Can You Close the Budget Deficit?
It's a deficit calculator over on the AARP site. It allows you to make spending cuts and other decisions to close the deficit. Give it a try and you'll wonder what all the political wrangling is about.
And it's good to wonder about that.
I cleared the deficit with 8 choices. So it really doesn't seem all that hard.
Oh, wait, I just did it again with 7 choices.
Your goal is to get to 607 Billion. If you allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, yer halfway there.
What were my other 6 choices?
1. I reduced the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
2. I capped medical malpractice insurance and lawsuits.
3. I closed the Private Investment Corp. (This helps U.S. Corps build and invest in projects overseas. Don't know about y'all but I don't think they really need help with that.)
4. I eliminated overseas trade promotion. (This would limit overseas trade promotions and government marketing for U.S. products.)
5. I enacted a carbon tax. (In my perfect world, this would be paid by the manufacturer and they could earn credits for anything they did to HELP the environment and clean up our planet.)
6. I limited tax benefits for itemized deductions to 15%.
But there's other things on that list that I would do as well. Like cut the budget for the White House and Congress by 15% and reduce the number of government contractors. I'd end ear marks. I'd also enact the the efficiency initiatives proposed by Robert Gates and cut ship building and cancel the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle contract. The design on those things isn't good anyway.
I could have our government operating on a large surplus without touching education or Social Security or Medicare.
I even left in funding for NPR.
So why can't our law makers do the same?
No comments:
Post a Comment