I always appreciate someone that "gets it". Yes, there is no tax increase. If congress does nothing, the temporary tax decrease expires. Calling it a Obama tax increase is a misnomer.
We're all aware that the tax cuts were temporary, but the point is that Obama didn't pledge not to pass any new tax increases after these expired, he pledged not to let these expire for people making under $250k. Now Hoyer is floating a trial balloon to see how people respond to that.
Pork and earmarks have existed since the beginning of time. Without pork, nothing controversial would ever get through congress, sad to say. I sounds so simple to eliminate, but its rather impractical to ever get passed.
This isn't quite true, as earmarks (at the level we see them today) are a relatively recent development. In 1970, the Defense Bill had 12 earmarks. In 2005, it had 2700. In 1955, the Highway Bill had 2 earmarks. In 2005, it had 6400.
The idea that we can't survive without earmarks is pushed by the people who want to keep benefiting from those earmarks. In reality, we could eliminate or drastically curtail earmarks without much of an impact on government at all.
Yes, you can't have any real budget cuts without going after defense, social security and medicare. Given that medicare is nothing but a very basic safety net, there is little you can do there except continue to clean-up system fraud and improve delivery, both which take some capital investment (which is a short-term adverse affect on budgets).
Medicare is
the single largest threat to long-term US solvency. Medicare's unfunded liability is $89 trillion, more than six times that of Social Security.
Social security can only be attacked from the standpoint of adjusting eligibility ages as we are not exactly enriching our seniors with benefits. Its just basic, and the only thing standing between poverty and some degree of self-sustainability for 65% of our seniors. Instead, we have to encourage our workers to work to 70 or 75 but broaden disability.
The fact that it's the only thing standing between 65% of seniors and poverty is the
problem with Social Security. The program was never envisioned as a retirement plan, but as an emergency safety net. For most of its history, social security was just a small part of seniors plans for retirement. Now, our society thinks that it doesn't need to bother saving much for retirement because that SS check will always be there waiting for them. That's not sustainable in the long term.
Defense is the 3rd rail.... though we spend more on defense than all of the other nations in the world put together, its just politically impossible to go very far here. All in, there are not deep, deep cuts to be had anywhere.
The fact that something is politically difficult does not mean it cannot or should not be done. This applies to cutting Medicare, cutting SS, and cutting defense spending.
My favorite budget cut would be to cut congressional pay and benefits. These guys waste more time in their political wrangling, committee investigations, fact-finding trips, legislative obstructionism, campaigning on government funds.... the job should become less desirable.
This would actually be the worst place I can think of to make cuts. I know it's a standard populist argument, but it really doesn't reflect how Washington actually works. Being a Congressman does not pay much at all, once you consider that you have to buy/rent another home, travel constantly, etc. The average Congressman is forced to be away from his family all week, is constantly under a microscope, works from sun up to sun down (and on weekends) and has little job security. As it is, the vast majority of Congressmen are independently wealthy because the average qualified person who is not a Congressman can make 2-10 times as much in the private sector.
I very much doubt that cutting Congressional pay and benefits will actually
improve the quality of representation.
