76% here are against massive debt, annual budget deficits, & continuing resolutions, so where to cut spending? (weapons, companies)
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What about foreign aid? Look at all the money sent out. What about enforcing immigration laws, as ignoring those laws cost us billions of dollars per year? So, I'm thinking along the lines of starting cuts with those who don't pay a dime into the tax system.
Then cut the "fat", of which there is a ton. We have all heard of the "pork" that they add to bills/budgets. Didn't I hear something at one time that they were trying to allow for a "line veto", where they could veto a part of a budget/bill?
Cool group: Citizens against government waste, so it looks like they have been keeping an eye on the "pork":
"The Congressional Pig Book is CAGW's annual compilation of the pork-barrel projects in the federal budget. A "pork" project is a line-item in an appropriations bill that designates tax dollars for a specific purpose in circumvention of established budgetary procedures. To qualify as pork, a project must meet one of seven criteria that were developed in 1991 by CAGW and the Congressional Porkbusters Coalition."
I worked in the budget office of a military post, and I saw horrendous wastes of money. At the year end, the money left over was blown in just a few days at the end of the year. The offices worked hard to try to justify hiring more people. I just hated working for the federal government as it was always "you have to look busy or we could lose positions", but there was nothing to actually do.
The federal government offices should decrease staff by at least 20% with a goal of probably 30%, I mean, they were able to take off almost 3 years now and not work in the office, if they worked at all, so how necessary are they? Computers should have reduced staff, but they just keep growing.
We need to simplify federal taxes, and start eliminating positions at the IRS, who has became an element of the police state for Biden and his minions.
Also, strict term limits for all elected governmental officials would be beneficial!
"Within the executive branch, GAO identified 25 federal tactical teams, and the characteristics of these teams varied. The 25 tactical teams were across 18 agencies, such as agencies within the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Energy, and the Interior.Sep 10, 2020"
My first thought was preparing for "The Great Reset" and those that do not want to comply.
Thx for giving this topic so much thought...what a breath of fresh air to read such a well thought out post, and not some attempt at a 1 line zinger that falls flat.
This is hard bc of all the pork and the little pet projects they lobby for for their states.
I would say start by keeping our money in our own country and wean these other countries off of foreign aid (starting with Ukraine and yes, Israel).
I would call for new rules regarding spending bills so stuff isn’t getting snuck in and held hostage in negotiations later.
I fully believe our military is bloated but I also think they are underpaid so that whole thing needs adjusting. Personally it would be most effective if we would quit meddling in other countries’ affairs.
Get rid of the Dept of Ed and leave that to the states.
To address entitlements, the way it is handled currently is a mess so just overhauling that to make it more efficient would help at least. It would not be directly cutting the payments but minimizing the red tape.
i could agree with that, but only Libertarians woul agree, and we need to build a bigger tent to succeed.
They can choose to opt in to anything else they want from the government but everything else (especially transfer payments) must be self-funding.
Not to mention we also have 50 state governments and thousands of city and county governments.
Trying to manufacture consensus among 350 million people in 50 states spread out over 6,000 miles of territory is a complete waste of time. Californians can have their cradle to grave socialist utopia and Alaskans can shoot bears while being a petrostate and the federal government should only do the bare minimum.
Last edited by albert648; 03-17-2023 at 06:35 PM..
This is hard bc of all the pork and the little pet projects they lobby for for their states.
I would say start by keeping our money in our own country and wean these other countries off of foreign aid (starting with Ukraine and yes, Israel).
I would call for new rules regarding spending bills so stuff isn’t getting snuck in and held hostage in negotiations later.
I fully believe our military is bloated but I also think they are underpaid so that whole thing needs adjusting. Personally it would be most effective if we would quit meddling in other countries’ affairs.
Get rid of the Dept of Ed and leave that to the states.
To address entitlements, the way it is handled currently is a mess so just overhauling that to make it more efficient would help at least. It would not be directly cutting the payments but minimizing the red tape.
Good thoughts. The House has changed the rules about how laws are passed that should cut costs. They reversed the Nancy Pelosi rule that gives lawmakers too little time to read bills.
Defense defense defense. We spend stupid amounts on defense.
But it needs to start with raising revenue. The income inequality numbers are nuts right now.
Income inequalty is caused by gov't distorting the free market economy with pay to play, & other regs.
Bailing out banks is another example of distorting wealth/income gaps...especially that big one in California that had 93% of depositors having >$250k deposited there.
Revenues coming into the US Treasury have risen for 47 of the past 50 years, but we still fall further into debt.
That proves that we do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.
Even during the Trump "tax cuts", revenues INCREASED! It wasnt a tax cut at all it was a tax increase.
Income inequalty is caused by gov't distorting the free market economy with pay to play, & other regs.
Bailing out banks is another example of distorting wealth/income gaps...especially that big one in California that had 93% of depositors having >$250k deposited there.
Revenues coming into the US Treasury have risen for 47 of the past 50 years, but we still fall further into debt.
That proves that we do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.
Even during the Trump "tax cuts", revenues INCREASED! It wasnt a tax cut at all it was a tax increase.
Completely agreed. The 2019 federal government budget was larger than the GDP of Japan and larger than the market cap of Saudi Aramco and Apple combined (2 of the 10 largest companies on Earth by market cap).
Eliminate redundancy. If you want the feds to have something to do with say school lunches then give it all to one agency and w9rk efficiently.
Bring troops home so they are spending their salaries here.
End the end of year spending orgy.
Get the feds out of things they shouldn't be involved in
Cut out the 10 year rule. You know it. This bill will save 100 billion OVER THE NEXT 10 YEARS. Then we never hear of it again.
Make federal employees, including congress, accountable to their estimates. They say this will only cost 5 billion and by the time it's done, if it even is, the cost is 50 billion.
Somehow get long term thinkers.
I don't believe in a Ross the board cuts. Make every agency justify their existence and cut it all if they can't.
Just a start
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