http://www.usnews.com/news/washington-whispers/articles/2011/01/20/house-gop-lists-25-trillion-in-spending-cuts

Great start for the GOP led House, but defense, homeland security, and entitlements are going to have to be added to the chopping block also.

Moving aggressively to make good on election promises to slash the federal budget, the House GOP today unveiled an eye-popping plan to eliminate $2.5 trillion in spending over the next 10 years.

Not as aggressive as the Paul plan, but cutting 250 billion/year is a good start.

That number is surprisingly big IMO, considering defense/entitlements aren't included. Cut defense 5-10%, add it to that number, and now we're getting close to real money.

I agree, defense needs a wastectomy also.

Will this pass through the senate?

No way do some of these get through, they would be killing American foreign policy.
Like cutting USAID, which is probably the U.S.'s best foreign aid and PR campaign of soft power.
Amtrak Subsidies. $1.565 billion annual savings, needs to go up, not down.
Economic Assistance to Egypt. $250 million annually.-This is impossible. Geopolitics and the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt prevent this.
Wilson center has some great, great, great studies and reports that contribute to foreign policy.

I say adios to Amtrak and let them survive on their own.
Ditto to the post office. Let them operate on their own and if they can't cover their costs, then adios and let the private side take over via UPS, FedEx or some other new company that might just see an opening.
US aid needs a hard look....are we getting any return for our investments?
Adios to Dept of Education and Dept of Energy. Whatever national security interests they have can be placed under one of the other national security departments. Why so much redundancy? We can't afford it anymore.

That's a healthy start. Finally, getting people back to work and off public assistance would also be a huge boost to deficit reduction. Create more taxpayers and less dependents and watch the deficit plummet.

Ask not what we can spare; ask what more can be cut.


There are no sacred cows.

Michelle Obama's personal, million-dollar staff can be cut .... come on Obama's (quote by BHO himself) "put some skin in the game"

QuakerOats;646691 wrote:Ask not what we can spare; ask what more can be cut.


There are no sacred cows.

Except for defense apparently.

I Wear Pants;646777 wrote:Except for defense apparently.

I am confident that some cuts can be made in defense spending without affecting our security.

However, national defense is about the only thing the federal government should be involved in, per the constitution, and the bill of rights.

ptown_trojans_1;646648 wrote:No way do some of these get through, they would be killing American foreign policy.
Like cutting USAID, which is probably the U.S.'s best foreign aid and PR campaign of soft power.
Amtrak Subsidies. $1.565 billion annual savings, needs to go up, not down.
Economic Assistance to Egypt. $250 million annually.-This is impossible. Geopolitics and the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt prevent this.
Wilson center has some great, great, great studies and reports that contribute to foreign policy.

We have to make tough choices, and this 2.5 trillion over 10 years is a start, but nowhere near what we need to do to solve this problem. It's really really bad, I don't think people will understand the magnitude of the situation until it actually hits us.

With that said, these cuts won't likely take place, its just posturing, so we are still fucked.

It's a start, but we need more aggressive cuts. Sorry, but we're going to have to tough it out for a bit and right the ship. We've been living high off the hog for too long, time to pay the tab.

We've been asking for specifics and now there is a specific list. Put it into a bill and get working on it. I'm with fish on this as well, cut defense by 10% or so and make it better.

Belly35;646732 wrote:Michelle Obama's personal, million-dollar staff can be cut .... come on Obama's (quote by BHO himself) "put some skin in the game"

Just keep that in mind when Todd Palin is the First Dude.

I'd have to dive into details, but it can't be that hard to get this thing quickly under control. There's still a lot economic stimulus inflating that. There's war spending and TARP money that somehow has gotten shifted to other programs because in 2008 the budget was $2.9 trillion ($1.8 mandatory spending) and that included $145B for the War on Terror.

I forget how everything is accounted for, but in 2009 the budget was $3.1 trillion. ($1.9 mandatory spending).

Then in 2010 the budget was $3.55 trillion!!! ($2.5 trillion mandatory spending, which includes a curious $570B in "other" mandatory spending).

2011 estimated budget is $3.83 trillion!!! These increases are out of control. This includes @ $2.4 trillion in mandatory spending ($612B in "other" mandatory spending).

It's not entitlements or interest on the debt driving these increases. There should be an immediate roll-back to the 2009 budget levels. I suspect the $1.2 trillion in "other" mandatory spending over the last few years is the economic stimulus, and that needs to be halved this year and eliminated next year. Then we are at a deficit level of some $500B, and that can be reduced very responsibility in 3-4 years, probably faster when you consider getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan is some $150B a year, and further reductions in military spending can get us there pretty quickly.

Not hard at all to get this under control. I'm not going to debate the economic stimulus' effectiveness, but the problem here is the Dems have used that to create new entitlement programs, and if you remember some of the conditions of that spending transfers the burden to the states to continue funding for years. We need to be careful of a govt shell game just moving spending and debt around - a lot of states are in serious trouble.

I'm not opposed to paying higher taxes to reduce the debt if we get the spending under control, but I'm also not convinced it's entirely necessary. We need to run @ $200B surplus to gradually pay down the debt. But we also need to think about a "rainy day" fund for future economic stimulus/declining receipts when the inevitable recessions come @ every 4 years, and that means more like a $400B surplus (just pays down the debt, you suspend that during recessions).

There needs to be more accountability. $2.5 trillion in cuts over 10 years sounds impressive, but a lot of that is only cutting increases coming down the pipe (so not cutting actual CURRENT spending). You can roll-back Obama/Pelosi/Reid's drunken sailor spending but you aren't doing anything to fix the problem just keeping it from getting worse.

$600B in stimulus spending is an easy cut. Another $150B in the Iraq/Afghanistan wars. Another $200B in Defense and I think they can get by on $550B total. 10% from other Discretionary spending across the board is another $50B. There's $1.0 trillion in cuts without really even rolling up the sleeves to get started.

Every day Boehner doesn't introduce this as a bill is a wasted day. It's "shit or get off the pot" time. Make it so.

stlouiedipalma;647705 wrote:Every day Boehner doesn't introduce this as a bill is a wasted day. It's "shit or get off the pot" time. Make it so.

I don't care what they cut, as long as they cut something. I mean, does anyone think we'd really miss something if you hacked all discetionary spending 20%?

And how in the world does the budget go up another $280B over last year? I mean, that's like an 8% increase, and mandatory spending dipped $100B so it's actually $380B more for, for what?!?

It's mind-numbingly stupid...Let's say you are hopelessly in debt, spending more money than you make. And so you're just going to spend another 10% more this year? Seems like a good idea...

I'm willing to bet that, even if this goes nowhere, Boehner and his party will gain huge support for just being specific if they try to get this through. We've seen too much of Congress talking a good game, but we've seen precious little action. I know moral victories don't count for much but they could really do wonders for their agenda if they try.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/27/cbo-director-trillion-dollar-deficits-risk-fiscal-crisis/

QuakerOats;655614 wrote:http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/27/cbo-director-trillion-dollar-deficits-risk-fiscal-crisis/

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Isn't this the same CBO that R's destroyed last week when the same director said that repealing Healthcare added to the debt?
Kind of can't disagree with one study and then agree to another just because it suits your POV.

QuakerOats;655614 wrote:http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/27/cbo-director-trillion-dollar-deficits-risk-fiscal-crisis/

You forgot "Change we can believe in".

The fact that the Prez or anyone else in the federal government is even remotely mentioning "investments" (more spending) on high-speed rail or education or anything else shows how out of touch they are with the oncoming freight train staring them in the face.

ptown_trojans_1;655909 wrote:Whoa, whoa, whoa. Isn't this the same CBO that R's destroyed last week when the same director said that repealing Healthcare added to the debt?
Kind of can't disagree with one study and then agree to another just because it suits your POV.

Sure you can- when you know that the CBO is scoring the bill as written, without things like docfix, etc., and the numbers as given to them don't tell the whole story.

I think you would agree (I hope), along with everyone else with half a functioning brain, that adding another unfunded entitlement mandate (which also steals from Medicare) has zero chance of lowering any debt.

jhay78;655940 wrote:Sure you can- when you know that the CBO is scoring the bill as written, without things like docfix, etc., and the numbers as given to them don't tell the whole story.

Then how do you know about his overall number and his conclusion that it is a fiscal crisis? I'm sure the methodology is the same.

I think you would agree (I hope), along with everyone else with half a functioning brain, that adding another unfunded entitlement mandate (which also steals from Medicare) has zero chance of lowering any debt.

According to him, it is funded.

Read the whole testimony. He actually also supported a tax increase. It's funny what Fox leaves out. Fair and balanced my ass lol.
http://budget.senate.gov/democratic/testimony/2011/Elmendorf_FY2011Outlook_Testimony.pdf