What sacrifice would you be willing to make?

Totally ignorant answer.

1. Where are the jobs for the service members you cut loose?

2. How do you propose we handle their re-entry into civilian society? Do you know how fucked up these guys can be because of brain injuries, etc., they suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan? The medical care alone may bankrupt our country 30 years down the line.

3. What do you propose we do with all the military bases we'd be shutting down? Some of them would definitely be Superfund sites, and the feds would be on the hook for that.

Wait, we wouldn't shut any down, every congressman would vote (again) against shutting down their local base(s).

4. Where are the jobs for the highly skilled industrial base building things here? Seems like defense is about the only manufacturing going on in this country at present, other than the auto industry.

 

Conservatives aren't the ones who think people shouldn't sacrifice. That's the supporters of the Party of Entitlement.

 

Unless, of course, you ask them to reach into their wallets to help pay off the debt that's preventing any kind of sustainable economic turnaround.

 

The Party of Entitlement is a bigger roadblock.

 

I blame the Whigs

 

I would happily pay more in taxes if I could be guaranteed it wouldn't go to more illegal war adventures. I think we should go to check-off system on income tax. That would be some true democracy.

 

My left nut. But not my right one — no way.

 

Outing alert! MisterCreosote is Henny Youngman.

 

Magic,

Yes that would be more democratic. However, we don't live in a democracy. So there's that.

 

Conservative or not, you start with the military. I don't mean cut it out altogether, but there is plenty of bloat there to trim, and you don't even necessarily have to cut a lot of manpower. And, yes, that absolutely means pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan – yesterday.

After that, federal funding for the arts is, unfortunately, a luxury we can't afford right now. And, yes, that includes PBS. Sorry, but if that programming is worth having, the marketplace should dictate whether it stays or goes.

I'm no economist, so I don't know how corporate welfare works, but I'd like to see a shift from helping mega-multi-nationals to providing more assistance for small businesses. That may be naive, but one can hope...

 

I'm willing to tax executives bonuses and golden parachutes at 90 percent if the company laid off any workers or sent jobs overseas in the previous 12 months.

 

You could also start with some pretty damn painless cutting in bloat like planes that are a waste of money, not a real improvement on existing technology and that the Air Force doesn't want but that are built in one small backwater Congressman's district, so the Air Force is damn well going to have them.

That's the example that comes most readily to mind, but a lot of people who aren't servicemen and women are making a lot of money off military contracting. Start cutting there.

ETA: I'd also love to see the tax code reformed to simplify it and get everybody paying at a simple, fair rate (I'd be quite willing to pay a bit more) with minimal and sensible deductions. But I would start with military contracting expenditures.

ETA 2: I actually think Congressional term limits, which would curb the utility of massive industry lobbying to some extent, would be a major step in fixing most of the problems in our country, including the economy. This is not an actual "sacrifice" that could be made by me, however, so it's a side-point.