[bootlegga]

andyt andyt:

And in Canada at least, CPP (Social Security) is fully funded by contributors. In Canada, eliminating CPP would not save dime one unless you kept the CPP contributions in place as a tax.

Social Security in Canada is split into OAS and CPP - and one is funded by contributors, the other by the government...

[andyt]

bootlegga bootlegga:

andyt andyt:

And in Canada at least, CPP (Social Security) is fully funded by contributors. In Canada, eliminating CPP would not save dime one unless you kept the CPP contributions in place as a tax.

Social Security in Canada is split into OAS and CPP - and one is funded by contributors, the other by the government...

OK, I got you, but we're talking about the US. Their social security is funded by contributors same as our CPP.

[bootlegga]

Psudo Psudo:

As I've recommended before, we should reduce the deficit with a three pronged approach: raise taxes for 1/4 of what we need, cut defense spending for 1/4, and cut welfare spending for 1/2 of the dollar amount of the total deficit reduction. Democrats compromise their principles for half of the money, and Republicans for the other half. And, in the end, we get a balanced budget. And 8 of the 9 programs you mentioned would be untouched.

Your plan sounds like a good, fair idea, which is probably why it won't be instituted!

Seriously though, would 1/4 of the defence budget be enough to shrink the debt significantly?

The defence budget is around $700 billion, give or take - so 25% would cut about $175 billion from the deficit. If that's a quarter of the cuts/tax increases, you're only dealing with $700 billion - and according to you, the deficit was closer to double that (1.42 trillion). Unless your tax increases were triple that amount, I don't see how you'd make enough change to eliminate the deficit.

Still, your plan has merit, I just think the numbers would need to be re-jigged a bit to make it work.

[andyt]

bootlegga bootlegga:

Psudo Psudo:

As I've recommended before, we should reduce the deficit with a three pronged approach: raise taxes for 1/4 of what we need, cut defense spending for 1/4, and cut welfare spending for 1/2 of the dollar amount of the total deficit reduction. Democrats compromise their principles for half of the money, and Republicans for the other half. And, in the end, we get a balanced budget. And 8 of the 9 programs you mentioned would be untouched.

Your plan sounds like a good, fair idea, which is probably why it won't be instituted!

Seriously though, would 1/4 of the defence budget be enough to shrink the debt significantly?

The defence budget is around $700 billion, give or take - so 25% would cut about $175 billion from the deficit. If that's a quarter of the cuts/tax increases, you're only dealing with $700 billion - and according to you, the deficit was closer to double that (1.42 trillion). Unless your tax increases were triple that amount, I don't see how you'd make enough change to eliminate the deficit.

Still, your plan has merit, I just think the numbers would need to be re-jigged a bit to make it work.

You're not reading him right. He's saying take 1/4 of what's needed to eliminate the deficit from the military - so if the deficit is 1.42 trillion then cut the military by 355 million - so cut the military by half. Doubt that would fly. Then he wants to cut what he calls the welfare budget, ie medicare, medicaid and social security by 700 million. That may cause a bit of unrest among the people too, especially if you leave FICA deductions where they are - ie in effect raise taxes on working people 'cause you give them less benefits for the same amount withheld.

[Bruce_the_vii]

As the economy grows federal tax revenues will increase and this will help. I've advocated before that the labour force level in most cities in the USA is low and if this were to be fixed, get people working, there'd be another $200 billion in federal tax revenues. The idea is to get cities up to the gold standard, say Minneapolis in 2005. More people were in the labour force.

[andyt]

How does the govt get people working?

[martin14]

andyt andyt:

bootlegga bootlegga:

Psudo Psudo:

As I've recommended before, we should reduce the deficit with a three pronged approach: raise taxes for 1/4 of what we need, cut defense spending for 1/4, and cut welfare spending for 1/2 of the dollar amount of the total deficit reduction. Democrats compromise their principles for half of the money, and Republicans for the other half. And, in the end, we get a balanced budget. And 8 of the 9 programs you mentioned would be untouched.

Your plan sounds like a good, fair idea, which is probably why it won't be instituted!

Seriously though, would 1/4 of the defence budget be enough to shrink the debt significantly?

The defence budget is around $700 billion, give or take - so 25% would cut about $175 billion from the deficit. If that's a quarter of the cuts/tax increases, you're only dealing with $700 billion - and according to you, the deficit was closer to double that (1.42 trillion). Unless your tax increases were triple that amount, I don't see how you'd make enough change to eliminate the deficit.

Still, your plan has merit, I just think the numbers would need to be re-jigged a bit to make it work.

You're not reading him right. He's saying take 1/4 of what's needed to eliminate the deficit from the military - so if the deficit is 1.42 trillion then cut the military by 355 million - so cut the military by half. Doubt that would fly. Then he wants to cut what he calls the welfare budget, ie medicare, medicaid and social security by 700 million. That may cause a bit of unrest among the people too, especially if you leave FICA deductions where they are - ie in effect raise taxes on working people 'cause you give them less benefits for the same amount withheld.

deficit 1.42 TRILLION

your military cut is 355 BILLION
welfare cut is 700 BILLION

you start to see what kind of trouble the US is really in.

[Psudo]

bootlegga bootlegga:

Seriously though, would 1/4 of the defence budget be enough to shrink the debt significantly?

I didn't mean a cut of 1/4th of total defense spending. I meant that 1/4th of the deficit cut from those four big programs should come from defense spending. That is:
DefenseCuts + TaxRevenueIncreases = WelfareCuts
DefenseCuts = TaxRevenueIncreases

My original statement of the idea said the sum of all three should be $1 trillion (because we have had at least a $1 trillion deficit several years in a row), which would make the Defense cut $250 billion. However, I don't really care to nail down the exact total size of the cuts. The point is to set the relative sizes of the parts. Also, remember the proportion of the budget (35-40%) that is not part of those four big programs. The larger the cuts to the rest of the budget, the smaller the cuts necessary to the four big programs.

andyt andyt:

Medicaid is welfare. I don't see how SS and Medicare are. They are universal programs, everybody gets them.

That's not really true. Everybody has the potential to someday be eligible for them if their status fits the criteria, but at any given time many millions (a majority of workers?) pay in without receiving any benefits from any of those three programs. They are all government providing financial security (and less dependably than personal savings accounts and insurance plans can). If that's not the definition of welfare, I'd be curious what is.

It is widely believed that Social Security will be financially unsustainable and need to be abandoned in it's current form long before today's young adults are ready to retire. If that's true, it's a kind of generational welfare with the younger generation working to replace the money that the older generation put in and government wasted by repeatedly dipping into the SS fund to cover shortfalls in the general fund.

That being said, I'm not very interested in cutting current benefits to current SS recipients. I'd rather see phased cost reduction and perhaps a rising age requirement for future generations. After all, the older generation deserves to get back what they paid in, and for the younger generation getting fewer benefits from a stable system is better than getting nothing because the system collapsed.

When I first described my plan, I argued that the Republicans should be in charge of making the tax revenue increases and defense cuts and Democrats should be in charge of making the welfare cuts. That way, the people deciding the specifics of the cuts are the ones who most want the programs' effectiveness preserved. Then, as a threat to motivate substantial cuts, the cuts against the next year's deficit will switch parties. If they create a budget surplus on the first try, the Republicans can rest easy that Democrats aren't gutting Defense and Democrats can rest easy that Republicans aren't gutting welfare.

[andyt]

If you want "welfare" cuts to be half of the deficit elimination, how will you accomplish that with not cutting current SS benefits? Doubt that can be done. And what do you want to do with Medicare?

[Bruce_the_vii]

andyt andyt:

How does the govt get people working?

The economy grows. The whole world is depending on the economy everywhere growing so governments will continue to spend to get it to work. To get people working in the USA would take 10 years and low immigration. It'll be a long grind.

[Psudo]

andyt andyt:

If you want "welfare" cuts to be half of the deficit elimination, how will you accomplish that with not cutting current SS benefits? Doubt that can be done. And what do you want to do with Medicare?

First off, under my plan those would be questions for congressional Democrats; if they find one of the three "welfare" programs to be more sacred than the other two, they can cut the other two more in order to preserve the status quo of their favorite program. Second, I'm not sure it's possible to claim the SS cuts would necessitate cutting current benefits when we have no clear idea what size the cuts would be. Third, I said "I'd rather see" a phased reduction of SS. That's not the same as allowing for no other option.

How much would it save from the Social Security fund to raise the eligibility age four months every passing year until the age equaled the USA's life expectancy (currently 79 years)? Would other cuts to SS even be necessary? As originally passed, SS applied to people older than typical life expectancy (at the time, 65 years). It's no skin off anyone's nose to tie the plan to life expectancy rather than to a static number. And because the eligibility age moves up more slowly than time, the closer people are to retirement age the less the changing age requirement affects them. For me (age 30) it postpones retirement for 12 years (or more, if life expectancy keeps increasing), but for a man who is 60 this year it only postpones retirement by 2 or 3 years.

I'm less well informed about Medicare. For non-disabled persons, it generally works off of a retirement age that would responsibly be tied to life expectancy. I'll read up for more info and get back to you.

[bootlegga]

Psudo Psudo:

bootlegga bootlegga:

Seriously though, would 1/4 of the defence budget be enough to shrink the debt significantly?

I didn't mean a cut of 1/4th of total defense spending. I meant that 1/4th of the deficit cut from those four big programs should come from defense spending. That is:
DefenseCuts + TaxRevenueIncreases = WelfareCuts
DefenseCuts = TaxRevenueIncreases

My original statement of the idea said the sum of all three should be $1 trillion (because we have had at least a $1 trillion deficit several years in a row), which would make the Defense cut $250 billion. However, I don't really care to nail down the exact total size of the cuts. The point is to set the relative sizes of the parts. Also, remember the proportion of the budget (35-40%) that is not part of those four big programs. The larger the cuts to the rest of the budget, the smaller the cuts necessary to the four big programs.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Cutting defence by $250 billion will never fly...honestly, I'd be surprised by $100 billion in defence cuts. I think that is even more of sacred cow than social programs are for the Democrats (simply because the pork flows into most Congressional/Senatorial districts and has supporters on both sides, not just the Dems).

[Curtman]

Proculation Proculation:

As for the Internet, you are talking like if the government didn't invest in it, the private sector would not have invented it, while Internet and IT in general became was it is today because it's running on a capitalist platform. I think you are reinventing history here.

The private sector tried very hard to create it's own Internet. AOL, Compuserve etc. They all failed because they were proprietary, and when an open Internet arrived they disappeared very quickly. There was no reason for the private sector to create an open infrastructure. It took government money to do that.

[Curtman]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

I think what killed it for AOL was that once people discovered you could minimize the AOL screen and open Netscape and see whatever you wanted then more and more people wanted the real Internet and not just what AOL wanted you to see.

Netscape might not have existed either if the National Center for Supercomputing Applications hadn't created Mosaic.

[Psudo]

The internet is similar to roads and utilities in that the line between private service and public infrastructure is rather blurry. I'd be interested to hear a specific principle that says where the line should be drawn that isn't "Everything should be public." or "Everything should be private."