Another thing I didn't mention is I think we need to re-tool or re think our defense spending, it isn't going away, liberal states and conservative sates have defense contracts... we have tons of factories and employees who are building things we do not need however we don't want to get rid of them as they provide jobs... I'd look towards those, figure out what we really need and then transform the ones that are not needed (which my guess is a lot of them) into making a product that could be manufactured and sold. That would not only reduce our budget but would make part of the budget self sustaining to a point... (it would take much smarter individuals than myself to figure out what these factories or workers could make though and sell). 2013 defense spending budget is $672.9 billion... my guess is you could cut that in half if we brought our troops home, but still keep people working just making something else that is able to be sold. (ultimate goal would be for these to run 100% independent of the government)...
Think some of these through for a change. Putting these people into manufacturing goods for the country to consume is a death sentence for their jobs. One of the reason defense costs so much is we spend a lot to keep americans employed. If these companies had to compete with foreign manufacturers like China without guaranteed military contracts they would have the same trouble every other American manufacturer has. The jobs would be outsourced for cheap labor and the americans would be out of work. this is because you don't need to pay american salaries around the world. Overinflated salaries do not work in a world market full of cheapo labor, and when automation is making manufacturing jobs require less and less human work hours.
What needs to be done is we need jobs here at home. There is a solution. it is called infrastructure development. there are a ton of projects that would make jobs that have to be done here; A new electrical smart grid, medical care for all, high speed rail networks, and high speed data networks. All of those things create jobs here. If we wanted to we could even retool those manufacturing jobs and require the US make the needed items here at home to provide even more jobs. this is not just a matter of the jobs we hire directly for. More jobs means more demand for goods which means increases in every sector of our economy. republicans blew it for us when we had an opportunity to get government healthcare for everyone. Imagine all the jobs that would have been created to deal with the demand for medicine that would have increased by 10s of millions of customers. You would not just need doctors. You would need nurses, orderlies, janitors, receptionists, accountants, record keepers, computer professionals, computers, construction of new facilities, maintenance people, drivers to get cripples, homecare people, and so many others. That was jobs and all we had to do was to kill off the insurance company CEOs. Oh, but that is socialism and jobs are evil.
This is the farm subsidy it is stuff like this that bothers me:
Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don't Farm
Another idea you don't think through. those subsidies are there for a reason. It is because the free market doesn't like farmers very much. You are a farmer. Every year you have bills and expenses, so every year you have to make money. You are like every american and you want the most you can get so you farm your land and sell your goods. Unfortunately we don't need all of those goods here in america. We have more farmland than we need. I know that sounds amazing, but it is true. So as every farmer wants to make the most they farm the most of their land creating a huge oversupply that drives their prices down. meanwhile they trash out their land which needs time to recover every few years from the crops. So we have 2 things this system creates. poor farmers who cannot get value from their crops, and a dustbowl.The reason these subsidies are there is because it actually helps farmers to survive and allows land to have time to recover it's nutrients for plants. Farming is a renewable resource, but it does take time to renew the land.
Under a system of socialism we could use the land by need rather than greed and the farmers would not have to worry. So we create a sort of capitalist socialism which I admit does not work very well. There are certain systems which work much better under design and not by capitalism. Farming would seem to be one of them.
I'm sure there are 100's of other programs just like this, that could be cut as well...
One of the major drains to our deficit is also Social security, for a while it was bringing in more than it spent, in 2010 that changed.. Social security is an unfunded liability in that we have promised money to people we do not have. The money going in today goes to pay people today, there is no investing going on, and we have more money going out today than coming in today.. The difference btw Social security and Madoff is Madoff couldn't force people to pay and he couldn't pay people less than they put in. So we need to figure out a way to make this program an investment program one where we actually invest the money and get a return so the retirement savings is there for people. I think American's all know that this program is broke and likely are willing to take a haircut (some of the younger generations that is) and in return I'd expect the older generations to pitch in as well and take a haircut as well)... It was a program set up to pay out the last 2 years you were alive, now it pays out 20 some odd years. This isn't sustainable... Simple fixes need to happen or no one will have it in the future.
Again, you are not thinking of the reality. you have a system which is taking in money. Government and others see that income and want it, but it already has a purpose. one of the problems is that through things like investment and banking they figure out a way to get that money. They allow that money to be raided for other projects under the promise it will be paid back with interest. Sounds like a great idea on the surface to allow idle money to work for the economy and for SS to get more return than normal. the problem arises in that those loans and investments don't end up getting paid back. Social security should not be touched. privatising retirement has also failed because the way they do it is to form that future retirement money into other investments which are supposed to be good investments and as people found out they were selling them toxic loans the banks didn't want to get stuck owning.
Same thing goes for medicare we pay in 30 dollars and get out 100 dollars in benefits... I do not understand this program nearly as well, but we need to make it so 100 dollars goes in and 100 dollars comes out...
the problem with that idea is the people who medicare covers are not employed. The money for that comes from the present workers to cover the retired people. You cannot get more money from people who live on a income based on a finite savings. What really needs to be done is a reform int he medical industry. medical costs in all areas are way out of control, and then you pile on an insurance company who is giving money out to shareholders and executives and the problem gets even worse.
Social security and Medicare are two of the largest problems with our national debt biggest expenditures Social security being 882.7 Billion and medicare and medicaid 940.9 billion in 2013. Again I do not understand the medical side of things nearly as well, but I do understand simple math, money coming in doesn't equal money going out... Health insurance though is a business one that the private sector has run for years, so I'm willing to bet there are solutions that solve this problem...
private for profit health insurance companies are one of the huge problems with the medical industry. obama took a good step in forcing them to pay out most of their money to their customers. I think it should either be made into a government run and provided system, or at least toss it into the NFP category and remove investors and high paid corporate executives from it.