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What is the best solution for managing the national debt?

What is the best solution for managing the national debt?

  • Ignore it. It isn't a problem

    Votes: 1 4.3%

  • Ignore it. It will eventually go away.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Reorganize a repayment under bankruptcy

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Abolish the federal reserve and print money to repay debts.

    Votes: 1 4.3%

  • Drastically reduce government spending

    Votes: 18 78.3%

  • Drastically raise taxes

    Votes: 3 13.0%
  • Total voters
    23
  • Poll closed .
1. Give the President the Line Item Veto that can be overturned by the same number of Congressional Votes which original bill passed but as a stand alone item. I know, if would require a Constitutional Amendment.
2. Cut spending.
3. Give bonuses to federal workers who come up with creative ways to cut waste, with nothing squirrelly going on like create the waste in the first place in order to cut it for the bonus.
4. Raise taxes on companies that export jobs from America to overseas, whether directly or indirectly indexed in some way to the economic impact the loss of those jobs has on the American economy.
5. Allow American taxpayers to designate up to $1,000 of their annual taxes to federal agencies and expenditures of their choosing including paying down debt. If every American designated their whole $1,000 to pay off the debt, according to my fuzzy math, we'd have the debt paid off in a little over 30 years if we did nothing else.

PS. I think our secret debt retirement plan is oil on US land that is sitting there growing in value undrilled. The longer we leave it alone, the more valuable it gets as every other country depletes theirs. If we just have the will-power to hold out as long as possible, eventually the rest of the world will have used up theirs and we'll be sitting on the richest oil country in world history.
 
cpwill said:
Then it says if we do not cut entitlements, we will have to increase taxes by 88%.
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Since I pay 0% in income tax, what is 88% more? My income is really low, I have two kids and I usually get back $5,000-$7,000. I only pay in around $2,000-$3,000 in Social Security and Medicaid taxes. My employer only pays in around $2,000-$3,000 in Social Security and Medicaid taxes on my behalf.

I think poor people should be required to pitch in too. When I say poor, I don't mean people living on less than $2 per day. That's the global definition. I meant people earning less than $40,000 could help out too. They may not have to pay a lot of money but there are a lot of "poor people" so it would really add up. Some reason poor people are considered unpatriotic and unwilling to pay taxes. I think this is a numbers game to minimize the back lash of the masses. I really think we should all be Americans. This would include "poor" people.

vasuderatorrent
 
I'd say you don't need to do anything listed in the poll options. Clearly, your debt to GDP ratio is a problem and getting worse so you need to increase economic output or reduce spending or preferably both. You should ask yourself why your President, his economic and budget administration officials, and both houses of congress don't seem to have a multiyear budget that proposes a plan to scale back in-year deficits and move to a balanced budget. That's the first step, the most basic step.

Just by comparison, and it's a simplistic comparison admittedly - take Canada and the US in comparison.

Canada currently has a debt to GDP ratio of just over 30% - in the US, it's over 70%

Canada's Throne Speech this week - that's the government's statement on what it intends to do this year and years in advance - proposes that the country is on track to eliminate its in-year deficits by 2015 and is on track to have its debt to GDP ratio reduced to 25% at a minimum with a goal of 20% by the year 2020. Does anyone know what the Obama administration's goals or proposals are? Do they have any?
 
vasuderatorrent said:
What are the best options for solving the national debt problem if we ever see our self in a disaster scenario?

Bankruptcy? hyperinflation? less government spending? higher taxes? Something more creative that nobody has thought of?

I'm sure somebody has a good idea. Let's pretend doomsday is here. What do we do? Print money like a mad man? File for bankruptcy? Stop social security checks? Fire 75% of all federal employees? Go door to door collect taxes?

What ever shall we do? Oh my!

vasuderatorrent
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a flat tax rate meaning everyone has to pay more taxes when government spends more. Rather than the current scheme where the masses look to the rich to pay for all the government they want
 
Korimyr the Rat said:
Separate issue. Those programs do need drastic reform.
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...but the reform they require must include drastic reductions in expenditures. Those issues are not separate at all - on the contrary, you cannot talk about the one without talking about the other.
 
vasuderatorrent said:
Since I pay 0% in income tax, what is 88% more? My income is really low, I have two kids and I usually get back $5,000-$7,000. I only pay in around $2,000-$3,000 in Social Security and Medicaid taxes. My employer only pays in around $2,000-$3,000 in Social Security and Medicaid taxes on my behalf.
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They mean that rates would go up 88%. So you would no longer be able to bring your effective tax rate down to 0%, but it would be closer to your (now higher) nominal rate.
 
Hiram said:
Impeach Obama.
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Wouldn't really change anything. You would still get a Tax and Spend Liberal, but one highly enviroidiot centric as well, and half the congress will still be supporting no cuts. They have the White House until 2016, so until then, there can be no real improvement as there is no such thing as a fiscally responsible Liberal. Do you really think that party is ever going to go with someone like Brad Henry on the national level? Ain't going to happen.
 
vasuderatorrent said:
What are the best options for solving the national debt problem if we ever see our self in a disaster scenario?

Bankruptcy? hyperinflation? less government spending? higher taxes? Something more creative that nobody has thought of?

I'm sure somebody has a good idea. Let's pretend doomsday is here. What do we do? Print money like a mad man? File for bankruptcy? Stop social security checks? Fire 75% of all federal employees? Go door to door collect taxes?

What ever shall we do? Oh my!

vasuderatorrent
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You forgot one. Massive inflation. The only people who get hurt are those who are on fixed incomes. But who cares about them?

The first national debt was incurred during the Revolutionary War -- $75 million. How easy to pay THAT off with our inflated dollars, huh?

See? $100 trillion is nothing!
 
Reduce Spending = farm subsidies, foreign aid, major reduction in social programs, abolish ACA, base student loans on school grades, cut every government program by 35-40%
 
It looks like the best solution according to our audience is to drastically reduce government spending. Thank you to all 23 participants.

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thanks so much
 
Raise the **** outta those taxes, close all tax loopholes, raise corporate tax rate and close all those loopholes, give no subsidies out to major industries that dont need them at all, initiate the "robinhood tax", and cut spending in the military.
 
vasuderatorrent said:
What are the best options for solving the national debt problem if we ever see our self in a disaster scenario?

Bankruptcy? hyperinflation? less government spending? higher taxes? Something more creative that nobody has thought of?

I'm sure somebody has a good idea. Let's pretend doomsday is here. What do we do? Print money like a mad man? File for bankruptcy? Stop social security checks? Fire 75% of all federal employees? Go door to door collect taxes?

What ever shall we do? Oh my!

vasuderatorrent
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It would be a combination of raising taxes and reducing spending along with freezing the budget at current spending until it is balanced. If in FY 2012 we spent 3.7 trillion, then that is all that could be spent until the budget is balanced along with congress having the ability to move money around from agencies to other agencies and departments if needed.
 
Perotista said:
It would be a combination of raising taxes and reducing spending along with freezing the budget at current spending until it is balanced. If in FY 2012 we spent 3.7 trillion, then that is all that could be spent until the budget is balanced along with congress having the ability to move money around from agencies to other agencies and departments if needed.
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If an imaginary doomsday had arrived, as suggested above, there are going to be millions of people who are not now receiving government help that will find themselves in dire need of that help just to survive. 1) Where is that money going to come from if jobs are gone 2) what other countries would be willing to bail us out at that time 3) I think a balanced budget would be no problem, ie---nothing in, nothing out. 4) if we start printing money like crazy, how much would it take to buy a loaf of bread. Those are just few questions that came to mind...
 
polgara said:
If an imaginary doomsday had arrived, as suggested above, there are going to be millions of people who are not now receiving government help that will find themselves in dire need of that help just to survive. 1) Where is that money going to come from if jobs are gone 2) what other countries would be willing to bail us out at that time 3) I think a balanced budget would be no problem, ie---nothing in, nothing out. 4) if we start printing money like crazy, how much would it take to buy a loaf of bread. Those are just few questions that came to mind...
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No other country has the money to bail us out. You would be taking you monthly social security check down to the grocery store and come home with a dozen eggs and a loaf of bread and wait until next month's check.
 
Perotista said:
No other country has the money to bail us out. You would be taking you monthly social security check down to the grocery store and come home with a dozen eggs and a loaf of bread and wait until next month's check.
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Growing your own garden seems to be fashionable again, so maybe that's in store for those who could have never imagined themselves doing it before? Perhaps...
 
polgara said:
Growing your own garden seems to be fashionable again, so maybe that's in store for those who could have never imagined themselves doing it before? Perhaps...
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Live in the country, be well armed with plenty of ammo, have your garden and know how to make salt meat or smoke meat to preserve it. Know how to hunt and fish and be well armed. There will be mobs coming after your garden. Lean how to can and stock up on mason jars and pressure cookers. get a wood stove and furnace and be well armed. Did I mention be well armed and have plenty of ammo.
 
Perotista said:
Live in the country, be well armed with plenty of ammo, have your garden and know how to make salt meat or smoke meat to preserve it. Know how to hunt and fish and be well armed. There will be mobs coming after your garden. Lean how to can and stock up on mason jars and pressure cookers. get a wood stove and furnace and be well armed. Did I mention be well armed and have plenty of ammo.
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You did mention it in passing... :mrgreen: And I whole-heartedly agree with the rest of what you said also! :thumbs:
 
polgara said:
You did mention it in passing... :mrgreen: And I whole-heartedly agree with the rest of what you said also! :thumbs:
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That or vacate the county and go to one that doesn't have the dollar as their reserve currency. Thailand does, but Laos next door doesn't. Thailand first and then Laos is my plan. Almost all Lao can understand Thai, so language is no barrier and while I was in Laos I picked up some Lao there and my son in law is from laos, so we already speak a mixture of English, Thai and Lao in our home all the time.
 
Perotista said:
That or vacate the county and go to one that doesn't have the dollar as their reserve currency. Thailand does, but Laos next door doesn't. Thailand first and then Laos is my plan. Almost all Lao can understand Thai, so language is no barrier and while I was in Laos I picked up some Lao there and my son in law is from laos, so we already speak a mixture of English, Thai and Lao in our home all the time.
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I don't know where I'd go. My people are from Europe, so it sure wouldn't be any better there...probably worse!
 
polgara said:
I don't know where I'd go. My people are from Europe, so it sure wouldn't be any better there...probably worse!
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I don't know, I was only stationed in Germany once and that was from 1980-83. It will probably depend on how reliant the people are on government. those who are more self-reliant will be better off than those not.
 
Perotista said:
It would be a combination of raising taxes and reducing spending along with freezing the budget at current spending until it is balanced. If in FY 2012 we spent 3.7 trillion, then that is all that could be spent until the budget is balanced along with congress having the ability to move money around from agencies to other agencies and departments if needed.
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Bankruptcy could encourage those actions. Some local governments have filed for bankruptcy and nobody died as a result of it.
 
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