend). Just figured I'd throw that out there before someone accuses me of not wanting to cut defense spending.

Well yeah, it is. I just get all high and mighty about the accuracy of statistics sometimes. I can't help being a nerd. :)

Probably not. FICA taxes cover both SS and Medicare. Could you afford to both board your mother and pay for her healthcare? Given the max tax for FICA right now is around 15k, I doubt it.

But even if you could, what about the half of households that have incomes below 50k? Their FICA taxes would be around 7k. That's nowhere near enough to board and insure anyone over 65.

SS can be fixed for decades with some minor changes. It really isn't the problem. The medium and long term deficit is driven primarily by healthcare costs. That's why Simpson-Bowles didn't accomplish much until the year they magically say medical inflation all but stops.

Here's a good summary on SS and why it isn't an unsolvable problem by Kevin Drum.

The main problem with social security is they don't keep social security in it's own fund but keep it with general revenues where the money taxpayers pay in can be used by Congress to fight wars, create new homeland security departments, pay federal employees, fund pet projects... So while I don't know enough of the math to agree or disagree with the article you posted I think he is talking about a world where Congress is actually responsible is uses social security taxes for social security. Is the program sustainable on its own? Probably. Is social security, health care, welfare, corporate welfare, endless war...? Not a chance. But what the hell Obama is only a couple trillion over the budget after his state of the union about cutting back.

Too bad Al Gore is fat. That whole lockbox thing would have been a good idea.

When I did the calcs about a year ago I worked it out. The issue is that adding someone to the household is not a huge deal. Power consumption will go up, but not much, the house would be a little more crowded, but that is manageable. Food costs and health coverage are the two big hitters and that would be covered by my FICA.

Heck, I could even save money because with my parents in the house, I wouldn't have to pay for after-school care, which is $10,000 a year!

I think measuring things fiscally is an easy method to talk about resource useage.


I think this is a question we need to ask ourselves. As a society, we are always looking for the next thing. I got my XBox, now I need a Wii, now I need the PS9, etc. The problem is that we do not care about other people anymore. Look at our culture. We have music about killing, about promiscuous sex, etc. We have games where we glorify killing people and taking their property. We are more connected on a global scale, but we hide from our neighbors. Look at a table of teenagers today, often you will see them not talking to each other, but texting, posting on FB, etc.

We have lost sight of what is important. We have lost sight of each other. I am always tickled and frustrated leaving church on Sunday. Everyone praises God, has love thy neighbor on their lips during mass, and then cuts you off and flips you the bird as you're trying to get out of the parking lot.

Has this always been going on? Sure to some extent, but I think things have gotten worse. Its the classic case of sci-fi, how does man fit in a technological world? On one hand, the individual has value, he means something. On the flip side, don't the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one? If that is true, than shouldn't we allocate more resources to the young who have their lives yet to live vs. allocating them to the old who have lived their lives?

Sorry, got on a bit of a roll, just went with what came to mind.

lol at church drivers.

My church has a small congregation but a block up the road is a pretty large church. When we stay for social hour we leave as they are getting out of the late service. They have traffic cops due to the large amount of traffic and it normally means quite a wait coming out of our parking lot because no one is likely to stop and let someone else out. Last Sunday we came out of church and I stopped short at the left turn lane to let someone in from my left. The car behind me swerved around and took the spot in the left turn lane ahead of me.

It's too bad that we've been conditioned that raising taxes is the most evilist thing on the planet.

France. ;)

It's become evil because many of us see more money leaving our pocket for very little return. If the government can't control its own spending and be fiscally responsible, why would I want to give them even MORE money? Show me fiscal responsibility so that when you ask for more money I know you need it and will do something good with it, THEN I'm willing to give more. While I know some of my money goes to good use (streets, traffic lights, police, fire, some military spending, etc), much of it goes down a giant sinkhole (stadiums, convention centers, big money for the folks running the lottery, medicare insurance middlemen, bloated bureaucracies, welfare for able-bodied citizens, etc).

Spend wisely and I'll let you have more. Keep giving handouts to those who elect you, rich and poor, and I'd rather keep it for myself, thank-you-very-much.

The absurd part is the bait-and-switch. Take the basic tax dollars to reward those who elected you, then demand tax increases to pay for the basic services you should have provided all along. I'm done handing more over until they get their house in order.

Big +1

I know I catch a lot of shit sometimes for being Libertarian but it isn't that I want anarchy or the 1800's (I think living in Deadwood does not sound like paradise) I also don't think the government can’t do any good or doesn't have good intentions with some of its programs it is just the out of control size and waste of what has become the federal government. I think most of the people that I converse with on libertarian leaning message boards and events feel the same. My school district is government run and requires a balanced budget, my city requires a balanced budget, Missouri has a balanced budget, but the Feds can't find a thing they don't enjoy spending my tax money on. Why is it that they are above this simple rule? Better question is why we allow it!

I think the key is: not to tax more, but tax smarter. I doubt any politician understands that. All they see is lower or higher = +/- votes in November.

Edit: From the top down...Federal, local and state.

Except the "much of it goes down a giant sinkhole" argument tends to fall apart upon closer inspection. Those are things that you personally don't want your tax money spent on, but they are nowhere near a large portion of the various governmental agencies budgets.

Government expenditures do not simply disappear from the economy. Government spending is part and parcel of the GDP of the country. Where the money does disappear into a sinkhole is when it leaves the country, and is not spent in the US. Foreign aid is one spot, but that is miniscule in comparison to the amount that leaves via interest payments to foreign countries that have bought US government debt instruments.

There is a definite line here though. If the government takes all my money and distrbiutes it to be spent, it hasn't gone down a giant sinkhole either, but I have zero control over how I spend my own money (and we get communism / socialism where no one has any incentive to work and be productive). And if they leave the money with me, I'll be spending it as well and keeping the economy moving.

So sure, maybe it's a poor choice of phrase, but it "goes down a giant sinkhole" from MY perspective. And I'm not just talking about a personal perspective, as in I get no benefit but others do. I mean that there is very little public benefit. Paying my local school superintendent $300K/year sure benefits him and his family, and yes he goes to dinner and whatnot that helps provide some jobs, but if folks kept that tax money we'd be supporting the same jobs (going out to eat, building homes, etc) but without the waste of whatever he's socking away so he can retire in luxury.

Yes, just one example, but it's part of the bloated bureacracy that affects so many government departments, makes the defense budget so big, puts large chunks of waste into social security, medicare, etc.

Until that's under control, don't ask for MORE of my money.

But that is mixing microeconomics with macroeconomics. You simply can't extrapolate a single household out to any kind of bureaucracy, be it private corporation or government agency. Far too many people fall into the trap of 'well, if I do things this way, why can't everybody else'?

The human race and civilization as a whole thrive on innovation and advancement. The need to be better than the day before. Without winners and losers, you stop advancing. There is no motivation to be better the next day.

While money can cause humans to act in horrible ways, it's still much better than alternatives. We aren't competing with swords on a battlefield or by slaughtering groups of people (well not always). Competing for the biggest house on the block or the newest Apple product is much better than what human beings were competing for and how they were competing centuries ago. Competition is good, having winners and losers is good, it's how we got to this point.

And one day you will get that robot butler. But it won't be made by a guy working 4 day weeks.

My taxes are converting microeconomics to macroeconomics, so how can we have this conversation if we have to separate the two? One (taxation supports macroeconomics) has a direct impact on the other (my bottom line).

If my taxes go up 10%, you may be able to continue spending huge dollars on all these other programs, but I have to cut back other parts of my budget, so now instead of me helping the local restaurant community, they get to take government welfare instead because they're out of a job, unless enough of those dollars trickle back down so someone else can support them instead, but I've sure lost out on those nights out so someone else can have them instead. Yeah, that makes me happy.

No, they are not. Viewing macroeconomics through a microeconomics prism just isn't how things work.

Yes, micro and macro have effects on each other, but the ways you arrive at the effects are vastly different. You are never going to have 100% financial efficiencies in any large bureaucracy, be it governmental or private industry. That is not to say it shouldn't be a goal, but to say 'fuck it all' until it gets there is just a fool's errand. And trying to view the efficiency standard for a large enterprise through a single household's situation just isn't feasible, no matter how easy it is to want to make that connection.

I disagree with this hugely - most innovations aren't made by people looking to be 'winners' they're made by the inquisitive, by people who want to see if something is possible or to use something they think can be created.

One of the myths of capitalism is that advancement didn't occur before it came about - but it did and frequently does from other sources.

The biggest source of advancement of technology in the 20th century was a government owned agency in America which was often horribly underfunded - NASA ....

Capitalism on the other hand is only concerned with one thing, creating money - this often stifles advancement in technology as sometimes newer technologies are harder to make a profit from, if you doubt this .... look at the petrol engine and the fact its still in use ;)

(I do believe Capitalism can be productive, however its not the only way to encourage advancement and needs to be tempered with sensible government policies to ensure that it doesn't discourage positive practices or make horrific mistakes because of the appeal of short-term profits ...)


No it'll probably be designed by that person at google doing his 'own thing' 1 day a week ... during that one day a week :D

The concept of working sensible limited hours does NOT contrast with being useful imho, in fact I personally think ensuring people have slack in their working hours encourages happiness and creativity which are good for both themselves and their productivity.

(often if people love and enjoy what they do then they'll work far more than 4 days a week BUT it shouldn't be required for people to do so, I think it'd have a fantastically positive effect on society if all parents only worked 4 days a week when their kids were young for instance so that they could be around more and thus have more influence on their upbringing ...)

We're not talking absolutes here. I know there will be overhead, I know I need to pay taxes for the common good, etc etc etc. I have yet to say "I should pay zero taxes!". All I've said is that the reason I'm against tax INCREASES right now is that government has shown themselves to be a very poor steward of my money, and until they show me they are a better steward I don't want to hand over more of it. At least as a percentage; I contribute more total money each year to the total pot thanks to wage increases, etc, and I know that helps cover inflation. I just don't think it's time for them to start increasing the percentage they want to take from me until they start showing some fiscal sense and stop buying votes with wasteful programs.

Obviously I don't know your returns, but federal taxation is at it's lowest level since Truman. There just isn't any realistic way to balance the budget without increasing revenue.

Yes there is, cut spending.

This might be a flip answer, but that is the only sure way to balance the budget. Are there hard decisions to be made? Sure. However, I think the problem we have is that we base our funding decisions on what was spent previously, rather than on what actually needs to be spent. We need to change the thinking, we need to constantly justify why we are going to spend X dollars, rather than why we need to increase spending by X% every year.

The key word is realistic. There is no way to cut @1 trillion from the budget and have those cuts pass through the political process. If you really want a balanced budget you need to accept that the path to get there will have to include tax increases and spending cuts.

You left out reform the political process to the point that those cuts will pass.

We could also yell at the sky until the budget is balanced.

Neither party is going to accept responsibility for a trillion dollars in cuts as well as curbs on Medicare to solve the long term deficit. The GOP could be in charge of all the federal government and it still won't happen(see 2000-2006). So, the only way to deal with this is both parties providing cover each other. I think the Obama hatred is so great that it won't happen right now, but that's the way forward. The Dems are going to have to accept some unpleasant cuts and the GOP is going to have to accept some unpleasant tax increases.

Those that demand the deficit be fixed by only cuts or only taxes aren't really serious about what it will take to get it done.

And has been pointed out, how do you get the tax increases through the political process?

As long as we have politicians more concerned about the next election than what is good for this country, they'll manage to bankrupt us by continuing to buy votes and pander to voting blocs that want the government to take care of them.

We either need term limits for congress, or sufficiently long terms that they can implement long-term fixes that can be felt before their next election cycle comes around. I prefer the former, but am willing to listen to arguments for the latter.

Or the Dems are going to have to accept some unpleasant cuts to their pet entitlement programs and the GOP is going to have to accept some unpleasant cuts to defense (in the several hundred billion range). Agreed that they both need to take a hit here, I just don't think tax increases are needed for the GOP to take a hit.

NASA employees weren't working for free. I'd also believe that many of them went to college and did well because they wanted to make a good living someday. The organization wasn't built to build the latest GPS device for our car. It was created out of national security concerns. I just think it's wrong to act like NASA was a group of altruistic people who got together looking to build the latest technology for everyone to use.

I didn't mean to sound like money drives everyone or that capitalism is the cure for everything. Competition is though (we wouldn't have NASA if it wasn't for the Soviets). Having winners and losers in every scenario is. It can be for money, it can be for attention, it can be for sex, or just to live a little better life. But I think eliminating things that do drive people to become better, more educated, more innovative is a bad thing.

I don't think the guy who spent years in school and late nights studying to become a doctor should be paid the same amount as the guy who dropped out of high school and now flips burgers does. In fact, I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum. I feel we make it too easy for people nowadays. We've caused a generation of people who don't need to work particularly hard, don't need to become something great. Just ask any older person here about the young people coming in out of college at their company. You'll find few who have nice things to say.

The problem with parenting isn't the number of days available, it's the people having kids. The bad, irresponsible parents are the out reproducing the good, responsible ones. The areas of this country that are raising the worst kids are not the ones with the best employment rates or the hardest working parents. It's often the complete opposite.

I think it's always beneficial for parents and kids to spend as much time with one another as they can. But if parents are in a situation where they can't provide ample time for their kids, they shouldn't be having them.

But you can't come anywhere near a balanced budget with current tax rates. There's no way that amount of cuts can pass through the political process. Remember, the GOP won a landslide last year in part by arguing against Medicare cuts in the HCR bill.

Right now you don't. But at least that's a one sided issue. Both parties will stop well short of a trillion in cuts.

What are these pet entitlement programs Democrats have that will cut the deficit? And where do you see the GOP being the only ones who want a massive defense budget? Entitlement programs and defense spending is actually one of the things the two parties agree on.

Sorry, I thought we all knew we were talking about social security, medicare, and medicaid.

45% of Obama's proposed budget is borrowing from the future. Tax increases that will make any kind of a real dent in that will make us a socialist state. Say you split the difference here 50/50. You are still talking about needing 50% more revenue than you take in right now. 50%! And that only gets us halfway there, you still have to chop $800b out of the budget anyway. That kind of a tax increase is not anywhere close to sustainable, and it's primarily runaway spending that is killing this budget. Reining in that spending and changing Congress' attitude toward spending is the key piece to this puzzle. Heck, rolling back to 2003 spending levels ($2.2 trillion) nearly balances the budget right off that bat. Obama wants to spend $700 billion more than Bush's 2009 budget!

All of this may be changing my attitude on Clinton's Administration, although I temper that by remembering he had a Republican Congress (which is what makes the Bush years so sad when it comes to spending). 1996 - $1.6 trillion budget. 2001 - $1.9 trillion budget. 6 years, $300 billion increase. Obama goes for $700 billion more in 1/3 the time. We are looking at a deficit equal to slightly more than the entire government budget just 15 years ago!

A reasonable tax increase may really be needed here, but I don't want to give any extra until they can be responsible with this wildly out of control spending. Taxes are a very tiny part of the problem here.

Republicans just massively expanded Medicare under Bush. And they haven't seriously proposed any cuts to Social Security.

I guess what I'm saying is that you made it seem like these things are Democrat programs when they are supported heavily by both parties.

Your numbers are off. First, federal tax receipts are at the lowest percentage of GDP since Truman. Just returning us to the average rate during Reagan would help a lot.

Second, you're not going to eliminate the deficit in a single year as any plan to do so would throw the economy into a massive recession which would further erode tax receipts which would further exacerbate the deficit. The goal should be to get to balanced over five or ten years. A sizable portion of the current deficit is reduced revenue due to the recession. That money has to come back through economic growth or we're screwed regardless of any other choices. I think a real baseline for the structural deficit is probably 600 to 700 billion. Still extreme, but manageable with cuts and a return to the Clinton era tax rates.

btw- A lot of the credit for Clinton's deficit reduction should go to the tax increase passed his first year.

I understand this, I was working more off perceptions. I was giving alternatives besides "tax increases" for each party to take a hit. If they both take a hit, with no real viable alternatives, then this greatly reduces the next election cycle risk of doing what's right.

Much respect for the Democrats in Wisconsin who walked out to block the unions bill. It's nice to see Democrats show some balls for a change.

Just about to post on this. I laugh at this because the same people yelling and screaming about the protests and Democrats walking out are the same people protesting in about the same spot last year against Obama's health care bill and applauding obstruction tactics in congress by Republicans.

Personally, myself and my farm have benefited more from the University of Wisconsin alone than any amount of taxes we've ever paid into the system. Farmers have traditionally been mentioned in the same breath as the labor movement though that is hardly the case anymore.

Walker is just playing politics. We had a balanced budget for this year until he waltzed into office and immediately lowered taxes on the rich to create a deficit he could use to demonize the unions. The unions definitely need to make concessions but taking away collective bargaining rights simply takes it too far.

That's one gripe you won't hear from me. But if they can find a procedural fix for the situation, then there shouldn't be any griping from the other side either. Otherwise, it's goose & gander afaic and not in and of itself something that you'll hear me complain about.

Hopefully some savvy folks are pouring through both the state constitution & any other rules that govern votes to find a way to alter the need for a quorum, legal definition of a quorum, or otherwise work around it. Usually where there's a will there's a way.

Better yet, the taxpayers of Wisconsin find these scum & drag them, hogtied if necessary, into the room ... but that's just me being greedy.

That's pretty tame compared to what I would expect from you :)

But yeah, I don't really see much way around this. The people of Wisconsin have elected a Republican governor and a Republican legislature and I don't see any way around letting them have their way at least until a new legislature is voted in. We elected this government after all.

But much like the Tea Party protests, I think this is really going to energize the Progressive base in a state that has historically been at the forefront of the Progressive movement. This stuff might fly in Mississippi but Wisconsin is another story.

Seeing as how I am so close to Madison, I met with some of my labor union friends tonight and we are planning on joining the gathering tomorrow. Like I said before, as a farmer, my business owes a debt of gratitude to the public sector as I can say with confidence that my business would not be here today without the work done by people in the public sector. I've probably benefited much more than the average Joe by having a world class research institute dedicated to my particular industry 30 miles away. So in a way, I'm acting out of personal economic selfishness you could say. But I make no apologies about that fact.

That's the thing for me. At this point, I don't think the fight is over concessions being a necessity. That much is not in doubt. But taking a balanced budget for this year and creating a deficit via a tax break for the wealthy and then forcing the public sector to completely shoulder the burden just screams of politics to me.

We have a 5% sales tax in Wisconsin. A compromise could be made with public sector concessions and a sales tax increase (all with keeping the private sector tax cuts in order to stimulate jobs!) but our politicians are acting as if it's one or the other.

Someone please tell Jesse Jackson to get the fuck out of Wisconsin.

Keep him. Please.

Yes, we are doing just fine without him.

You guys do realize that virtually all the states have pensions in place that they can't afford to pay. I understand supporting workers, but at some point we shouldn't be paying the guy who fills in our potholes a pension.

The state is there to provide services, it's not an employment agency.

They're not all in such horrible shape. A lot of them are > 75-80% funded, and while there are certainly some issues (for one the idea that public sector workers shouldn't have to pay into them basically at all), and some that will be in trouble sooner than others, they're not all failing.

I'm in the business of marketing to these public pensions for investment services, so I have a better than average idea of what I'm talking about.

Later tonight - I've got a list at home that tells the funded status of the largest plans - I'll do a little summary for the thread (or was there a map earlier in this thread that had the info too? For some reason I'm visualizing a map...).

I know that Illinois is in deep shit, and in particular my county/city. My biggest gripe right now with pensions is that we don't need to be giving them out. The job market doesn't demand it and many of our states can't afford it.

Well most companies, and an increasing number of public plans have moved away from pension plans (defined benefit) to 401k plans (defined contribution). It's a trend that's definitely accelerating on the public fund side of things.

But you unfortunately still have to deal with all the existing folks in the DB plan, you have to honor those commitments.

I get the Israeli's are our friends and there are political calculations all over the place ... I wonder abstaining instead of vetoing would be better to send the message.

Is there a legitimate reason why new settlements have to go up? I thinks its because of population growth but why can't there be an expansion of an existing settlements that are not "disputed".
Hillary Clinton: Israeli Settlements 'Illegitimate' - ABC News

Of course we have to honor our commitments. But I think going forward, we have to pay market value for state employees. A 401K is much less money than a pension. Especially with life expectancy rates.

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think teachers get shit on as much as people make out. Many make good livings. The average salary is pretty solid in this economy and especially nice when you factor in benefits, how many days they actually work, and pensions.

So the Tea Party is now converging on Madison for a counter protest. It might get interesting to say the least. The union grunts (Iron workers, laborers, etc...) that couldn't cut out on work this week will be joining the teachers and students that sustained the rallies this week.

I didn't make it yesterday, nor can I today. I'm guessing today will be the peak day and the only potential powder keg moment. Teachers and students stand around yell. Iron workers and laborers? They are quite the bunch.

I'm guessing this would cost us about $30B every year.

(72 million school aged kids / 25 kids per teacher * $10,000USD)

I need to see better results than we are currently getting from our public school system for me to be interested in this...and an agreed upon area to cut $30B from our current budget. If we can work out those two details, I'd be totally for this.

I think one could argue that the amount of people who want to become teachers should have already impacted the market rate for a teacher if not for the guaranteed salary increases every year. So...in essence, teachers are not held to the same market dynamics that private sector employees have had to live with for the last 30+ years that saw other middle class jobs like manufacturing shipped overseas.

If 10% (officially) of the population is unemployed then the other 90% will feel some level of salary lag or decline depending on their field. Why should teachers be immune to such things?

I don't think anyone is saying it's an easy job.

The average teacher salary in Wisconsin is nearly $50,000. Factor in that they work only 9 months out of the year, have pensions, have good benefits, and I'd say that's a pretty good middle class lifestyle. Especially in an economy this poor.

I don't think the problems with schools is teachers. Sure there are areas that can get better, but I think parents just suck these days.