That is a huge number. I can't even wrap my mind around that number, but this number is just looming over us like a dark cloud waiting to unleash its unspeakable fury. This number terrifies me. I think about how absolutely nothing is being done about it all the time. They even tried to form a super-committee to attack this number and they all walked away with no solutions. Well that's why I'm forming a new party.
It's called the "People of the US who want a government that doesn't spend more than it brings in party."
Now I'm all for government spending. I think they do important things like national defense (although I think they go a little overboard), build infrastructure, support education, yada yada yada. However while these things are good, it is not good to fund these things when we do not have the money for it.
So who's to blame for this mess? Everyone! Every senior wants their social security and medicare, every republican wants their sons and daughters taking names and whipping a** in the middle east, and every democrat wants to take a bunch of money from the rich people (or just future money that apparently will come out of thin air) and give it to people who don't have that much money. Everyone wants the government to cut spending but when they try they get special interest groups to rally against any chance of cutting the funding of this or that. And every republican refuses to raise taxes on millionaires like Mitt Romney and Warren Buffet.
So here's my proposal, why don't we tackle this monstrous number with full-force effort from everyone in the country and get back to being fiscally responsible and the great country we should be? This could be raising the age before social security kicks in, it could be not giving social security to people who don't need it, it could be not paying the interest on my student loan while I'm in medical school, maybe we raise taxes on dudes like Romney and Buffet to pay the same percentage as someone in the middle class, maybe we pull more troops out of the middle east and cut down on the military, maybe we stop giving huge benefits to public sector workers, perhaps we limit the earned income tax credit, maybe cut unemployment benefits after 6 months, but we have to do something, and right now we're doing nothing and it doesn't look like we will be anytime soon.
And that worries me.
The figure below scares me the most...
Who knew Creighton was a closet member of the Tea Party?
ReplyDeleteFrom the Wikipedia mobile page (yes, I'm that lazy) describing the Tea Party's platform: "It endorses reduced government spending, opposition to taxation in varying degrees, reduction of the national debt and federal budget deficit, and an adherence to an originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution."
I'll tell Melissa she needs to get you a George Washington costume, a "don't tread on me flag," and other Tea Party accessories for your birthday so you can fit in at the next rally :)
Kidding aside, I share your concerns about the enormous size of the national debt and deficit. Too bad politicians from both parties seem content to keep kicking the can down the road. At the rate we're going, we'll have to pay the piper sooner than later as Greece, Portugal, and other European countries are painfully discovering at the moment.
That's my concern, the federal government is spending 40% more than they're bringing in every year. This is simply not sustainable. Sooner or later when crap hits the fan, who will be there to bail us out? I think we'll likely see a huge depression at some point in our lifetime if the federal government continues to spend 40% more than it takes in.
ReplyDeleteAm I thinking about this wrong in some way? Can we just continue to borrow until our debt is over $100 trillion? I just don't get where all this money is coming from. Is this economic model sustainable? I just simply don't understand why more people are not in panic mode right now. Are we still a long ways away from experiencing what Greece has gone through?
Two things:
ReplyDelete1) I agree, but have nothing of substance to add.
2) This blog's theme is ugly.
My solution is simple: SHRINK GOVERNMENT. Any solution that involves getting government out of the way will AUTOMATICALLY shrink the debt because government won't have a reason to borrow money in the first place.
ReplyDeletePeople say shrink government this and that but what do you mean by that. That's like me saying the solution to getting into a competitive graduate school is to work harder. Okay that's great, but what do you mean you're going to work harder. I want to hear some specifics.
ReplyDeleteHow to shrink government. Tough.
DeleteImagine coming home in nice weather to a flooded basement. You wouldn't worry so much about pumping out the water and cleaning up as you would about where the water was coming from. Stop the leak, then clean up the mess.
Our neighbor cut down a tree, but left the root system. New shoots kept coming up in our lawn. My cutting them back did not prevent new growth from appearing later.
If we managed to cut back and stop the growth of government debt, the victory would be momentary unless there is a systemic change - something done to turn off the water, repair the leak, or kill the roots.
The debt is a symptom. Running a balanced budget for a while is a treatment of the symptom. H. Ross Perot ran an entire presidential campaign on the question of debt and deficit. Clinton won a plurality and years of prosperity enabled the running of surpluses for a while. Yet here we are. We are WAY worse off than when Perot ran.
So what is the disease and how do we cure it?
And BTW Rich, you're ugly.
ReplyDeleteThis coming from the guy with the sweet mustache. That's awesome
DeleteThe Simpson Bowles Commission, appointed by the current administration, DID come up with solutions. They were not palatable to the current administration and so were ignored. Maybe the Simpson-Bowles Commission report would be a good place to come up with ideas for starters. Maybe your party's name could be shortened to the Simpson Bowles Party!
ReplyDeleteI don't think this was fair to say..."They were not palatable to the current administration and so were ignored." I looked through this report and it looked like congress members made up the 18 seats on this committee. They voted for it to go forward or not. They needed 14 votes, they got 18. From Wikipedia...."A report was released on December 1, 2010, but failed a vote on December 3 with 11 of 18 votes in favor, with a supermajority of 14 votes needed to formally endorse the blueprint.[3] Voting for the report were Bowles, Coburn, Conrad, Crapo, Cote, Durbin, Fudge, Gregg, Rivlin, Simpson, and Spratt. Voting against were Baucus, Becerra, Camp, Hensarling, Ryan, Schakowsky and Stern."
DeleteBaucus = Republican
Becerra = Democrat
Camp = Republican
Hensarling = Republican
Ryan = Republican
Schakowsky = Democrat
Stern = Republican
It seemed to me that it was mainly the republicans that kept this from going forward. This is only based on like 5 minutes of research as I should be memorizing about 40 drugs and their mechanism of action against acute and chronic leukemias and this was the first I heard about the report. I'm not saying Obama is a saint but this seems like a failure of congress to me.
Sorry I meant to say that they needed 14 of the 18 votes and they only got 11.
DeleteIt seems like the truth, as it usually does, lies somewhere in the middle on this one:
Deletehttp://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jan/08/jon-huntsman/jon-huntsman-says-president-barack-obama-threw-def/
According to politifact, Obama adopted some debt reduction recommendations from the report in his 2012 budget proposal but not others.
And we wonder why it is so hard to trust politicians when they start running their mouths. A good example of this was when Gingrich claimed in the CNN debate, without hesitation, that he offered several friends and sources to ABC to rebut his second wife's claim that Newt asked for an open marriage, and that ABC rejected hearing their side. Turns out that there were only two 'sources': Newt's 2 daughters! Nice one.
btw, Baucus is a dem. So there were more dems (4) voting against the final blueprint than repubs (3).
DeleteWhoops your right Baucus is a democrat. But that still puts repubs ahead 4-3. It doesn't matter, what does matter is the debt being bipartisan and the solution must be bipartisan. But the current environment is so toxic that it's political suicide to work with the other side. Even ole Mittens attacked Huntsman (my favorite republican in the world) for working with Obama. I just don't appreciate that rhetoric, and it's coming from both sides. I think Mittens is the only republican I have any hope in cutting the deficit with his business experience, Olympics experience, and reforming the budget is Mass. Newt wants to build a shopping mall on the moon, yea that's a great idea to lower the deficit.
DeleteHomer nods to Creighton: I was wrong about the Commission putting out an approved report. The President appointed all the members of the Commission. Many of them, like Simpson and Bowles were identified as R or D, but were not serving in Congress. 3 members from each party from each house of congress were appointed. But the non-serving appointees were 2 Repub and 5 Dem. The only Republicans voting against the report were the three house members from that side of the aisle. The Democrats who voted against were one currently not in congress (Stern), one senator, and two house members. So a majority of Republicans (5 of 8) and a majority of Democrats (7 of 11) voted for the plan, and it still failed to pass.
DeleteBut my goof was even bigger. The supercommittee was a congressional committee, not a presidential commission, that was designed to make progress on the deficit and debt reduction of a certain level, failing which automatic budget cuts would be triggered. They failed, and the cuts were triggered.
So not one but two government groups failed to reach consensus on reducing the deficit / debt, just last year. The tension is between cutting spending and raising revenue, with the Republicans focused almost exclusively on cutting spending, and the Democrats favoring a more balanced approach between the two.
Romney and Buffet would be thrilled to be taxed at the same rate as their secretaries! Before Romney's investment / dividend income reaches his bank account, 35% has been paid at the corporate level. Add 15% at the shareholder level, and the combined rate is 50%, JUST FOR FEDERAL TAXES. The corporate rate is close to the highest in the world. The individual rate is close to the highest in the world. No country in the world taxes business and investors at heavier rates than we do. How much is enough? We already are beyond the point where the U.S. can be competitive internationally.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good point. If Buffet paid his secretary in stocks, options, and dividends, she would pay the same tax rate as her boss. I'm not shedding tears for her, though, because she's bringing home a healthy six figure salary and can afford a second winter home in AZ. Surely Obama could have picked someone better to invite to the presidential box for the Sate of the Union to use as his partisan tool to make his campaign class warfare/redistributionist argument under the guise of 'fairness.' Between charity and taxes, Romney parted ways with more than 40% of his sizable income last year. How much more should people like him give? How much is enough?
DeleteYour right about the scary chart. The scariest part of it is not "other government programs" or even entitlements, but the red area which I believe is interest. Where it catches up is in the credit rating - the more reckless the borrowing and the less sustainable the trajectory, the higher the cost (interest) to borrow money. The first minature day of reckoning was last summer when the rating agencies downgraded the U.S. The news comes about every couple months now about European downgrades. that is our future unless there is a change.
ReplyDeleteWell I could never hope to fully elaborate on all the myriad of ways in which government could be realistically minimized, I also think it's just more of an attitude/mindset thing than anything. JFK said it best: "ask not what your country can do for you..."
ReplyDeleteThat said, I would like to make a point about your suggestion about taxing the rich: an increase in taxes will never make a dent into the deficit if it's just gonna lead to increases in spending and more entitlement programs. In that sense there's blame to go around for both parties because neither is willing to do BOTH simultaneously (i.e. cut spending AND increase revenue): Democrats increase revenue but then spend EVEN MORE, while Republicans cut taxes but (generally) refuse to cut spending
So for your party to work, that's what i think it's platform should be: "cut taxes AND reduce government spending/waste." That's the kind of thing I had in mind when I talk about shrinking government.
But as far as specifics go, I think Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) has tons of AWESOME ideas for ways to shrink the deficit, particularly about how to reform Social Security! (which I have to agree with Rick Perry or whoever said that it's nothing more than a government-run ponzi scheme when you look at it objectively)
But again the bottom line is, at the end of the day are you cutting spending and increasing total revenue? That's the question we all need to ask with every issue and every program. I think you get the idea...
I agree social security is a government run ponzi scheme. The SEC would have long ago shut down anything that resembled modern day social security. With that being said we are in a pickle. Millions of people have paid into the system and are dependent upon that money to live and function when they retire. What do you suggest we do? We can't just not give it to them. But I do think we need to reform it and/or phase it out. I have a few suggestions...
DeleteAnybody with a net worth over X amount of dollars cannot take social security.
People under 40, (or anyone for that matter) can opt-out of social security and maybe pay 25% the normal tax rate for social security.
Social security benefit age is raised from 65 to 70.
Those in medicare paid assisted living facilities/nursing homes no longer get social security.
I like the idea of social security and I wish it were economically sustainable, and had it been done right (meaning the government doesn't spend that money on other things) it probably could have worked to a degree. But ultimately I think that combined with medicare and medicaid will bankrupt this country in a matter of a few decades, maybe less. I wish it wasn't true but I think it is.
OK you seriously need to read up on Ryan's plan because the approach is VERY similar to all those suggestions you just made. In fact I think some of them directly parallel numerous provisions in his proposal.
DeleteAgain without meandering in the specifics, it's clear that his primary focus is in allowing for a smooth transition that doesn't screw people who've paid into the system their entire lives out of benefits, while at the same time progressively filtering people into a more privatized/free market alternative (comparable to "Health Savings Accounts" (HSA's) to the ponzi-like revolving fund we now have.
In other words, if Paul Ryan had his way, the benefits people get upon retirement will be DIRECTLY tied to the money THEY paid into the system! The cool thing about this is not only will we not have to worry about receiving less in benefits than we paid in, we will also have a certain amount of FREEDOM to decide how big we want those payments--and correspondingly the back-end payoff--to be!
Again this is only a single example on a single issue, but I mention it because I think it epitomizes a rational approach to yanking government out of our lives (i.e. shrinking government) in a way that is GUARANTEED to shrink the deficit (for the reasons stated above).
It also illustrates the importance of mindset, moreover, because rather than attempting to figure out how the government can do a better job of managing our personal finances, the Ryan plan envisions an America where government is (virtually) REMOVED FROM THE EQUATION ALTOGETHER!
This isn't just thoughtless tea party/libertarian rhetoric that is irresponsibly averse to having any government (i.e. de-facto anarchy), but rather a thoughtful approach to once again placing limits on a government. There's a quote from the federalist papers (I'll have to look it up) about how freedom CANNOT exist whenever/wherever government defines its own powers...and i don't think our country has a prayer of balancing the deficit as long as economic liberty is at best a mere illusion.
By the way, speaking of Paul Ryan, I think he would make an AWESOME replacement of tax-cheat Timothy Geithner as secretary of the treasury!!! That alone would go a long way towards reigning in the deficit in my view, assuming of course his future (obviously Republica) boss implements his policies. I think he would be a freaking rock star-genius in any Republican administration on par with Alexander Hamilton (albeit with a different mentality more in line with the minimalist political economy I've been advocating).
Deleteactually, now that I think about it, that quote about self-defining government may have actually been in the ANTI-federalist papers (I sometimes get lost in the back-and-forth arguing between "Publius" and "Brutus"). Either way I do intend to look it up & post it as a separate comment.
DeleteI don't know which is worse, tax-and-spend Democrats or borrow-and-spend Republicans.
DeleteAdd this to your list of ways we can reduce the debt: enough with corporate bailouts subsidized by taxpayers. It's clear we're getting hosed on the auto bailout investment, to the tune of $23.77 billion in losses:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120130/AUTO01/201300393/Treasury-ups-auto-bailout-loss-estimate?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s
Ouch.