Fiscal Cliff: 10 Ways Obama, Congress Could Trim Without New Income Taxes, Entitlement Cuts

Fiscal Cliff: 10 Ways Obama, Congress Could Trim Without New Income Taxes, Entitlement Cuts

I found this article today. I thought it provoked some interesting ideas. Our government needs to do Something!! I don't know how much longer our economy is going to survive. It seems greed and personal accomplishment has outweighed the need to take care of the American people.

WASHINGTON -- Just about every policy lawmakers are considering for a deal to avert the so-called fiscal cliff would involve either raising individual income taxes, or cutting benefits in Medicare and Social Security. But there are a host of other avenues available for reducing the federal budget deficit that are rarely talked about, despite their mathematical merit.

-Prison Reform
-Ending the drug war
-Let medicare negotiate with big pharma
-Offshore tax havens
-De-privatize government contract work
-Print more money
-Print less money
-Financial Speculation tax
-Carbon tax

Some of the ideas seem obvious. There needs to be a solid foundation and blueprint. I'm certainly not an economist or business-person.

What do you guys think? Check them out.

Financial Cliff Reform!

reply to post by Cosmic911

How about the 800,000 pound gorilla in the room: stop the endless wars, close the US military bases now in 120 different countries and bring our troops home?

That alone would save more than $1.5 trillion per year.

Funny how its not even mentioned.

But what I find most amazing is that when Bush left office, the national debt was $10 trillion. After 4 years, its ballooned to $16 trillion. They spent $6 Trillion more and cant figure out a way to cut spending???

Enough is enough, government needs to be dismantled before they destroy whats left of America.

reply to post by Cosmic911


Want to remove 50% of the deficit in one shot? Dissolve the FED and return control of printing money and controlling value to the US treasury. Want to knock off another 25%? Re-nationalize critical industries in energy, education and infrastructure development so that the profit the comes from these industries goes back into the taxpayer pool and thereby reduces taxpayer burdens (rather than have it go into offshore private tax havens).

Now you can pay down the debt in 10 years and have a 75% surplus at existing tax rates. Of course the IMF and military/industrial complex won't like it, so I guess the US will get the same media exposure as Iran or North Korea.

Cheers - Dave

reply to post by gladtobehere

How about the 800,000 pound gorilla in the room: stop the endless wars, close the US military bases now in 120 different countries and bring our troops home?

Yes! Yes! Yes! As a veteran I consider myself a patriot but its time to come home and stop policing the world. Do I think it will ever happen? Not in my lifetime.

reply to post by bobs_uruncle


I still think the whole idea of the Fed is strange. I bet most people have no idea the Fed is a private organization. I believe Kennedy was going to make moves against the Fed before he was assassinated.

" The Fiscal Cliff " I like the terminology. The OP's post certainly holds entertainment value. Curious why one would offer alternatives to the excellent job Congress currently and traditionally has performed in representing the Peoples interests. ( SARCASM )
Ya REALLY think they care ? Several sound suggestions have been offered in this thread. Many would of been accomplished, if good ole RP was President. Now we must ALL suffer the inevitable consequences of the moronic masses. Bottom line ? Congress will do what they do, and to hell with the people. : ) Invest in parachutes.

reply to post by dazbog


Stop all foreign aid.

All right, The Huffigton Post presents ideas to trim without new income taxes? Since you invited me to take a look, I did. Forgive me if I'm out of order.

Methods 9 and 10 don't raise the income tax, but they raise other taxes. Taxing most of the energy produced in the country and every financial transaction. When you tax something you discourage it. Is that what we want here? This would have to discourage, at least to some extent, inestment in our country, from whatever source. And it opens new things to tax, perhaps starting at a low level, but when has government not raised a tax.

Method 4, raise taxes on offshore entities. It's a way to raise money from the rich. It hasn't been a very successful idea yet, but who knows? But still, it's just another new tax on the rich.

Method 7, print fewer bills. The article indicates this would save $150 million a year. Yes that amounts to a lot for you and me, but for the government? It's nothing.

Method 2, legalize drugs. That means all drugs, because the savings claimed come from investigating, etc. You would still need a bunch of that for investigating harder drugs. Legalize and tax drugs? Is that a political possibility before the fiscal cliff, or even shortly thereafter? Hardly. This gets filed in the "maybe some day" file.

Method 1, don't put so many people in jail. First, they're including things, like the city and county jails, in figuring their savings. That doesn't affect the affect the fiscal cliff. Further, in 2010, there were 207,000 in Federal facilities, and 1,311,000 in State and Local facilities. Changing the jail system will have a small effect on the federal budget. Certaily not the $68 billion claimed. For further perspective 5,000,000 people are already on probation or parole (end of 2009). The savings to the Feds by putting a few more on monitored release will be a small saving, indeed.

Method 6, increase inflation. Multiple problems here. First, it wouldn't work very quickly. Second, it makes the dollar less valuable, not only to us, but to the rest of the world. As the article states:

Inflation is by no means a perfect remedy: it's a stealth cut to workers' wages.

And as far as getting rid of the Fed, the article assures us that the Fed will keep inflation at low levels, so if we choose this option, the Fed has to stay. Third, the claimed benefit is silly.

By effectively reducing monthly bills, moderate inflation could actually put more money in the pockets of these homeowners to spend elsewhere, thus stimulating the economy.

Have they forgotten that prices would rise as well, leaving no net benefit to the economy?

Method 5, get rid of government contractors. Forgive me, the government is going to do things cheaper and more efficiently? Why not just build up the Inspectors General to look harder for fraud. Will they really eliminate contracts with Boeing, or other major manufacturers and do it themselves? Where? This of course means layoffs all over the place, while increasing the number of federal employees, a good thing?

Method 3, let the government set prices for prescription drugs used by Medicare. The idea of "negotiation" seems clearly false to me. When the government "advises" or "suggests" we know the outcome. What will cutting the income do to those companies? Maybe they can afford it now, but five years from now? What will that do to their R&D activities? We don't know. Can we phase this in a little at a time to find out?

Method 8, change the treatment of illegals from jail to monitoring. That's already been covered in the prison suggestion. With the change in policies already going into effect, nobody knows how many people will be involved.

Anyway, just some quick thoughts.

reply to post by gladtobehere

Interesting number.

How about the 800,000 pound gorilla in the room: stop the endless wars, close the US military bases now in 120 different countries and bring our troops home?

That alone would save more than $1.5 trillion per year.

Closing down the entire DOD would save about $700 billion a year. That's the planned budget for 2012 and includes Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Overseas Contingency Operations.

Of course, you'd have to fire 3,000,000 people, including 700,000 civilians. But you may not be worried about finding employment for them.

I really do wonder where the $1.5 trillion comes from.

reply to post by bobs_uruncle

Even assuming that your percentages are correct, and I don't think they are, you've eliminated 75% of the deficit. That means 25% remains. With that, the debt will continue growing, albeit at a slower pace. The idea of paying off the debt in 10 years is not within the realm of possibility.

reply to post by gladtobehere


I agree with bringing military home. Put them to work building our infrastructure and running our prisons. Might not be a bad idea to replace all of the senate and congress with military leaders. We need people in office that have done something for this country and not for their political allies.

reply to post by OLD HIPPY DUDE

In 2010 there was $15 billion in military foreign aid and $38 billion in economic aid. Cut all foreign aid? You think the US is condemned now? Let's not send money to countries hit by disasters or famine, none of our business if they die, is it?

Charles, thanks for chimming in! You put together some good rebuttals.

When you tax something you discourage it.

An interesting concept. I never really considered this.

it's just another new tax on the rich.

This is ok with the majority of America. They can afford it.

Method 2, legalize drugs.

Financially, I'm not sure where this will end up. Politically, recently has made quite the stir.

Method 6, increase inflation. Multiple problems here.

Lots of good points here. I don't think there is anything wrong with some longer term and slow-acting solutions. However, manipulating the economy by adjusting inflation is tricky work, no doubt.

Method 5, get rid of government contractors.

Like you said, look for the fraud. I don't think we want the federal government doing more than they already do. I think we seriously need to evaluate the amounts of monies going to these contractors and how they're spending tax payer dollars. I think if we could significantly cut our defense budget, lots of fraud and waste would be eliminated.

These wars have cost us a lot. It used to be that wars stimulated the economy, but war has changed and the way we fight wars has changed. Technology has changed the face of wartime manufacturing. These past two wars have taken their toll on our economy and our nation all together.

Originally posted by gladtobehere
reply to post by Cosmic911

 

How about the 800,000 pound gorilla in the room: stop the endless wars, close the US military bases now in 120 different countries and bring our troops home?

That alone would save more than $1.5 trillion per year.

Funny how its not even mentioned.

But what I find most amazing is that when Bush left office, the national debt was $10 trillion. After 4 years, its ballooned to $16 trillion. They spent $6 Trillion more and cant figure out a way to cut spending???

Enough is enough, government needs to be dismantled before they destroy whats left of America.

edit on 30-11-2012 by gladtobehere because: (no reason given)

Right on!

Yes, it's amazing how they can go on and on with their talk about budgets and NONE of the Departments of Government are even part of the discussion.

Have you heard what fat the DoD could cut?
The Dept. of Energy?
The State Dept?
The Dept, of Education (it does nothing to educate anybody)
The Dept. of Transportation (it's mostly done on a state by state level)
The Dept of the Interior?
And Homeland Security?

Nope. Only how 'revenue' needs to be raised by over a trillion dollars and 'entitlements'.
Which is code for SS which we PAY into already.
and Medicare/Medicaid which is also funded by the taxpayers. Certainly not the 40 years of entrenched "will have children as a career choice" welfare recipients nor the non-taxpaying illegal immigrants.
Interest on the debt.
The Federal Reserve should have to write down their interest and only pay it back to foreign and individual bondholders.

But, I'd bet you money that the bill has been written and they are waiting until the last minute to reveal it because
of all the taxes built in, pork built in, raises to all those Depts., and draconian cuts to SS and Med/Med, but, all this new revenue raised by Obamacare

They want people to be just so dam happy they didn't go "over the cliff" that they won't realize until too late that we won't wonder how they managed to plop down a couple thousand page bill that nobody read again, much less had time to write by the light of the midnight oil. It's sitting on the shelf as we speak.

Stop foreign aid except in times of natural disaster. Wars do not count.

Remove military bases where there is not a clear and present danger.

Return to “sovereignty over currency”…we should not be borrowing money that we told the fed to print for us.

Return to a stiff tariff on any goods from countries practicing wage slavery. Balance the playing field like we did before.

Reduce the deductions corporations can claim for marketing, advertising and entertaining. Some is ok but it is way over the top.

Legalize certain things and put a big tax on them. This has multiple levels of win attached to it.

Ok…that is only 6 …I’ll keep thinking…gotta jet for now.

Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by OLD HIPPY DUDE

 

In 2010 there was $15 billion in military foreign aid and $38 billion in economic aid. Cut all foreign aid? You think the US is condemned now? Let's not send money to countries hit by disasters or famine, none of our business if they die, is it?

Honestly, how much of that 38 billion actually serves it's intended purpose. I'd suggest, most ,if not all winds up in the greedy little hands of government officials . A more appropriate term would be, how to bribe foreign government under the guise of helping the destitute. Admittedly I would not exempt myself from skimming a couple mil. Remember the nine Billion in aid to Iraq that seemed to simply vanish ? I'd suggest our government has no clue on money received vs money spent. Maybe ball park estimates. I'd also suggest said world populations are more then likely PO'd because we are KILLING THEM or supporting governments that are killing them. Not the loss of a bag of rice, if in fact they actually got one.

reply to post by dazbog

Dear dazbog,

I'm perfectly willing to go along with most of what you say.

I agree that foreign aid could, and should be more carefully monitored. But not ended, for reasons I've mentioned. (I just love to reach agreement with fellow members.)

But this, I'm not too sure about:

Remember the nine Billion in aid to Iraq that seemed to simply vanish ?

I had heard the number was three, not nine, and the money didn't vanish, it was recovered. Their paperwork didn't show the actual flow of the money. None was lost.

Honestly, how much of that 38 billion actually serves it's intended purpose. I'd suggest, most ,if not all winds up in the greedy little hands of government officials.

That sounds like you're talking about our government. I'm pretty darn sure our tax money doesn't serve it's intended purpose.

We have had some notable successes, such as the AIDS prevention programs in Africa. But as I said, let's try to make foreign aid more effective rather than eliminating it.

Oh, just as a piece of trivia, Gaza and Haiti combined, were sent over $2 billion in economic aid in FY 2010.

With respect,
Charles1952

Originally posted by gladtobehere
reply to post by Cosmic911

 

How about the 800,000 pound gorilla in the room: stop the endless wars, close the US military bases now in 120 different countries and bring our troops home?

That alone would save more than $1.5 trillion per year.

Funny how its not even mentioned.

But what I find most amazing is that when Bush left office, the national debt was $10 trillion. After 4 years, its ballooned to $16 trillion. They spent $6 Trillion more and cant figure out a way to cut spending???

Enough is enough, government needs to be dismantled before they destroy whats left of America.

edit on 30-11-2012 by gladtobehere because: (no reason given)

Your wrong about defense spending, it's 800 billion a year and realistically that isn't getting cut by more than 50 percent.

So that is only a third of the cuts we need. Entitlements will have to be cut whether anyone likes it or not.

Originally posted by Jeremiah65

Legalize certain things and put a big tax on them. This has multiple levels of win attached to it.

Agreed. This luxury tax alone could float medicaid expansion at the State level [solidifying an ACA opt out] and any associated rehab that may or may not be necessary. Of course, states need to legalize it and tax at the level [or marginally greater] they do for booze.

Not to mention it cuts the contracts with private federal prisons for incarceration of non violent drug offenders, and would downsize the DEA, and possibly the DOJ, ICE, and DHS.

Doing this Right should not put revenue or bargaining chips in the POTUS's or Congress' hands. But rather revenue in the State's bankroll.

Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by bobs_uruncle

 

Even assuming that your percentages are correct, and I don't think they are, you've eliminated 75% of the deficit. That means 25% remains. With that, the debt will continue growing, albeit at a slower pace. The idea of paying off the debt in 10 years is not within the realm of possibility.

So you don't believe that the US could scrape together between 700 billion and 1.5 trillion a year to get rid of the entire debt in 10 years (that is if the debt is actually around 15 trillion)? I think the US can ;-) I don't care about CDS or derivitives, that is not a problem of the US citizens in general terms, that is a greedy bankster problem. So let the chinese and other nations deal with the problems of wall street et al burning them, in a more permanent manner. I think they still hold public executions for mass fraud over there. If I were in power and the chinese wanted the wall street or european or whomever banksters, I send them all and I wouldn't think twice about it.

The gene pool must be cleaned of psychopaths from time to time with the chlorine of plumbers, scrub brushes of maintenance personnel and the occasional toilet snake.

Cheers - Dave