QuakerOats;1778723 wrote:Regarding the post above from Sleeper and current federal spending, it is imperative to get this budget under control now. Once interest rates starts to rise, the $230 billion being spent on just interest alone will rise dramatically and that will have a negative cascading effect throughout the entire budget.
Two observations below: first dealing with the spike in spending during the financial crisis, and second, a bold look at cuts.
1 - Note that spending shot us drastically from $2.7 billion in '07, to $3.5 billion in '09. We know we consciously pumped up spending for TARP etc.... in '09 to 'help save the economy', however this supposed one-time 'bailout spending spree' has never gone away. Why? What is it that we are still spending an extra $800 billion per year on, 6 years after the one-time TARP deal? How in hell did this spending continue? Where's the money going?
2 - Now is the time to initiate bold cuts, before interest rates rise. We have to start generating surpluses to reduce the total debt, so that when rates rise, the effects will not be as significant as they otherwise would. We need at least $400 billion to balance the budget, and we should shoot for $800 billion in cuts in order to go positive and start reducing the national debt. 4 departments noted above should be targeted for near extinction over 5 years: education, housing, international affairs, and energy. They total $258 billion; I would bring it down to a total of $100 billion in 5 years with dramatic cuts each year. Most of it will go unnoticed in the larger scheme. Defense --- cut $100 billion now, and freeze the remainder for 5 years. SS, unemployment & labor --- cut $50 billion immediately (by reducing the fraud in disability benefits). Medicare & health --- cut $50 billion immediately (there is no government entity in America that cannot withstand a meager 4-5% cut, without any falloff in output. After that, get government out of the health care business, and transition to a medicare/medicaid voucher system by returning the money to The People so they can purchase their own health care, which will also serve to help get costs under control. Medicare would then go from $1,051 billion now, to $1,000 billion after the immediate $50 billion cut, thereafter on the voucher system just pay out $950 billion in the new program, saving another $50 billion, and allow the new system and The People to control health care costs through natural market forces.
All of the above cuts should total around $408 billion. This would bring spending back to around $3.1 trillion, WHICH IS STILL $400 billion (or 15%) HIGHER than 2007 levels. (Again,refer to #1 above --- we jacked up spending by $800 billion in one year, but then it never went away, so now at least half of that is going to go away ......and we won't miss it). Revenues are projected to rise to $3.5 trillion, so we would now be in a surplus situation, and we should use that to reduce the debt and stay on that pathway. We should also sell off most federal assets to further reduce the debt and move to leasing ---- the government should not be in the business of acquiring assets.
Anyhow ---- this could indeed be done, and any turnaround expert worth his salt could achieve it in a private entity without a problem. It is time to unleash that private expertise unto the government to get real results. Maybe Trump, an outsider is the guy; I cannot say for sure.
Sorry for the epiphany.
This is actually pretty good.
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