degs wrote:
With annual trillion dollar deficits, we all know we are in deep fiscal trouble in this country. My question is what would you cut from the federal budget to save $200+ billion dollars a year?
With a number like that, these need to be significant ideas, not just tinkering kind of ideas.
There is only so much you can cut.
Just some items to throw out there, though.
Earmarks need to be eliminated. But that's a drop in the bucket.
Obamacare needs to be stopped because the end result is going to be skyrocketing healthcare costs and deficits. But that is just a preventative measure.
The duplication of Washington beauracry can be streamlined. Why do we need the FDIC if the CFPB is now going to call the shots? Why so many layers of intelligence agencies? It seems people create these agencies and keep them around just to have jobs for someone. The entire thing can be streamlined.
We need to continue looking at the social security retirement age. I'm not opposed to giving people the option to invest a small portion of their social security money in safe investments like bonds
The military should not remained untouched. No bid contracts need to be outlawed and military spending needs to be audited.
Why do we have troops all around the world where wars are not occurring?
How long is it going to take to wind down the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan completely?
Why do public sector employees make so much more and get pensions versus private sector employees?
Why are we the biggest donor to the United Nations, a body that other countries use to override the United States?
The remaining stimulus funds need to be pulled back and invested 100% in infrastructure, not in all the pet projects it has been siphoned for.
It is however going to require more than cutting spending. It is going to require considerable rethinking of our energy policy. Heavy investment in domestic oil and natural gas with an eye on sustainable energy for the future. I know many oppose oil and drilling due to the dangers it poses to the environment, but the oil we are not drilling for in international waters, someone else is and then selling it to us. So why not just get it ourselves until we have a better solution? Why buy from someone else what we can produce and even export ourselves?
Nuclear power needs to be a focus as well.
Ultimately, any successful business can only cut so much in costs and needs to produce something to generate revenue. I think that is the key for not only reducing the deficit, but eliminating the national debt.
Balancing the federal budget is not enough. You can be at $0 deficit and the national debt continues to grow on interest alone. This was documented during the Clinton years when we had budget surpluses but the national debt continued to grow anyway.
We need to become a country that manufacture's again, not that imports and consumes.
That is how we will ultimately balance our checkbook.