One of our consistent commentators, David, posted a very interesting piece from the NY Times. It allows you to interactively be a member of Congress and to cut certain expenses and to increase spending in certain areas.
When we did it today we were able to balance the budget and by making the necessary cuts and spending. Can you? Mine were 77% spending cuts and 23% increases. What are yours?
The link is: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html
Let us hear from you.
Conservative Tom
When we did it today we were able to balance the budget and by making the necessary cuts and spending. Can you? Mine were 77% spending cuts and 23% increases. What are yours?
The link is: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html
Let us hear from you.
Conservative Tom
My proposal is to get both spending and revenue balanced with both at 20% of GDP. So, I was shooting for a 50-50 split in their game, but actually came up with 57% revenue and 43% spending cuts. I'm sure I could go back through it and get the 7% differential eliminated.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised you got 23% revenue. They would throw you out of the House of Representatives for that when you run for reelection!
--David
P.S. I would change the title of your post to "Can you Balance the Budget?"
my objective is to reduce the budget, balancing the budget only postpones the problem.
ReplyDeleteIf China started a war with Japan/Taiwan, there would be an international response and the U.S. would be part of it, just as when Saddam invaded Kuwait. Japan itself has a modern military and considerable defensive capability. China's military would be no match for the forces brought against it.
ReplyDeleteYou are still not responding to my larger point, however. The U.S. has multiple times more military power than necessary to crush China or any other country in a conventional war. We outspend them by a factor of 6 or 7, and more than double what they spend as percentage of GDP. The excessive military spending is one of the things that has weakened our economy. Again, would you be satisfied if we just matched them on military spending? How is that any risk to our national security? Other rich countries (Europe, Japan) need to be responsibility for their own defense. We cannot continually subsidize them.
The greatest long-term risks to our national security are such things our crumbling infrastructure, declining educational system, incredibly expensive health care system (not because of "Obamacare" but because of escalating costs of health insurance premiums that the health insurance industry can impose via oligopolistic pricing leverage) which, as a result, leaves us with 40 million uninsured, highest per capita health costs in the world, and mediocre outcomes from health services. We need to invest more in these areas, and far less in military.
--David
P.S. Is the "problem" the budget or the national debt? You can cut the budget and still increase the deficit if you cut the revenue more than you cut the budget. I think Santorum's tax plan does precisely that, but I haven't yet seen an economist breakdown the details.
Is Santorum going to pull it off in Iowa now, after he was left for dead? It's looking possible.