Can anyone on the left tell me how they would balance the budget?
By Taskr36
@Taskr36 (13963)
United States
April 7, 2011 2:24pm CST
I'm really getting the impression that Democrats just want the deficit to continue indefinitely. Everytime someone on the right wants to cut spending, they scream that it's evil, immoral, or, most recently, the same as bombing civilians.
The only thing they all seem to support is raising taxes. We've already established that it's impossible to balance the budget by raising taxes, so please, all you lefties, tell me how YOU think we need to balance the budget. If you really want to raise taxes so much, tell me exactly how much money you will raise. You could almost balance the budget for a year if you murdered and robbed the graves of everyone on the Forbes 400 list, but I'm looking for something a bit more sustainable than that.
2 people like this
6 responses
@dark_joev (3034)
• United States
8 Apr 11
I could do it I am not on the Left but I feel since I find my Fiscal Leanings to be to the Conservative side I guess this isn't posed at me. But I am going to answer.
using this here is what I did.
A basic one I cut just The military operations in Iraq and Afganhistan and International Aid, Education and Agriculture.
You have cut the deficit by $233.51 billion.
Your new deficit is $167.49 billion.
Didn't seem that hard.
Doing all the cuts I want to do here we go.
Spending ($1688.55 billion: cut $983.97 billion)
$401.49 billion .... Military Spending
Cut $44.61 bil. from base of $446.105 bil.(-10%)
$0 billion ......... Iraq War and Afghanistan Operations
Cut $111.84 bil. from base of $111.851 bil.(-100%)
$115.48 billion .... Veterans & Retired Military Pensions and Services (No Change)
$0 billion ......... International Affairs
Cut $31.58 bil. from base of $31.590 bil.(-100%)
$21.57 billion ..... General Science, Space, and Technology
Cut $2.39 bil. from base of $23.967 bil.(-10%)
$2.12 billion ...... Non-Defense Energy Spending (No Change)
$31.16 billion ..... Natural Resources and Environment (No Change)
$0 billion ......... Agriculture
Cut $26.01 bil. from base of $26.020 bil.(-100%)
$70.67 billion ..... Transportation (No Change)
$19.1 billion ...... Community and Regional Development (No Change)
$0 billion ......... Education
Cut $64.06 bil. from base of $64.068 bil.(-100%)
$47.81 billion ..... Training, Labor and Unemployment Programs (No Change)
$0 billion ......... Non-Medicare Health Spending
Cut $253.31 bil. from base of $253.320 bil.(-100%)
$0 billion ......... Medicare
Cut $345.74 bil. from base of $345.746 bil.(-100%)
$0 billion ......... Civilian Retirement (Social Security excluded)
Cut $71.93 bil. from base of $71.940 bil.(-100%)
$206.77 billion .... Aid to Low-Income Families (No Change)
$0 billion ......... General Family Support
Cut $25.61 bil. from base of $25.619 bil.(-100%)
$0 billion ......... Commerce and Housing Loan Programs
Cut $6.81 bil. from base of $6.816 bil.(-100%)
$544.82 billion .... Social Security (No Change)
$43.1 billion ...... Administration of Justice (No Change)
$17.75 billion ..... General Government Administration (No Change)
$211.08 billion .... Net Interest (No Change)
$-44.37 billion .... Undistributed Offsetting Receipts and Allowance (No Change)
Tax Expenditures ($1603.5 billion: increased $528.67 billion)
$589.2 billion ..... 2001 and 2003 Tax Cuts
Increased $294.6 bil. from base of $294.6 bil.( 100%)
$78.47 billion ..... Corporate Tax Breaks
Increased $18.11 bil. from base of $60.360 bil.( 30%)
$112.72 billion .... Personal Business and Investment Benefits
Increased $26.01 bil. from base of $86.710 bil.( 30%)
$219.01 billion .... Pension and Retirement Tax Benefits
Increased $50.54 bil. from base of $168.470 bil.( 30%)
$183.29 billion .... Health Insurance Tax Benefits
Increased $42.3 bil. from base of $140.990 bil.( 30%)
$212.82 billion .... Housing Tax Benefits
Increased $49.11 bil. from base of $163.710 bil.( 30%)
$207.99 billion .... Other Individual Deductions and Expenditures
Increased $48 bil. from base of $159.993 bil.( 30%)
That gives a You have cut the deficit by $455.31 billion.
Your new deficit is $-54.3 billion.
which the game says I cut to much spending. lol
here is the game. http://www.nathannewman.org/nbs/
1 person likes this
@rogue13xmen13 (14403)
• United States
7 Apr 11
Honestly, here's how I see it. The Republicans want to cut $61 billion from federal spending. That is way too much! Who and what are they going to cut?
The Democrats are willing to settle for $31 or $32 billion which is what the Republicans first opted for, but then changed their minds.
This is a left and a right problem. Don't just blame the Democrats, blame the Republicans as well because they don't want to stick to their numbers.
1 person likes this
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
7 Apr 11
It is a left and a right problem, but not the way you said it. The problem is that neither wants to cut enough spending. Many republicans went into office promising to cut $100 billion off the first budget immediately. They compromised it down to $61 billion already since they're still trying to write the budget for last year that the democrats punted.
Did you know that if we cut spending to 2007 levels, where they were at the last year that republicans wrote the budget, we'd have a balanced budget right now? That's how out of control the spending is right now. We only had a deficit of $163 billion back then. Now, thanks to TARP, the stimulus, obamacare, and other crap that was passed after democrats took control of congress we are looking at a 1.64 TRILLION deficit which is literally more than 10 times what it was back then.
As for what can be cut. Well I could axe about $70 billion right now by cutting off foreign aid and that would literally have ZERO impact on taxpaying citizens in this country.
If you want to see what Paul Ryan's budget would cut, just give it a read. Make sure you check out the part about ending corporate welfare. That's something every sane person should be able to get behind. Of course democrats giving corporate welfare to GE might object since George Soros is funding their election campaigns.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/04/06/us/politics/06budget-doc.html?ref=politics
@laglen (19759)
• United States
8 Apr 11
Ok, I will play devils advocate as a leftie would NOT be able to answer your question. This is what we have to do. Remember that top 1% that pay the most in taxes? Yeah them. Just take all of their money then nobody will have to work or take care of themselves. It is more important than ever to spread the wealth. Just because some schmuck has spent 20 hour days at the office after 10 years of college, makes sll the money. There is no reason why I (a healthy, intelligent adult) should have to work also.
As long as millionaires are making money, I should be able to stay home and watch jerry springer. there ya have it.
We dont need no stinkin balanced budget, just print more money...duh
@sirnose (2436)
• United States
7 Apr 11
I don't see these two parties fixing any deficit or balancing the budget. Haven't you figured it out yet. It's just a shell game, an outright scam on the American People. Every president pretends to try to rein in the budget deficit only to increase the debt and pass it on to the next generation and the next generation, etc. Get the picture it's a scam pure and simple. ...
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...@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
7 Apr 11
Of course it's a scam. The biggest scam is on the morons who keep blaming the president. Presidents don't write the budget. They don't vote on spending bills. The only thing they do is sign or veto the bills that are put on their desk. Congress is where all the spending and budgets originate. If they never put a balanced budget on the president's desk, he never has the opportunity to sign one.
@matersfish (6306)
• United States
7 Apr 11
Let me take a step over and answer that.
Tax more. Tax. Tax.
Not GE and other companies we need to invest in to create renewable energy for us so that we can get off of foreign oil and stop killing the planet. But tax more from all those Wall Street guys and you can pay the bills! Take money from these other huge corporations until they're broke! All they do is hurt the rest of the world anyway. Big corporations are evil and should not be in operation.
Cut defense spending to the bone. Bring our baby-kil-- umm... soldiers home!
But we cannot afford to cut anything. People rely on this money, Taskr! Would you rather have people dying in the streets? Do you want babies to starve? You want babies to starve!! You want old people to lose meals? A civilized country cannot starve people out and have women walking by the thousands into back alleys for abortions. You know we need to fund this. It's not their fault they get pregnant. Incest and rape!
We can also get money to close down these prisons. We spend too much to house these people, most of them only "criminals" because we lock them up and treat them like animals. Bring that money back and help the people in America who need it.
..
Well, that's as far left as I can go. Now I have a headache.
Try as I might, I cannot put together a serious argument in my head for how it works over on that side of the fence. It's not from lack of trying. I'm obviously just not as intelligent as they are. Genetics, I guess.
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
7 Apr 11
"Cut defense spending to the bone"
The funny thing is, they seem to oppose cutting that spending if it takes our troops out of countries where they aren't needed. Somehow you're an isolationist if you don't want troops in Germany, Iceland, Japan, etc.
You're right though. It really is hard to put together a serious argument for them. I've tried, but I can't think of any way, using left wing ideology, to balance the budget. It's really physically impossible to tax people enough at any and every level to balance the budget.
@matersfish (6306)
• United States
14 Apr 11
In other words? No. In those exact words!
I, the biggest liberal around here, want to not only punish success but want the government to decide who gets to be successful and by what means.
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
14 Apr 11
He's right Oreo. Success is EVIL. If someone is successful it means they ruined lives to get that successful. If they run a large business that provides jobs for tens, thousands, or tens of thousands of people, then clearly they are evil because they are profiting off the work of others. They've also evil because undoubtedly they've laid people off to save money at some point.
The only way for this to be truly fair is to let the government, not the consumer decide who is successful. Matersfish gets it, I don't know why the rest of us don't lol.
@TTCCWW (579)
• United States
8 Apr 11
I think that the four Dems I have as representatives are all fiscally conservative., I am a fiscal conservative. That said we have to stop the thinking that one side is different then the other.
The current dept has to talked about like adults. We got into this problem by not paying for a couple of wars, a huge economic meltdown, and poor management for decades.
This cannot be fixed in a couple of years, it needs a long term approach because it is a long term problem. If we can stop talking about abortion, NPR, Abortion, the Gays, abotion, Socila Security, abortion.
Six bills have been presented in the new congress to talk about abortion funding. Hello, we taxpayers do not pay for abortions ever..
When we don't want to fix someting we talk about social security. Not a problem until maybe 1037. Can be fixed till 1075 with two very easy adjustments.
Medicare has exactly the same problem it had in 1970, everyone knows what it is but not a single cogress has fixed it. Now that it does not work right we want to throw it away and try a previously broken system.
Lets just fix Medicare, it is not that hard to do. Lets start fixing things instead of throwing them away. Lets start making things instead of making them up.
The quickest way to balance the budget that dems are talking about is to change the rules about off shore money in corporations and lowering the corporate tax rate accross the board. This is not in the news, ever...
Quit funding ethanol, it is costing people in food prices and cost us more then the tax give aways to oil. Not to mention that it does nothing to help the enviroment. No discussion in the news.
Their are many dems and republicans talking about what should really be done but it is not in American news.
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
13 Apr 11
"Hello, we taxpayers do not pay for abortions ever.."
Yes, we do.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/International/story?id=6716958&page=1
When republicans cut off federal funds for abortion in DC, the DC Rep said that not spending federal tax dollars on abortions for DC residents was the same as bombing innocent civilians.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/04/07/dc-delegate-tells-congress-straight-hell-budget-battle/
Saying "Fix Medicare" and "Fix Social Security" sounds great, but really does nothing. It's kind of like how Obama claimed Obamacare would be paid for by reducing waste. Sounds great! We all want to reduce waste. Doing it is much different than saying it and we haven't seen it done.
"The quickest way to balance the budget that dems are talking about is to change the rules about off shore money in corporations and lowering the corporate tax rate accross the board. This is not in the news, ever..."
And those aren't bad ideas. The problem is that democrats had a supermajority in both houses for 2 years and never, NOT ONCE, made any attempt to get either of those things to happen.
"Quit funding ethanol"
I'm on board with that. Unfortunately congress did exactly the opposite a few months ago when they passed legislation not only giving more money to ethanol, but setting up a plan to DOUBLE the amount of ethanol in our gas at the pump.
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
14 Apr 11
"as bad as the dems are they are not the ones who stood up and swore they would do whatever it takes for this president to fail"
So now you're blaming all republicans for what Rush Limbaugh said? Even then all Rush said, and he said it clearly, is that if Obama wants to turn the US into a socialist nation "I hope he fails". Frankly, many democrats DID say in no uncertain terms that they wanted Bush to fail. Pelosi certainly made no secret of it. I really don't know how you could have missed it.
"The Republicans have held the house and senate 14 out of the last 18 years."
And in all those years they never ran a deficit over $400 billion. In fact, under Clinton the Republicans managed to pass a balanced budget with a small surplus. Under Bush when Republicans controlled the house the deficit increased for a few years after 9-11, but from 2004 to 2007 it dropped from $400 billion to just over $100 billion. It didn't skyrocket until Democrats got control of both houses.
"they could go to jail for treason."
Just show me the EXACT statements made by these republicans that you feel could lead to treason charges. Keep in mind that Al Franken actively said he would like to help al Quaeda assassinate Bush. If that doesn't qualify for a treason charge I don't know what does.
@TTCCWW (579)
• United States
13 Apr 11
The Hyde amendmant makes it illegal to ever use federal dollars for abortion. The global gag rule refers to moneys used in international family planning and our foriegn support to International family planning, not to be confused with Planned Parenthood..There has been no money since the 70's, from the fed, for abortion...
The Republicans have held the house and senate 14 out of the last 18 years. I don't give either of them a pass..
The republicans would not move on the corporate money. Lets face it as bad as the dems are they are not the ones who stood up and swore they would do whatever it takes for this president to fail. Something I had never heard in my life nor ever been so ashamed of, I used to support some republicans but that was the final straw.. We have had a series of really bad presidents and I have always tried to find a way to support my country and the office of the president. The party is more important then our country and constitution? And the worst part is, that by making those statements they do not even realize that they could go to jail for treason.
Apparently they have not read their constitution even though I personally sent them a hard copy.
And the ethonal passed oerwhemingly by both sides of the isle...
