This is fun... and disturbing at the same time.
Pick and choose from a number of current proposals on Federal spending and taxes and see the results for the projected 2015 and 2030 deficits.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?hp
What I did:
Cur foreign aid in half. If they want roads, let's send US Army Engineers and build roads. If we want to pour money into corruption and graft...
Eliminate earmarks. No-brainer.
Cut pay of civilian federal workers by 5%. Unsure about this one.
Reduce the Federal workforce by 10%. I'd like to know more about what's being cut, but in general I'm in favor.
Cut 250,000 government contractors. As previous item.
Cut aid to states by 5%. Only because there was no option to cut it by 100%. Let each state pay its own way.
Reduce military to pre-Iraq War size and further reduce troops in Asia and Europe. Again I'd like more details, but I'm generally in favor.
Reduce the number of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to 30,000 by 2013. Only because there was no option to order a complete pull-out effective immediately. Clearly the political leadership has no interest in winning those wars, so it is time to cut our losses.
Enact medical malpractice reform. Ho-yah! Let's have doctors treating patients and not doing needless paperwork.
Increase the medicare eligibility age to 70. This was a toughie, but 100 billion is a good incentive.
Raise the Social Security retirement age to 70. As above. Almost a quarter of a trillion dollars.
Reduce Social Security benefits for those with high incomes. If you've got high income why do you need social security?
Tighten eligibility for disability. Disabled people who still work... am I the only one who sees a problem here?
Allow expiration for income above $250,000 a year (tax cuts). No brainer. If you make over a quarter of a million dollars a year you don't need a tax cut.
Allow expiration for income below $250,000 a year. Again I was unsure, but figured I should pay my share too. Plus, another quarter of a trillion dollars.
Payroll tax: Subject some incomes above $106,000 to tax. Only because there wasn't an option to subject all incomes above $100,000 to tax.
Millionaire's tax on income above $1 million. Again...
My savings come out to 46% from taxes, 54% from spending cuts. I managed to get a surplus in 2015, and cut the 2030 deficit to $18 billion from over $1 trillion.
That was my first pass. I then decided to see what it would take to get that last $18 billion.
After some debate, I chose:
Cap Medicare growth starting in 2013. Note this just ties the maximum rate of increase to GDP growth. I don't think that's the best method, but it is a start.
I run almost $200 billion surplus in 2015 and over half a trillion in 2030.
Chance of this happening: 0. Nada. Snowflake's chance in Hades, excluding the sixth circle.
Oh well.
What would you do?
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1 comment:
That was interesting - though rather simplistic. They left off one major cost that is really important to Congress: how many votes will this cost you next election?
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