Cut Where? Where to Cut The Government Budget?

Haven't been around for a while. Don't fit into a box all taht well, though I believe Obama is doing a good job, taht Ron Paul has some important points we should pay attention to and think Congresswoman Bachman is pretty nutty.

it's ok - i put everybody into boxes whether they like it or not. do you want to go in the commies! box or the rightwingnutjob box? they are both very nice boxes. one of them has a wheel.

And if jb puts you in the nutjob box, you'll be in good company as I'm sure I am there! valentinesdiner, to answer your question, I'd cut everything but non essentials. Essentials being those that the federal government has business being involved in, maintaining infrastructure, support and food and medical care for our elderly and disabled and vets, military, law enforcement. I don't like the fact we've borrowed money from China. I think the people elected the Representatives and governors they did this last election cause the deficit scares the hell out of them. As a private person, I've tightened my belt. It's time Washington did so as well.

If we really reduced spending to the levels they were at 10 years ago then yes, it really would be enough. Heck Rand Paul already has a clear plan to cut $500 billion in one year. You really can't raise taxes enough to deal with a trillion dollar deficit. Even if you robbed the richest people in this country blind you wouldn't get much more than maybe $200 billion out of them and that's if you took EVERYTHING from them.

I guess I should have clarified how many of the richest I meant. If you rob everyone on the entire Forbes than yes, you could get about 1.5 trillion. So rob all of them, and you can balance the budget for ONE YEAR. I agree on cutting the defense budget. We could just pull out of all those countries that don't need us like Iceland, Germany, Japan, etc. Social security should be axed in its entirety and people should get back all the money they put into it adjusted for interest and inflation if possible. Then people can get back to saving for their own retirements through private investments which are far more reliable than the ponzi scheme the government forces them into.

Actually, if we robbed the richest people, we would get more like $1.5 trillion. That isn't enough if that's all we do. Some spending has to be cut somewhere. Cutting the defense budget in half would be a start. Cutting Social Security would work the wrong way. It would throw many people, maybe several million, on to the mercy of their local governments, and local governments have been just as careless at minding spending as the feds. Social Security is called an entitlement for a good reason. People pay in to it and they are entitled to receive the benefits. We could also stop federal support of local projects. You need a new bridge? Fine. Go ahead and build it. Federal money should go for federal highways and only federal highways. the real problem is that every federal dollar spent goes to somebody and that somebody wants to keep it.

You should look at Rand Paul's ideas if you haven't already. He slashed almost every department, aside from the ones he abolished, by about 30%. That guy doesn't mess around.