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Everyone says "cut the budget". Let's talk about what that might mean though.
1. One of the most popular refrains these days is "let's cut all foreign aid".
First of all foreign aid represents less than 1% of the total US Budget. If you eliminated all of it, you'd barely notice. Except you would notice the foreign policy implications of cutting it. The US gives substantial foreign aid to Israel, Egypt, and Pakistan. The aid to Egypt and Israel was given as part of a treaty designed to prevent further wars in the Middleast. Without this aid, the US would lose a huge chunk of influence in this region of the world. The chance of wars in this region of the world would, once again, increase. These wars would drive up the price of oil which would easily cost us several billion dollars more a year in gasoline and energy prices. The US would lose much influence in other areas of the world as well without foreign aid.
2. Another refrain is "let's cut the military since Al Quaeda is about dead and the Cold War ended twenty years ago".
Much military spending is for pensions for veterans and for VA hospitals. You want to cut that out? Veterans groups would say we have "dishonored veterans" and they'd be right. Closing VA Hospitals could have a dramatic economic effect on the communities in which those hospitals are located as well.
Than there are weapons programs. These probably do need to be cut, but always remember history has shown us that new threats to our security as a nation are constantly arising. Most people could not have predicted that World War II would have been followed by the Cold War. Nor, did anyone predict the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11. How far should we go?
3. Than there are those who want to scale back Social Security and Medicare. Be aware, that at age 52, I'm watching these people carefully. We have a rapidly ageing population in the USA because of the Baby Boom Generation. Many people are exiting a work force that has seen the end of defined benefit pension plans. Instead, they have been replaced with unreliable 401K plans. Radically changing Social Security is a recipe for pushing millions of elderly people into poverty.
Cutting spending severely has the potential for causing enormous harm to the economic, social, and security interests of this country.
Some spending cuts are necessary, but we need to be careful, we need to raise taxes on those who can afford them, and we need to realize that those in the Tea Potty calling for the wholesale elimination of government programs are not only wrong--they are dangerous.
Some of my neighbors would make a good analogy here. They live the good life in 6000 sq foot houses outfitted with pricey junk from various high-end home decor with 4 new cars, a boat, a motorhome, vacations to Europe,ect ect.
Turns out if you do a little digging, you find out many of them do it by having both spouses work full-time jobs pulling in 60-70K each and have loans on nearly everything they appear to own. They only barely get the monthly payments in.
Everything they have is worth less than they owe, so they can't just sell. They work their asses off and they aren't getting any raises, so they can't bring in more money. They are totally trapped and just keep plugging along month to month, trying hard to pretend the inevitable won't happen.
The federal government is in the same place, me thinks.
Let's just remember. Who creates money and for what purposes? I have no problem with welfare so long as it was being used correctly which it isn't. And perhaps the government first should remember the majority of things can be done without their involvement.
Some of my neighbors would make a good analogy here. They live the good life in 6000 sq foot houses outfitted with pricey junk from various high-end home decor with 4 new cars, a boat, a motorhome, vacations to Europe,ect ect.
Turns out if you do a little digging, you find out many of them do it by having both spouses work full-time jobs pulling in 60-70K each and have loans on nearly everything they appear to own. They only barely get the monthly payments in.
Everything they have is worth less than they owe, so they can't just sell. They work their asses off and they aren't getting any raises, so they can't bring in more money. They are totally trapped and just keep plugging along month to month, trying hard to pretend the inevitable won't happen.
The federal government is in the same place, me thinks.
Yeah, but the problem there. Is that EVERYONE will feel the pain from the government mismanagement instead of just five to six people.
Let's just remember. Who creates money and for what purposes? I have no problem with welfare so long as it was being used correctly which it isn't. And perhaps the government first should remember the majority of things can be done without their involvement.
"welfare" - what exactly do you mean by that? who's not using it correctly in your opinion. are the states not meeting the criteria to receive the flat rates (based on population) to receive the federal funds that are provided? i think a lot of people use this broad term "welfare" but don't actually define which assistance program they see issues with.
1.) The US shouldn't be giving aid to countries to buy weapons so they can commit genocide, foreign aid should be for humanitarian purposes and Israel has no shortage of food, etc. Also, contrary to your suggestion, US foreign aid is often destabilizing...
2.) Military wages/benefits and veterans benefits should not be off limits, these are interests groups like any other and have every incentive to extract large sums from tax payers.
3.) The failure of the baby boom generation to save for retirement is not younger generations fault, these people made an active choice to under save and they need to suffer the consequences of those actions. Social security and medicare will need to be cut and the cuts should largely effect the generation causing the problems....
One only has to look at Canada in the 90's and German in their cuts after the unification.One alos has to look at defense separate from all military spening like war spending. During Clinton's peace dividend he pretty much cut the defense spending to 4% and its pretty much remina their as CBO warned it was there to bring down the defcit like clinton used it. Another problem is growth which was booming as Clinto took over. Growth is the real key and as long as its like now even with pretty servere cuts we are facing a long tough road.That is also the only way unemploymnet is goign to drop because of consumer confidence and corporate confidnece to invest.But in teh end that confidence isn't goig anywhere when both see future liabilties and uncertinty in policy.That is why both consumer and corporations are reacting the same way now.Corporations are holding cash and consumers are paying down debt and saving.
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