What can be cut from the US budget?

Meadmaker

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Meadmaker
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I'm a deficit hawk. I hate debt, on a personal level, and a national level.

When GWB took office, we had a budget surplus. Even taking into account the phony accounting that makes "off budget" items not count, the national debt actually shrank in the last year of the Clinton administration. Now, we have a gigantic budget deficit, and the national debt is growing and growing.

It's all well and good to point fingers and say this or that about whos fault it is, and I can do that with the best of them, but that isn't the point of this thread. The point is how to do something about it.

Of course, before that point, there's the question of why we ought to do something about it, but that's a really easy question to answer. When we pay interest on all those t-bills, we are giving money to people, and getting nothing in return. That's dumb. We should stop.

So, what can be done about it? The Democrats tend to say we should raise taxes on that guy over there. ("That guy over there" is usually "the rich", but it turns out that the rich only have some of the money, so that everyone ends up being "that guy over there" eventually. You just can't raise enough money only taxing some of the people. The Dems want to raise taxes. If they do that, don't think that it will only be the other guy's taxes.) I agree with them. I want tax increases.

However, the Republicans tend to say, the real culprit is government spending. The answer is to cut spending.

Very well. If anyone agrees with that view, what spending can be cut? It is my belief that welfare reform got rid of the last big chunk of easy government spending cuts. What's left is either

1. A very good idea (such as having a strong military) or
2. Extremely politically popular (such as Social Security) or
3. Small potatoes (such as the Nasa budget)

Or some combination of the above.

Am I wrong? Is there some big chunk of government spending that a politician could seriously propose for cuts, that would make a difference, would not have negative effects, and could actually be supported by any congressman running for reelection?

I think the current projected deficit is about 250 billion dollars. Any way to come up with, oh, half of that?
 
Would you have any data on how much is being allocated to each area of interest in the budget?
 
I mean, I've heard of extra allocations on the order of 100 billion dollars being approved by congress to the current war effort, but I'm not sure how this amount relates to the total budget.
 
This page has a breakdown for 2005. (Just obtained by googling. I'm sure there are better sources.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_budget_process

The Iraq war spending is the one area where we might be able to get some significant savings that I know of, and that might be politically unpopular enough to survive cutting. Maybe. However, even that is somewhat exaggerated. If we pulled out of Iraq, we wouldn't get all of that money back. Some troops from Iraq would be redeployed. The units wouldn't be disbanded.

Money would be saved, but not all that much.

Also, politically, the same people harping about cutting government spending generally are the ones who don't want to pull out of Iraq.
 
Step #1 - Bring back 'checks and balances' to the budget making process immediately followed by Government paralysis. A Democratic President and Republican Congress seemed to work the best with regards to fiscal restraint since for whatever reason - Republicans in Congress with a Democratic President actually acted like real Republicans unlike the current situation. By real Republicans - I mean that the Republican Congress appeared to exercise fiscal restraint as a natural check on the Clinton Presidency.
 
Meadmaker said:
This page has a breakdown for 2005. (Just obtained by googling. I'm sure there are better sources.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_budget_process

The Iraq war spending is the one area where we might be able to get some significant savings that I know of, and that might be politically unpopular enough to survive cutting. Maybe. However, even that is somewhat exaggerated. If we pulled out of Iraq, we wouldn't get all of that money back. Some troops from Iraq would be redeployed. The units wouldn't be disbanded.

Money would be saved, but not all that much.

Also, politically, the same people harping about cutting government spending generally are the ones who don't want to pull out of Iraq.
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I realize that as a non-American my presence on this thread is probably not kosher to some. Never the less....

According to the budget you linked to Meadmaker, National Defense is indeed the second biggest expense on the budget. Much discussion is possible on this item. I notice however, that the third biggest item is Income Security. Anyone know what this is?
 
According to this report, Income Security is comprised of: General retirement and disability insurance (excl. Social Security), Federal Employee Retirement and Disability, Unemployment Compensation, Housing assistance, Food and nutrition Assistance, other income security

So it seems to encompass various pension programs, as well as what would be considered "Welfare" programs.
 
Huntster said:
It may not balance the budget or pay off the debt, but I think it's a damned good place to start:



Nobody ever cites foreign aid to the United States.

Is there such a thing?
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What do you think China has been doing for the past decade. Those cheap TVs and other consumer goods are quite a boon to US standard of living and prices.
 
Huntster,
It's 31 million dollars. If you could find 1000 such examples, you could cut 1/8 of the budget deficit.

Peanuts.
 
Simplify the tax codes and get rid of the IRS.
Decriminalize drugs? I dunno. Small potatoes.

We need to make cuts virtually everywhere. I believe that the bureaucracy needs to be slimmed down across the board, say 30%. Our government is bloated. We write paychecks to assistants of assistants of assistants. I don't even know who they are assisting! ;)

Raise taxes? Which ones? The rich? Sales tax? I think we pay plenty of taxes as it is, generally speaking. What percentage of your income is taxed? Whatever it is, it's enough! Seriously though, we should be able to run our country on the taxes we currently pay and the revenue we generate (as if I know what the hell I'm talking about). The money needs to be managed better. We need to run this country more like a business.
 
DanishDynamite said:
I realize that as a non-American my presence on this thread is probably not kosher to some. Never the less....

According to the budget you linked to Meadmaker, National Defense is indeed the second biggest expense on the budget. Much discussion is possible on this item. I notice however, that the third biggest item is Income Security. Anyone know what this is?
Click to expand...

Indeed, much discussion is possible. However, no one in America seriously suggests that America give up its role as superpower. At least, no politician who wants to come back to Washington next year makes that suggestion. Once you accept that role, it costs some big bucks.

Let's put it this way. A lot of people think we ought to pull out of Iraq, and that would save some money. However, pretty much everyone in America agrees that we ought to maintain a force capable of launching an operation like the Iraq war. We don't all agree that we should have launched that particular war, or continue in it, but most Americans think that in the event such a war seemed like a good idea, we ought to have a military capable of fighting it. In fact, American policy says we ought to have a military capable of fighting two such wars. Even if we stopped fighting the one we are in, and didn't start another, the mere ability to launch such a war is expensive.

Furthermore, part of my point in this thread is that the people who are yelling, "Don't raise taxes. Cut spending!" aren't willing to make any cuts that amount to a hill of beans. It's easy to demand spending cuts as long as the cuts are vague and unspecified. Real spending cuts would require you to cut popular programs, like Social Security or the Navy.
 
schplurg said:
We need to make cuts virtually everywhere. I believe that the bureaucracy needs to be slimmed down across the board, say 30%. ...We need to run this country more like a business.
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No offense intended, but it's arm-waving. Cutting the budget for the Department of Waste and Fraud won't work.
 
Meadmaker said:
Of course, before that point, there's the question of why we ought to do something about it, but that's a really easy question to answer. When we pay interest on all those t-bills, we are giving money to people, and getting nothing in return. That's dumb. We should stop.
Click to expand...
Who's "we", and who's "people"?
 
Farm subsidies would be a fairly logical target although it might only be political posible for democrats (and even then tricky). In terms of militry spending rationaliseing the nuclear weapons stockpile would probably help while haveing little effect on caperbilty.
 
Well, The Citizens Against Government Waste define Pork Spending as:

As in previous years, all of the items in the Congressional Pig Book Summary meet at least one of CAGW’s seven criteria, but most satisfy at least two:

Requested by only one chamber of Congress;
Not specifically authorized;
Not competitively awarded;
Not requested by the President;
Greatly exceeds the President’s budget request or the previous year’s funding;
Not the subject of congressional hearings; or
Serves only a local or special interest
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They publish a thing they call a Pig Book which outlines what they believe is wasteful government spending. According to them the 2006 budget had $29 billion in pork projects. While I don't know if all the projects they have listed could be cut it seems like it might be a good place to start looking.
 
Meadmaker said:
Let's put it this way. A lot of people think we ought to pull out of Iraq, and that would save some money. However, pretty much everyone in America agrees that we ought to maintain a force capable of launching an operation like the Iraq war. We don't all agree that we should have launched that particular war, or continue in it, but most Americans think that in the event such a war seemed like a good idea, we ought to have a military capable of fighting it. In fact, American policy says we ought to have a military capable of fighting two such wars. Even if we stopped fighting the one we are in, and didn't start another, the mere ability to launch such a war is expensive.
Click to expand...

You may be underestimating how much money would be saved by pulling out of Iraq.

The ability to launch a war is expensive, but it's peanuts next to the cost of actually launching one. My understanding -- here's a cite if you want to dig further -- is that Iraq is costing on the order of $100 billion a year in operational costs, costs that would not if the Armed Forces were just sitting at home being "prepared" to launch a war.

That's more than three times the total amount of cost involved in the "Pig Book."
 
A lot of the budget balancing in the 90s was a result of the "peace dividend" which decimated our military after the collapse of the USSR. And it is Congress which holds the purse strings, and it is Congress which balanced the budget.

Under Clinton's watch, yes.

As for how to cut the budget now, I have a very simple plan: Eliminate the Department of Homeland Security. One of the greatest boondoggles in the history of mankind.
 
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