What's the best way to reduce the deficit?

[Smeagol]

I would support the Tea Party a lot more if they pushed for a constitutional amendment for replacing the income tax with a national retail sales tax and giving the POTUS the line item veto as opposed to their drive for a balanced budget amendment.

What do you think are the best ways to eliminate the deficit?

 

[jet57]

I would support the Tea Party a lot more if they pushed for a constitutional amendment for replacing the income tax with a national retail sales tax and giving the POTUS the line item veto as opposed to their drive for a balanced budget amendment.

What do you think are the best ways to eliminate the deficit?

The best way to put an end to all this is for the people of this country to apply enough pressure to the ones holding up the show that they stop doin' it.

 

[Bigfoot 88]

Well, there are only two ways: increase revenue to match shortfalls, or reduce expenditures to match shortfalls.

Cutting spending is the direction we need to go in.

Revenues will not rise until the economy is healthy again, and the economy will not be healthy again until the deficits are shrunken and the debt is being eliminated. It is best we get this process over with as quickly as possible, despite the protests of the "demand-siders".

 

[Daktoria]

Stop graduating adult children and actually demand that people behave maturely once adults.

That way, demand for social services goes down since people don't need them anymore.

 

[tessaesque]

1. Remove all federal redundancies (jobs, departments, services, etc).
2. Evaluate and eliminate non-essential employees.
3. Sell off or rent out government-owned buildings that have been empty for more than 1 year.
4. Decrease congressional salaries to the U.S. median wage, same with the senate.
5. Put a cap on the number of passengers/number of trips any elected representative (except POTUS) can take. Encourage "carpooling" for congressional reps from the same states.
6. Require contribution to pensions and health benefits for existing representatives.
7. Create pension disbursement caps based upon the length of elected service (i.e. 6 years = 6 year pension, etc).
8. Scrap welfare and replace it with a work-study program that ties a "package" of benefits into the recipient's participation in training for in-demand fields. Ensure that said fields will provide adequate income to meet the recipient's basic needs upon completion of training and acquisition of employment.
9. Tell the UN to suck off and discontinue our outlandish contributions to it's budget.

After we institute those changes we can address general percentage-based cuts to ALL departments of the fed, with audits done to determine how cuts should be applied (no more "we'll have to cut soldier pay! we'll have to fire teachers!" fear mongering).

And after those changes and the cuts have been implemented we can discuss a new taxation system that ensures all citizens not on some form of "welfare" are contributing tax money to fed operations. Remove subsidies for failed investments (i.e. corn ethanol). Remove subsidies from industries that make more than 30% profit post-tax. Encourage the development of new business ventures through incentives so that more revenue is produced in the long run through corporate taxes. Stop focusing on manufacturing as a source of jobs and corporate taxation, 'cause it ain't coming back unless and until the rest of the world catches up to us in wages and COB.

...just to start.

 

[Helix]

i support a combination strategy :

first : let the tax cuts expire for the top tier. i would also support bringing the middle class rates back to 1990s levels after the economy is solidly recovering.

second : when the economy begins to recover, we incrementally reduce spending in targeted areas. my preference is that we drastically reduce our military presence globally. our role in the world should be a humanitarian one. military interventionism should be replaced by coordinated food and health care relief for the developing world. we'll inspire a lot more people to embrace democracy if we come with food and American culture than if we come with bombs. the reason is that people are most inspired to action by seeing that others have it better than they do. it's my opinion that this was a big factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union. they saw blue jeans and rock and roll that they couldn't have. if we had invaded and forced democracy, it would have united the population against us.

third : we need to decide what our global product is going to be. my vote is for energy innovation, because that's something that everyone is going to need when oil runs out. but as a nation, we have to make something. consumption can't be our main national product anymore. i would fund this innovation both publicly and privately.


other :

we need a massive infrastructure rebuilding project that rivals the 1930s programs. this should include upgrades to the power grid. this could put many to work who are now idle and struggling.

 

[rathi]

Raise social security retirement age and implement means based testing.
Stop wasting medicare money on useless end of life procedures.
Raise capital gains rates and re-instate the estate tax.
Limit the total number of federal tax credits and deductions
Eliminate bad defense programs, starting with the LCS project.

 

[DaveFagan]

Raise social security retirement age and implement means based testing.
Stop wasting medicare money on useless end of life procedures.
Raise capital gains rates and re-instate the estate tax.
Limit the total number of federal tax credits and deductions
Eliminate bad defense programs, starting with the LCS project.

I agaree with all of these. As regards energy, we need to develop off-the-grid technologies and implement them on a National scale. I'm a Green and wind, solar thermal, solar PV, methane, local generation instead of Centralized Distribution of Energy. Local to include internal combustion generators with heat recovery of the exhaust heat (75% of the energy) and implementation of these local utilities makes local jobs and benefits local economies. That is a real key because we need a National agenda to stimulate employment and a new industry does just that. Not so good for the large Energy Corporations so they prevent any legislation that could establish footholds in these industries. That's the short story.

 

[Medusa]

Nationalize oil and natural gas on federal land and get into the enegry business like Saudi Arabia or A balanced budget amendment

 

[Daktoria]

When you have a divet, fill it with dirt.

That's what grandpa always said.

 

[Cephus]

Stop spending money we don't have on things we don't need. Eliminate riders on all bills. If it's important enough to be passed, it's important enough to be put up and evaluated on it's own. Severe and permanent cuts to welfare. Get people back on their feet, forcibly if necessary. Make people be responsible. The only people who ought to be on welfare are the people who are permanently and physically unable to perform any useful work, period. Eliminate welfare for single mothers entirely. You made the problem, you deal with it.

 

[kamikaze483]

I would support the Tea Party a lot more if they pushed for a constitutional amendment for replacing the income tax with a national retail sales tax and giving the POTUS the line item veto as opposed to their drive for a balanced budget amendment.

What do you think are the best ways to eliminate the deficit?

First balance the budget. Then make balanced budgets a contstitutional requirement. Then Increase the GDP, which will increase revenue to the IRS, ALL of which should be earmarked to pay off the debt.

How do we increase the GDP? We stop inhibiting business growth and expansion with oppresive and burdonsome regulations and tax increases.

 

[AdamT]

The answer is depressingly obvious: raise taxes, cut spending, entitlement reform.

I would be in favor of converting much of our tax system to a modified VAT (modified to make it more progressive). Military spending has to come down, federal pensions have to come down, and there should be smaller accross-the-board cuts. Social Security is fairly easy to deal with. Extend the retirement age a little, raise the payroll cutoff a little, and add a dash of means testing. Medicare is the 800 lbs gorilla. We need to cut the BS and face the fact that we have to have rationing -- particularly on out-of-control end of life care.

 

[TheLastIndependent]

It's really simple. You get the Chinese officials **** faced drunk, and while they are passed out you erase three quarters of our debt to them from their records. That would be the simplest method.

But, if you are into remaining legal in your efforts, I have a few ideas.

1)Lower the corporate tax- Businesses will be more productive-more personal income-more tax revenue from income taxes
2)Remove all "dumb" subsidies- For the life of me, I do not understand why oil companies are still receiving subsidies when they are putting out record numbers
3)Stop giving money to every country- Pakistan doesn't need our money, Saudi doesn;' need our non-oil related money, Israel doesn't need our money, we need our money
4)Raise upper tier taxes- I'm not whining for fairness because, well this raise is far from fair. The little bit of money is just a splash in the ocean, but ripples can become waves. Every penny counts when you're in debt.
5)Make intelligent cuts- We can't cut some things, they're just too important. But can somebody answer me why we have 47 fully functioning bases in Iraq? If you look at the map of the bases, there are several that are fairly close together. We don't need those anymore. Why do we have bases in Germany and Japan? They're their own countries and they can take care of themselves.
6)Institute a small-moderate tariff- Nothing more than maybe 3%-7%... We can raise money and it will give American companies at least a longshot in competing with China; plus, it will bring in extra revenue
7)Legalize Marijuana- We spend $500 Billion a year to stop Marijuana when we could probably be making double that in sales. It makes no sense why it is illegal
8)lessen length of welfare benefits- I don't care what the unemployment number is, there are plenty of jobs to be had. It ought to take no more than 4 months to find a job and an extra 2 to get situated period. How can illegal aliens come across and get a new job everytime they come but we have an 8.something unemployment percentage? Makes no sense. I'm not even a highschool graduate and I found a job in less than 2 weeks. Quit being lazy.

 

[Hatuey]

7)Legalize Marijuana- We spend $500 Billion a year to stop Marijuana when we could probably be making double that in sales. It makes no sense why it is illegal

We spend half a trillion dollars a years to stop marijuana? Hm. I think you've added an extra zero there champ.

 

[Ikari]

Massive, global Ponzi scheme.

 

[Daktoria]

More Avon sales. Tell people they need makeup to look good when getting elected.

 

[TheLastIndependent]

We spend half a trillion dollars a years to stop marijuana? Hm. I think you've added an extra zero there champ.

Woah... I did add an extra zero. Thanks for pointing that out. and it's actually less now that I have looked it up again (I was going purely off of shaky memory). It was $23.44 Billion in 2011. Either way, It's way too much


Edit: According to the Cost Clock we have already spent over $28 B this year

 

[Porchev]

I would support the Tea Party a lot more if they pushed for a constitutional amendment for replacing the income tax with a national retail sales tax and giving the POTUS the line item veto as opposed to their drive for a balanced budget amendment.

What do you think are the best ways to eliminate the deficit?

Back in the 90s a Republican run Congress gave a Democrat President the line item veto power, but then it was shot down by the Supreme Court, so unfortunately it was very short lived. I think the balanced budget amendment is a good idea, because it is always a good idea to only spend money that you have and not buy things on credit.

 

[Hatuey]

Back in the 90s a Republican run Congress gave a Democrat President the line item veto power, but then it was shot down by the Supreme Court, so unfortunately it was very short lived. I think the balanced budget amendment is a good idea, because it is always a good idea to only spend money that you have and not buy things on credit.

If that were true the overwhelming majority of this country would be living in abject conditions and would be unable to do things like buy a car or get a house. Credit is a necessary evil. It's "how much" that is the question.

 

[Paschendale]

Quit with the tax cuts for the rich people and the immensely wealthy corporations, and stop spending so much money on making war. Then invest in infrastructure and education so that more people will be qualified for more jobs. Stop allowing corporations to ship jobs overseas (by taxing them heavily for doing so) and then we can put people into those jobs, they can earn money, and use fewer benefits and pay more in taxes. Duh.

 

[Porchev]

If that were true the overwhelming majority of this country would be living in abject conditions and would be unable to do things like buy a car or get a house. Credit is a necessary evil. It's "how much" that is the question.

True, "how much" is actually the question. And right now the government is absolutely gone crazy with spending money it doesn't have. It is in debt up to it's eyeballs. So it needs to be reined in somehow. [About buying a car, I think a car can happen without a loan if one saved up for it, and/or worked their way up to a nice one. I haven't had car payments for many years and I am not rich by any means.]

 

[phattonez]

Eliminate the income tax. The feds won't be able to do nearly as much if we reduce the resources available to them.

 

[Zyphlin]

Cut spending across the board...from military to entitlements to foreign and corporate aid to domestic luxuries...Reform the safety net to better promote and help people remove themselves from it rather than simply survive on it. Consolidate redundant government agencies, work to streamline the beuracractic processes in government, and reduce federal pensions (this is coming from a guy who likely will end up recieving one). Up the age cap on Social Security, raise the maximum tax slightly, and begin a phased rremoval of the system replacing it with private government backed non-taxable, non-touchable savings accounts. Once the economy picks up a bit and significant cuts have been made, a small across the board tax increase could be looked at. Alternatively, impliment a 2% national sales tax on retail items, the money of which goes singularly to buying down our debt which reduces the payments we need to make to our debt which increases money to fight the deficit.

In theory I like the thought of a line item veto amendment or a balanced budget amendment that has the caveat that in cases of DECLARED War that it can be exempt. However unsure how well they'd work in practice.

 

[jamesrage]

What do you think are the best ways to eliminate the deficit?

Reduce federal spending.That means cut off all foreign aid, closing down over sears military bases and move those troops to our borders,cutting off grants, let states control the parks, cut off NASA, consolidate agencies, cut military spending(if the Navy is spending over 20 bucks a gallon for some eco-tard fuel then obviously the military has more money than what they know what to do with,crack down on tax return fraud and see if we can other cuts.


A balanced buget amendment would be a good idea assuming there is an exception for a national emergency like a mass weather/natural or mass nuclear disaster or war that is a direct threat to this country such as an invasion or a direct attack on in any of the US states or territories(excluding overs seas bases, embassies and anything else residing in another country) . The balanced budget should restrict spending to what the previous year's collections were(tax collections to pay off debt shall be subtracted from the previous year's total) after tax refunds were paid off. That balanced budget amendment should also include a rainy day fund amendment which shall be funded by a set percentage and shall only be used for those things in order to help alleviate the debt caused by those things. That amendment should also include prison time and a permanent ban for elected and appointed offices for politicians trying to divert money from the rainy day fund for things other than a mass weather/natural or mass nuclear disaster or war that is a direct threat to this country,unless they go through an amendment process. Now if all those things have been done and don't pay off our debt in a timely manner then there should be an amendment that raises taxes on everyone equally to pay off that debt and once that debt is paid off the tax rates decrease.