1 year, 7 months ago
How would you balance the United States Federal Budget?
I am curious how people would go about balancing the budget.
What i would need to see is specifically which departments you would cut (or raise) and which taxes you would raise (or cut) to achieve a balanced budget.
Please show exactly what you would cut and why. If you raise taxes please say with taxes would be raised and why.
Below i have pasted in the budget data from wikipeida for 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget
Total Raised by taxes: $2.381 trillion
$1.061 trillion – Individual income taxes
$940 billion – Social Security and other payroll tax
$222 billion – Corporation income taxes
$77 billion – Excise taxes
$23 billion – Customs duties
$20 billion – Estate and gift taxes
$22 billion – Deposits of earnings
$16 billion – Other
Total Spending: $3.55 trillion
Mandatory spending: $2.184 trillion (+15.6%)
$677.95 billion – Social Security
$571 billion – Other mandatory programs
$453 billion – Medicare
$290 billion – Medicaid
$164 billion – Interest on National Debt
$11 billion – Potential disaster costs
Discretionary spending: $1.368 trillion (+13.1%)
$663.7 billion – Department of Defense (including Overseas Contingency Operations)
$78.7 billion – Department of Health and Human Services
$72.5 billion – Department of Transportation
$52.5 billion – Department of Veterans Affairs
$51.7 billion – Department of State and Other International Programs
$47.5 billion – Department of Housing and Urban Development
$46.7 billion – Department of Education
$42.7 billion – Department of Homeland Security
$26.3 billion – Department of Energy
$26.0 billion – Department of Agriculture
$23.9 billion – Department of Justice
$18.7 billion – National Aeronautics and Space Administration
$13.8 billion – Department of Commerce
$13.3 billion – Department of Labor
$13.3 billion – Department of the Treasury
$12.0 billion – Department of the Interior
$10.5 billion – Environmental Protection Agency
$9.7 billion – Social Security Administration
$7.0 billion – National Science Foundation
$5.1 billion – Corps of Engineers
$5.0 billion – National Infrastructure Bank
$1.1 billion – Corporation for National and Community Service
$0.7 billion – Small Business Administration
$0.6 billion – General Services Administration
$19.8 billion – Other Agencies
$105 billion – Other
What i would need to see is specifically which departments you would cut (or raise) and which taxes you would raise (or cut) to achieve a balanced budget.
Please show exactly what you would cut and why. If you raise taxes please say with taxes would be raised and why.
Below i have pasted in the budget data from wikipeida for 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget
Total Raised by taxes: $2.381 trillion
$1.061 trillion – Individual income taxes
$940 billion – Social Security and other payroll tax
$222 billion – Corporation income taxes
$77 billion – Excise taxes
$23 billion – Customs duties
$20 billion – Estate and gift taxes
$22 billion – Deposits of earnings
$16 billion – Other
Total Spending: $3.55 trillion
Mandatory spending: $2.184 trillion (+15.6%)
$677.95 billion – Social Security
$571 billion – Other mandatory programs
$453 billion – Medicare
$290 billion – Medicaid
$164 billion – Interest on National Debt
$11 billion – Potential disaster costs
Discretionary spending: $1.368 trillion (+13.1%)
$663.7 billion – Department of Defense (including Overseas Contingency Operations)
$78.7 billion – Department of Health and Human Services
$72.5 billion – Department of Transportation
$52.5 billion – Department of Veterans Affairs
$51.7 billion – Department of State and Other International Programs
$47.5 billion – Department of Housing and Urban Development
$46.7 billion – Department of Education
$42.7 billion – Department of Homeland Security
$26.3 billion – Department of Energy
$26.0 billion – Department of Agriculture
$23.9 billion – Department of Justice
$18.7 billion – National Aeronautics and Space Administration
$13.8 billion – Department of Commerce
$13.3 billion – Department of Labor
$13.3 billion – Department of the Treasury
$12.0 billion – Department of the Interior
$10.5 billion – Environmental Protection Agency
$9.7 billion – Social Security Administration
$7.0 billion – National Science Foundation
$5.1 billion – Corps of Engineers
$5.0 billion – National Infrastructure Bank
$1.1 billion – Corporation for National and Community Service
$0.7 billion – Small Business Administration
$0.6 billion – General Services Administration
$19.8 billion – Other Agencies
$105 billion – Other
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M$1 Answer
A complete answer to this question might fill a couple of dozen pages, so just to get things started lets look at one or 2 categories. $105b in spending on other!! Exactly what is other? 'Other' might be "research on why paper cuts hurt more than a knife cut, a study of the american bullfrogs mateing habits, etc.. While some of this spending is ridiculous, I'm sure some can be found to be legitimate. We've given our elected officials carte-blanch to spend our tax dollars in an arbitrary manner and we need to hold them accountable for excessive spending.
Defense speding of almost 664 billion can be slashed by requireing the different branchs of the military work togehther when it comes to development ofnew weapon systems. The current policies foster a "mine will be bigger and faster than yours" attitude leading to development costs repeated for each new project. Defense spending can be cut by the 10's of billions.
Most Government agencies have progams that overlap with other agency programs, resulting in duplicate spending. Case in point: the department of Housing has a lead-based paint abatement program almost identical to a program administered by HHS and the EPA. Slash each agency by $500 million.
Everyone complains about SS. If it where privitized, allowing the mandatory SS tax to be deposited in a modified 401(b) type investment vehicle, SS would nave no worry of going broke and retirees can be assured of having a retirement 'nest-egg'. I'd love to see a line by line accounting of anything listed as 'other' or 'discretionary'. That's a start, keep it going.
Defense speding of almost 664 billion can be slashed by requireing the different branchs of the military work togehther when it comes to development ofnew weapon systems. The current policies foster a "mine will be bigger and faster than yours" attitude leading to development costs repeated for each new project. Defense spending can be cut by the 10's of billions.
Most Government agencies have progams that overlap with other agency programs, resulting in duplicate spending. Case in point: the department of Housing has a lead-based paint abatement program almost identical to a program administered by HHS and the EPA. Slash each agency by $500 million.
Everyone complains about SS. If it where privitized, allowing the mandatory SS tax to be deposited in a modified 401(b) type investment vehicle, SS would nave no worry of going broke and retirees can be assured of having a retirement 'nest-egg'. I'd love to see a line by line accounting of anything listed as 'other' or 'discretionary'. That's a start, keep it going.
source(s):
30 years employed by Federal Government, (now retired and not wealthy)
30 years employed by Federal Government, (now retired and not wealthy)
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M$
Granted, the point was to balance the budget. That happens to be something that may just not be possible given our current government policies. My point was to show that while it's a difficult problem, there are some rational changes that can be made to the methods the government uses to spend our tax dollars. Now that I've retired I may just sit down and start writing a book, title to be "the Idiots guide to a balanced budget".
The point was to get a detailed answer. You need to at the least balance the budget.