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Balance the budget- the many paths available

By: mbauer (Diary)  |  November 14th, 2010 at 09:43 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

If you are like me, you’ve rooted for dozens of tea party candidates over the past few months due to their high priority of balancing the budget. We’ve watched them make broad statements saying the number one issue is restoring fiscal order. Up to this point, their has been very little in the way of serious proposals for combating our number one security problem: further financial uncertainty. Paul Ryan’s proposal is the only serious conversation starter until recently with the release of the release of some ideas that may be part of the deficit commissions final proposal.

Unfortunately, those of us not in the political class are just to naive to understand the intricate complexities of CBO scoring and what it would take to balance the deficit. With this mindset, politicians were safe gaurded from we the people being able to claim they weren’t making the tough decisions necessary. Unfortunately for them, the nytimes has made this exercise childs play. Go to the link, right now, and balance the deficit. Do what thousands of congress critters and the last 2 presidents have failed to do. Tough choices? yeah. Everything from a variety of tax increases, tax deductions ending, military cuts, social service cuts, and misc. are on the table. None of them are enjoyable. I have my preference. I have ones I think are absolutely terrible. But, I’ll be honest, I’d stomach nearly any combination of those if I were guaranteed a balanced budget, and certainty that I could pursue prosperity in my life.

I say nearly any combination~ realistically, a lot of combinations of tax increases listed would do irreversible damage. But, as a conservative I’ve come to the conclusion, and I hope you can too, that revenue increases and military cuts can be on the table, if we can find a comprehensive path to accomplish this. I hope we can have a discussion here first, of what combination would be best, rather than calling every proposal dead on arrival.

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  • froster

    I’ll say that yes, we talk about wasteful spending in all the other departments. THERE ARE programs in the Defense Department that are old and outdated and are useless now. They should not be “excluded” from Defense cuts. It really annoys me that people like Inhofe want to keep everything in the Defense Department, whether or not it works.

    As for tax increases, let’s not do them in the middle of an economic recession.

    • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908
      • mbauer

        which may result in revenue increases, but I’m not that interested in the ones they have interested. Still, if it took one to get the Democrats to touch all of their sacred cows, I’d consider.

        • froster

          And I hope you would agree with me that we need to extend all of the Bush tax cuts as well.

          • mbauer

            But, I am interested in some of the ideas being tossed around of reducing the number of brackets, deductions, as well at the marginal rates. More idealistically I’m a national sales tax proponent in place of the income tax.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    Surprise surprise.

    No where is there the option of eliminating the Department of Education or the Department of Commerce or the Department of Energy, for starters. No where is there the option of closing US military bases by consolidating operations. I missed the part where government departments are eliminated by contracting the work, where necessary. How about making government employees pay for a significant portion of their benefits.

    Now then, how about phasing out and privatizing Medicare and SS.

    The bottom line is that the NYT gives you a batch of politically acceptable or unacceptable options, none of which will touch the deficit. The problem is systemic. The only way to fix it is to fix the system by downsizing it significantly.

    • eastbaylarry

      but then again, WE know those things are ‘on the table’ along with the stuff the NYT gave us. Altogther I’d say the goal looks like it could be done by responsible adults, if we can get enough of *those* in DC.

  • http://www.facebook.com/BigGator5 BigGator5

    I agree with mbecker908 that this is complete crap on a stick. However this is based on the current debt commission, so for giggles I picked my favorites:

    BigGator5′s Answer

    You can clearly get a balance budget by cutting all the choices given you. I like to do more like mbecker908 says, but it’s a start.

    Balancing the budget is one thing, but I’d also want do something about the overall debt. I don’t like their choices on taxes, however I went the Flat Tax route.

    Again, this is just a game. Take it with a grain of salt.

  • E Pluribus Unum

    But I think it is a worthy exercise at RS and elsewhere to discuss and argue about what might be off the table and why.

    But I tell you one thing. Nothing is to be negotiated with the Democrats. They desire nothing that Americans want. They desire their own power and dominion. We do not meet them in the middle. We do not give here in order to take there. We won. America spoke.

    So when we decide amongst conservatives what is the best plan for America, then that’s the way we roll.

  • BA Cyclone

    Cool link, even if the logic is flawed.

    It is a line-item budget paradigm, which is unrealistically simplistic but I suppose useful as a conversation-starter. It is nearly impossible to get home with 100% cuts – at least from a feasibility standpoint IMO.

    More to the point, I agree with mbecker’s sentiment above. There are plenty sacred cows that could easily be taken down to save some REAL cash. An across-the-board cut (like one highlighted on the page) is certainly useful and easily sustained, but some WHOLE departments and several others could be cut by HALF — and I am convinced we would ALL be the better for it.

    See also: dramatically reforming “public servant” unions

    Further, Defense spending could and should be more efficient AND quicker in gestation. From my un-educated position I think you could do the same or possibly more, with notably less cash. I elected some research cuts here to get home, but I think that area in particular is overly simplistic in its view….I guess deservedly so in this context. This is one area that is desperately in need of a Zero-Base reform strategy.

    BA Cyclone’s elections

  • mbauer

    Cutting entire departments will likely require a Republican executive to be done correctly. I think these steps need to be done to start paying of the debt. The steps to balancing the deficit can be achieved in this congress with our current president.

    The 2012 narrative should be that the Republicans in the House forced the country to get on the path to balancing the budget, imagine how much better we could do with a Republican President and Senate.

  • BA Cyclone

    In the very immediate term (next 2 years, plus campaigns) the GOP’ers have to show that “they get it” when it comes to fiscal conservatism. The most recent election and Tea Party fervor was not really buying into the GOP, but dumping the pure statism (wherever possible) of the party in power. The GOP now has a chance to RE-EARN the trust they should deserve on this topic.

    The GOP also has to be not just “cutters and gutters” though, but plainly showing how dept X and expenditure Y is WASTE and outright poor stewardship of taxpayer money. We don’t need 12 different departments each full of scores of people focusing on one tiny sliver of giant problem Z.

    Framed in that light, I think you can see a way to an all-GOP D.C. for at least one or two cycles. It will be up to them to stay focused upon that mission, and keep to it.

    As they say in golf (and pool, and football), there is a lot of green between here and there.