teachercd
Well-known member
Sadly, there are a lot of people that claim they are happy to pay more in taxes. They are full of beans of course, but they still claim it.
Me, I am one of those dongs that would rather just pay less in taxes.
The Republican Utopia
- Thread starter knapplc
- Start date
Me, I am one of those dongs that would rather just pay less in taxes.
Crusader Husker
Active member
I could be OK with certain tax increases for the greater good, but I would want them to cut the fat, working towards a balanced budget.
BigRedBuster
Well-known member
Archy1221
Well-known member
Yeah, both sides need to give a little and get this budget under control. Gotta have a balanced budget soon and quit adding to the debt. Almost all politicians are part of this problem.
Crusader Husker
Active member
BigRedBuster
Well-known member
Guy Chamberlin
Well-known member
Just spreading this around to other threads.
Over in the Board Feedback section under "Board Is All Sorts of Broken" thread, we are compiling people who would be willing to spend $20 a year to enjoy an ad-free and less glitchy version of HuskerBoard.
Come join us.
Over in the Board Feedback section under "Board Is All Sorts of Broken" thread, we are compiling people who would be willing to spend $20 a year to enjoy an ad-free and less glitchy version of HuskerBoard.
Come join us.
teachercd
Well-known member
Dr. Strangelove
Well-known member
The harsh reality is that there isn't much "fat" to cut.
What meaningful fat there is to cut that actually matters is a political landmine that voters would absolutely revolt at. The biggest piece of "fat" in federal spending is on Veterans benefits that qualifies as a disability to increase their lifetime pension. But nobody wants to touch that because the public backlash would be immense.
I don't know if it's possible, honestly. There are simply to many old people and not enough young people. The demographics just don't work.
Instead of a balanced budget, the goal should be a deficit that grows slower than GDP. With a combination of tax increases and spending cuts, we might find a way to get the deficit down to ~$1T a year for a short period. But even then, no political party would survive in that environment.
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Archy1221
Well-known member
Actually we don’t really know that. Everyone always assumes you can’t cut discretionary spending programs like CMS, social security. That’s false as we always hear of fraud waste and abuse which wouldn’t affect a single approved beneficiary. Same in non discretionary spending like the DOD budget which hasn’t passed an audit in years. Anyone believe there isn’t a 5% reduction in DOD spending that is fraud waste abuse????
On a $6trillion budget, uncovering 5% which is wasted abused or fraudulent saves $3 trillion over 10 years. Add in some select tax increases/means testing/cutting non-needed programs/cutting non needed subsidies and we could to $4.5-5 trillion in savings over the next decade. Mostly without harming programs that get to the people who need them or paid into them.
Don’t be fooled, Just cause it’s a discretionary spending program doesn’t mean all that funding in the program is legit or non-wasted.
Archy1221
Well-known member
Medicare outflows can be cut through a variety of means to account for a richer growing population. The current deductible is $257 a year. There is certainly a case to made that $500 a year deductible is perfectly acceptable considering everything Medicare covers. Or means testing the deductibles is plausible.
If we decided that (just for round numbers, obviously stair stepping would be needed) retirees with a $2 million net worth got only half the normal SS yearly amount, roughly $1.9 trillion would be saved over $10 years by reducing benefits to those that, yes paid into the system, and no don’t really need the full amount as a safety net if that’s what we REALLY want SS to be.
These are hard difficult choices and it sucks that since 2000 our politicians have absolutely positively sucked our tits dry and created a fiscal nightmare. So maybe now it’s time for the citizens to feel some pain for the fiscal greater good on two conditions. The dips#!ts that caused this mess have to now abide by Federal Term limits and the retirement slush fund for federal politicians gets cut also.
Dr. Strangelove
Well-known member
When I said "fat", I was mostly referring to 'waste' that conservatives often mention can be found to balance the budget. There really isn't any outside of Veterans Benefits. What you mention here sounds more like policy changes.
I totally agree with what you're saying, and that we absolutely can find a lot of savings by looking at DoD (which will involve drastically reducing Veterans benefits). The issue is that even finding $3 trillion in savings over 10 years doesnt come close to balancing the budget. That simply causes the budget deficit to go from $1.85T per year to $1.55T per year.
You're being really close to sounding like a Democrat be careful! But I agree. I think we can tax all SS earnings that are paid in while limiting payouts to highnetworth individuals.
You are absolutely correct. Assuming that the government makes a few hard choices to find $3T in savings over a decade, the real problem is finding the rest. At that point, the deficit is at $1.5T (in 2024 dollars) and more Boomers will be retired than ever, the federal outlays to handle this will simply not be there. Budget deficits are going to have to be $2-3 trillion just to keep up.
We're talking about a population that will punish a political party for egg prices or banning their favorite Chinese propaganda app. Thebudget won't be solved through policy or taxes because voters simply will never allow it.
