What should the USA reduce or eliminate funding for? (Iraq, regular, Whitehouse)

[Evlevo]

The budget fight over Iraq war funding has been in the news lately...

What item in the US Budget (The war, oil company's subsidies, UN Funding, etc) do you think we should reduce funding for, or eliminate completely?

Please give your item, and then a quick description of why. Lets try to limit the first few posts to "item & explanation" before we try to argue why someone else's post is wrong

I'll start...

I think that we over-fund the Department of Defense. If we are talking about Defense, $600 Billion a year is overkill (regular plus supplemental budget)... I don't think we are using the DOD for just Defense, and it is the Offense that is costing us all the money.

[KoZmiC NinJa]

Military and oil co. give-a-ways....
Does it really need anymore explanation ?

[ontheroad]

Here's a chart which is pretty reliable (I double checked at the whitehouse site to confirm).

I probably wouldn't decrease funding in any given area, but I do see overlap and if we have overlap we undoubtedly have redundant funding. Consolidation and streamlining our resources and down-sizing large departments may be a huge savings--allowing for some changes in funding streams. And, although the percentages appear small in some cases, the total numbers are very high (see Justice).

Image:Fbs us fy2007.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[doc1]

Department of education. Let the states run their schools.

Maybe the Dept. of Energy? What does it really do or rather what dos it accomplish?

[mhouse2001]

The Wikipedia chart might reflect the budget, but it doesn't reflect the bills. Defense is more than 50%.

As much as I believe defense spending should be not just cut, but eliminated, the reality is that the American population isn't ready to accept peace. It's too much in love with war, which means more spending, and more war, and more spending, etc.

[Hawkeye48]

Cut Department of Defense drastically. Even in peace time the DOD takes up far too much revenue, and we can't afford to keep doing it.



For those of you who want to try it, experiment with this online budget simulation. It's harder to balance the budget than you would think because there are so many fixed expenditures.


National Budget Simulation (broken link) (short version)

National Budget Simulation (broken link) (long version)

[Evlevo]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye48

Cut Department of Defense drastically. Even in peace time the DOD takes up far too much revenue, and we can't afford to keep doing it.



For those of you who want to try it, experiment with this online budget simulation. It's harder to balance the budget than you would think because there are so many fixed expenditures.


National Budget Simulation (broken link) (short version)

National Budget Simulation (broken link) (long version)

Wow, simply "eliminating" the Bush tax cuts reduces the deficit by 75%!

And if you recind the tax cuts, stop the war in Iraq and increase the VA by 10%, you're there! (But then again I don't have lobbyists after me)

Great link!

[doc1]

Originally Posted by mhouse2001

but eliminated, the reality is that the American population isn't ready to accept peace. It's too much in love with war, which means more spending, and more war, and more spending, etc.

If the DOF were eliminated, how would we defend ourselves?

If you know people that are in love with war, get away and stay away from them. I know lots of people of varying politcal stripes but none like that.

[Southpoint]

Eliminate ALL tax loopholes. No tax deductions for anything and then simplify the tax code.

Cut off funding to ALL countries outside the US and to UN. If people want to give money to other countries, do it via charities.

Bring MOST troops home to protect our borders and pump MORE money into intelligence and defense. The heck with countries that hate us.

Eliminate 50% of social programs (aka, hold people back programs, rather than teaching people to be self sufficient).

THE most important thing the country can do, but will never be done is pass a new law that only ONE bill can be voted on at a time. It is either YES or NO on each individual bill. This would eliminate the pork barrel spending that is ruining this country. However, the Democrats AND Republicans will never go along with that, as it IS how they get in money for their buddies.