From a liberal to conservatives: why don't we audit government spending? (generation, health care)

[Chimuelojones]

Originally Posted by hawkeye2009

That was quite a tirade; I just feel terrible about myself now.

Conservatives want to control spending in ALL AREAS (we are broke)

1. Balanced Budget Amendment
2. 15% VAT
3. 20% flat income tax
4. corporate tax at 15%
5. Raise medicare and social security eligibility to age 72
6. Allow medicaid and food stamps for only three years of a ten year cycle
7. Close all foriegn military bases except one in each of four strategic theaters
8. earmark 5% of annual revenues for debt reduction
9. enforce illegal immigration- too much cheap labor drives down wages
10. restrict the actions of the EPA to congressional approval- they are unregulated
11. allow energy exploration on federal lands


You can have all the abortions, gay marriages, and drugs that you want. Just be fiscally responsible.

thats a great start..do you have any sacrifices to those making over 200K?

You have a lot of medicare, SSA, and food stamps but are kinda light on cuts to white collar dependents.

[Little-Acorn]

Originally Posted by TheHurricaneKid

I get it. Conservatives want defense, old people want their medicare, and everyone else wants their piece of the tax revenue pie.

So why don't we dig deep and audit the entire government of the United States?

Find out just how much we have of fraud, marked up favors to contractors, bridges to nowhere, and unnecessary luxuries being used by crooks.

I'm sure there is enough wasteful spending in a decade to pay for the audit and much more.

Because liberals (in both parties) keep blocking the effort.

Conservatives such as Ron Paul have pushed for auuditing various parts of the government for years. It keeps getting bottled up in committee, no matter which major party is in power.

Vote in more people who are closer to conservatism, such as TEA Party people, and you'll have a better chance of getting an audit done.

[Little-Acorn]

Originally Posted by Chimuelojones

thats a great start..do you have any sacrifices to those making over 200K?

Those people (that is, those making three or four times the average wage) are already paying ten or twenty times the taxes.

That's not "sacrifice" enough for you?

[ntwrkguy1]

Originally Posted by TheHurricaneKid

I get it. Conservatives want defense, old people want their medicare, and everyone else wants their piece of the tax revenue pie.

So why don't we dig deep and audit the entire government of the United States?

Find out just how much we have of fraud, marked up favors to contractors, bridges to nowhere, and unnecessary luxuries being used by crooks.

I'm sure there is enough wasteful spending in a decade to pay for the audit and much more.

I like your thinking. Yes, every special interest group wants their share, but it could be done equitably if...

........we did audit the entire government.

Part of the problem is "the system". Both sides are corrupt, and pork is present all over the place. "The system's" biggest flaw is that we allow people to make careers out of politics, and the money they can allocate via pork is their power, their political capital if you will. Eliminate career politicians (and ban them from lobbyists positions when leaving office), and some of the problem is eliminated.

You're right -- there is enough wasteful spending in the course of a decade to pay for the audit 1000 times over. By some estimates, the fraud in the medicare system is approaching $80-90 BILLION annually. Multiply that by a decade, and you're talking real money.

[BentBow]

Originally Posted by hawkeye2009

T

2. 15% VAT
3. 20% flat income tax

One or the other, but never both.

Income based take does not penalize everyone equally for living in the USA.
It makes no sense at all to penalize the more productive, than those not productive.

[Kibby]

Originally Posted by TheHurricaneKid

I get it. Conservatives want defense, old people want their medicare, and everyone else wants their piece of the tax revenue pie.

So why don't we dig deep and audit the entire government of the United States?

Find out just how much we have of fraud, marked up favors to contractors, bridges to nowhere, and unnecessary luxuries being used by crooks.

I'm sure there is enough wasteful spending in a decade to pay for the audit and much more.

They do "audits" every year. Senator Tom Coburn orders (and has posted on his Senate page) Congressional Research Reports on Waste and Fraud - constantly. The one he posted this week (and talked about on the Senate floor) was the enormous Fraud/Waste in the Social Security Disability Program - which is due to go broke in 2-3 years.

There is an Inspector General that does reports for every Agency and Department - they work on these all the time and post the reports. I can post links to some of the Audits if you like - I usually read most of them. There are "Sunshine groups" that track this stuff.

Bottom line is that the CongressCritters have learned that nobody really cares - nobody is much interested in this stuff except to complain every once in a while. We live in an American Idol world with few people even aware of our political leaders and what they do.

[Little-Acorn]

BTW, as long as government keeps taking more than half of everything people earn (as it does today), you're never going to arrive at a taxation scheme they will like. So I suggest you don't bother trying to increase taxes here while decreasing them there (also known as "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic"). UNTIL you stop taking away so much of everything they have.

[Little-Acorn]

Originally Posted by TheHurricaneKid

Conservatives want defense, old people want their medicare, and everyone else wants their piece of the tax revenue pie.

BTW, the first of those is authorized by the Constitution. The second and third are not, and so are forbidden to the Federal government.

Your auditors might want to keep this in mind, if they want to produce a useful result.

[Kibby]

Originally Posted by Winter_Sucks

This whole mess could be over if Boehner would stand up to the tea party. A deal to wrap the CR, debt limit hike, and a process to amend the Simpson/Bowles plan to allow Congress to tweak it would put the country on a sounder fiscal path. Boehner needs to stand up to the tea party because that's what you do to bullies.

This thread is about Audits, Fraud and Waste in the Government.

Are you suggesting that we won't need Audits and that Fraud and Waste will all just disappear if the House passes the "clean" CR that Obama and Reid are demanding?

Both Democrats and Republicans rejected the Simpson Bowles "plan" - they each wanted to "cherry pick" the parts THEY like best and ignore the rest.

[Three Wolves In Snow]

Originally Posted by TheHurricaneKid

I get it. Conservatives want defense, old people want their medicare, and everyone else wants their piece of the tax revenue pie.

So why don't we dig deep and audit the entire government of the United States?

Find out just how much we have of fraud, marked up favors to contractors, bridges to nowhere, and unnecessary luxuries being used by crooks.

I'm sure there is enough wasteful spending in a decade to pay for the audit and much more.

Some of us Conservatives voted for the guy who would do just that, but the lamestream media and all the sheeple laughed.