Deficit reduction proposals

I agree with you. I just know it's not happening.

 

You would take away student loans so few people could afford to go to college and qualify for a high-paying job in the future?

Sure is going to be a lot of fighting for those Subway careers if some of this stuff goes down.

 

Sell off California.

 

For all the complaints about the politicians in Washington, they're just reflecting society at large. This whole debate is, unfortunately, a waste. Americans have prospered for so long that our culture will not allow us to make the painful decisions any longer. We want without giving, and the politicians are all too happy to give us what we want.

 

Winston Churchill said it pretty well: The American people can always be counted on to do the right thing ... after they've exhausted all other options.

 

Lets cut farm, gas and oil subsidies

 

I don't even think that's the case anymore. As far as the general public is concerned, sacrifice is a four-letter word. Give me what I want. I don't care how you do it, and I don't care about the effects. Just gimme.

 

Allow unlimited political campaign contributions, and tax 50 percent of anything over $100.

Someone or a corporation wants to give $5 million to Obama or Sarah Palin as an expression of free speech, fine. $2.5 million of that goes back to the government.

As the saying goes, freedom ain't free.

 

And that will result directly in much, much higher prices for food, energy and gasoline. That'll help the economy.

 

Or you know we could cut our defense budget...

 

Did you know that the Department of Defense spends money in over 300 of 435 congressional districts (including mine?). It will NEVER be cut. Aside from the fetish that our military equals our status as a nation, military spending is too intertwined with the overall economy to remove parts of it without extreme pain.

 

Here's my proposal for righting the fiscal ship:
- Raise the retirement age for social security. Keep raising it until the numbers jive.
- Means testing for social security (why should Bill Gates or Warren Buffett get a social security check?)
- Reform Medicare/Medicaid, WIC and institute some market-based reforms. Nobody wants or deserves to have their health insurance distilled through a DMV-like monstrosity of a bureaucracy
- Disband OSHA, Homeland Security, Department of Energy, Dept. of Agriculture, National Endowment for the Arts and other extra-constitutional functions
- Roll BATF and the U.S. Marshalls into the FBI. Why do we need three major Federal LE agencies when two will do.
- Get rid of all of the subsidies, be they for farms, ethanol, etc, etc.
- Simplify the tax code, making it either a FAIR Tax or a flat tax with no deductions.
- Eliminate corporate taxes and death taxes
- Do a blanket 30 percent cut of the Federal workforce, including the DOD.
- Do a blanket 10 percent or more paycut for Federal workers.
- Ban government employees from unionizing unless they are firemen or cops.
- Cut foreign aid of all sorts by at least 50 percent
- Bring our troops home from Europe, at least
- Cut our contributions to the UN, or as Idiocracy called it, the "UN." Pay our dues and nothing more.
- Reform the DOD's procurement process and either get these future weapon systems on time and on budget or make the contractors face the consequences.

If this doesn't work, it at least would help greatly. Raising taxes in a time of great economic distress would be a horrible idea. Cutting defense in a time of war and great global uncertainty is a nonstarter too.