Conquer Club

0ojakeo0 wrote:eliminate all police offers fire fighters teachers

Army of GOD wrote:Kill everyone

Augustus Maximus wrote:So much for any serious discussion on your very good topic. Your asking people to use their brains and engage in some critical thinking. This is a talent that requires too much effort for most here. Not to mention it would also require people get beyond their own self-imposed ideological boundaries, also a something very few are willing to do. The left will just say the same things about raising taxes on the rich, corporations, and cutting Defence. The right will just say the same things they always do, cut government, not raise taxes, get rid of the Dept. of Education. The reality it will require a combination of all of those. As much as we complain about Congress, they are merely a reflection of society where digging in and screaming at each other passes for serious debate.

Augustus Maximus wrote:So much for any serious discussion on your very good topic. Your asking people to use their brains and engage in some critical thinking. This is a talent that requires too much effort for most here. Not to mention it would also require people get beyond their own self-imposed ideological boundaries, also a something very few are willing to do. The left will just say the same things about raising taxes on the rich, corporations, and cutting Defence. The right will just say the same things they always do, cut government, not raise taxes, get rid of the Dept. of Education. The reality it will require a combination of all of those. As much as we complain about Congress, they are merely a reflection of society where digging in and screaming at each other passes for serious debate.

GreecePwns wrote:This is what I have so far. 3 trillion out of 4 have been saved


Revenue Increases
Return SS Rate for employees to 6.2 percent and remove the $106K cap: An increase of 3 percent of all currently taxable payroll. Social Security’s revenue is currently 12 percent of taxable payroll, which equals 677.1B. 15 percent would, by proportion, be about 846.4B, an increase in revenue of 169.3B. Source: Trustees Report 2011

Eliminate the Bush Tax Cuts for all incomes: An increase in revenue of 1,469B. Source: CBO-Produced Table found in a
Citizens for Tax Justice Report

Return Estate and Gift Taxes to 2001 Levels: An increase in revenue of 217B Source: CBO “Federal Estate and Gift Taxes

Remove Oil Industry Subsidies and Tax Provisions: An increase in revenue of 20B Source: CBO Report

Eliminated EITC and Child Credit Outlays: A total savings of $203.8B Source: CBO “EITC and Child Credit Outlays”

Spending Cuts
End funding of Overseas Contingency Operations (AKA the wars): This one does not have amounts for future years, so I will use the average of the last three years and multiply it by 5. This results in a savings of $764B. Source: Summary Tables of the Budget Table S-11

Move all Overseas Troops to domestic bases: A savings of 6.8 to 7.35B in 2004 dollars (I’ll use the middle), or 8.41B 2011 dollars. Source: CBO “Options for Changing the Army’s Overseas Basing

Cut Overall Defense Spending to 2000 Levels: A savings of around $250B Source: OMB – Annual Budget Documents Chart

GreecePwns wrote:Player, that is all well and good, but there's very little there in terms of actual numbers concerning deficit reduction. Did you total how much that would save? Where are your sources saying if or how much your proposals would save?

GreecePwns wrote:Player, that is all well and good, but there's very little there in terms of actual numbers concerning deficit reduction. Did you total how much that would save? Where are your sources saying if or how much your proposals would save?

Night Strike wrote:

GreecePwns wrote:Player, that is all well and good, but there's very little there in terms of actual numbers concerning deficit reduction. Did you total how much that would save? Where are your sources saying if or how much your proposals would save?

Because any governmental savings she posted are outweighed by more massive government spending. She turns over private insurance to the government

Night Strike wrote:wants to expand the already failing Amtrak

Night Strike wrote: drastically increases the number of immigrants to the country

Night Strike wrote: and spends even more money on roads.

Night Strike wrote:And the places where she wants to add taxes will probably negate every projected revenue gain due to their stifling of the economy and businesses hiring fewer people just so they can pay these onerous taxes.

Night Strike wrote: And adding 10 MORE cents to the federal gas tax is absurd!! Families are already having difficulties paying $3.50 per gallon, yet she wants even more taxes on that.

Night Strike wrote:The federal government already collects 18 cents of every gallon in taxes (plus all the other taxes they add on to refineries and oil drilling), so they should be using that money on road.

GreecePwns wrote:
Spending Cuts
End funding of Overseas Contingency Operations (AKA the wars): This one does not have amounts for future years, so I will use the average of the last three years and multiply it by 5. This results in a savings of $764B. Source: Summary Tables of the Budget Table S-11

Move all Overseas Troops to domestic bases: A savings of 6.8 to 7.35B in 2004 dollars (I’ll use the middle), or 8.41B 2011 dollars. Source: CBO “Options for Changing the Army’s Overseas Basing

Cut Overall Defense Spending to 2000 Levels: A savings of around $250B Source: OMB – Annual Budget Documents Chart

GreecePwns wrote:Move all Overseas Troops to domestic bases: A savings of 6.8 to 7.35B in 2004 dollars (I’ll use the middle), or 8.41B 2011 dollars. Source: CBO “Options for Changing the Army’s Overseas Basing

I'd further suggest eliminating 100% of non-entitlement (Social Security/Medicare) block grants from the federal government to the states, which is worth $400 billion in savings. If all the transportation, parks, police, education, health, etc. funding losses are too horrific for any individual state to absorb, said state can just raise their own taxes to make-up for the loss of federal funds; states with populations that are averse to tax increases can just choose to live with a more modest scope of government.

Also, cut $30 billion of $35 billion in payments to farmers not to grow food (I'm leaving a few bil in there to account for disaster guarantees). The drawback, of course, is that the elimination of the artificial price floor would completely destroy the agricultural sectors of every country in the world other than Russia, Canada and Australia, once the U.S. started outputting food to its full capacity. If France finds that idea horrifying then I suppose they can either take over paying the subsidies or withdraw from the WTO and establish customs protections around their domestic agriculture.

Privatize the FAA in the same way Canada did with Nav-Canada (as a non-profit corporation). The FAA has an annual budget of $16 billion, according to their website (http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/hea ... udget.aspx) $6 billion is in direct federal outlays, so you'd have a $6 billion reduction in the federal budget and the service fee cost would bump from around 7% to 10% of per ticket price (a $250 airline ticket would have fees increase from $18 to $25), though that would probably be high-end - a private entity could investigate creative funding mechanisms that a public entity couldn't.

National rail doesn't work in Australia or Canada, it only works in little places like Japan and England. The U.S. is too geographically large with too clustered of a population for nation-wide rail to ever happen. The Northeast routes should all be turned over to the states they service. All the historic western routes like the Empire Builder and the California Zephyr are 2/3-empty and bleed money and should be shuttered if no one wants to buy them for tourism/novelty purposes. That's $1 billion/year in savings (Amtrak= $3.5 billion/cost vs. $2.5 billion/revenue).