Long on taxes and short on spending cuts...DIW in fact.

Still, if taken as a whole, better than where we are now.

Some I like, some I don't. Getting rid of the AMT is a big thumbs up. Raising the capital gains tax and dividend rate, along with the higher social security taxes is a big thumbs down.

I don't pay a lot of attention to this stuff until it gets closer to entering conference. One thing is for sure, it won't be anything like what it is now.

Note limiting spending to 21% of GDP (or even close to that) kills ObamaCare.

Unless we make the kind of cuts the Brits are making, the economy will crash and crash hard.

The Fiscal Commission is asking us to pay higher taxes so that government spending can grow at twice the rate of inflation. More duplicity and more government growth.

No thank you.

Trey

Also, increasing the Fed gasoline tax would hurt business and raise the price of food. That is a bad idea. So is eliminating the deductibility of mortgage interest payments.

And there is no government reduction. The beast is fat and wanting to swallow still more, we cannot kill the beast, but we must tame and slim it.

Trey

They do speak of a token 10% cut in government employment. They also learned a lesson from the Clinton years when cuts to government payrolls were more than matched by increases in contractors. In this plan they also cut and limit contractors.

The only hope we have is in serious, painful across the board cuts.

It would also help if we reigned in the FED...their latest exercise in printing press money to the tune of $900,000,000,000.00 in QE2 is simply scary.

I really like almost all of the debt reduction plan. I would also like to see (if it could be implemented) a tax that is specifically designed to fund wars. I would think servicemen and families with servicemen in war zones would be exempt, but I really don't like wars that don't call for sacrifice from the general public. If we are going to fight a war, Americans should have to sacrifice and pay for it specifically, otherwise it is too distant and is just another part of "we are taxed too much".

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Also, increasing the Fed gasoline tax would hurt business and raise the price of food. That is a bad idea. So is eliminating the deductibility of mortgage interest payments.

And there is no government reduction. The beast is fat and wanting to swallow still more, we cannot kill the beast, but we must tame and slim it.

Trey

I think they are both great ideas. The problem is that old political saying, "Don't cut me, cut the guy behind the tree". Businesses would adjust and it would cut down on foreign dependence on oil. Why not cut the mortgage deduction for second homes and limit on very expensive homes. There is going to be pain, but no one wants pain unless it is you know all the people who aren't me.

Your plan is? Please refer to the actual budget figures and pie chart on wikipedia. Be specific.

Randy, entitlements are the bulk of the budget. I would end the medicare drug coverage. I would offer privatized social security. I would privatize or end medicare. Then I would lower the taxes used for those entitlements.

I would lower the fed part of welfare and require at least 20 hours work from those who are not bed ridden. I would drug test people on public assistance and cut them off for a month for a dirty drug screen. The savings used could pay for private addiction treatment for those who wanted it.

I would legalize marijuana and tax the hell out of it.

Those are things I would consider doing. I would get the government out of the charity business. It does not belong there and it does a horrible job. Oh and I would scrap Head Start and use 20% of the money to sponser private alternatives that could be tested to see if they work. Head Start, a really wonderful idea, does not work. I am not thinking that any learning opportunity can triumph over parental indifference and a culture that eschews education, but I would give it a try.

I would shrink the size of government by at LEAST 30%.

What would you do?

Trey

I've noted it before...a 5% across the board cut to all federal programs including entitlements followed by a 5 year freeze on all pay and benefits and a 10% cut in federal employment and a 10% cut in all forms of contracting to insure federal employees are not replaced by contract employees.

That would result in a savings of $50 billion per trillion spent per year...at least $150 billion a year.

There is not a single agency, entitlement or person relying on such entitlements who could not survive a 5% cut.

No new news on the entitlements....pretty much everyone knows it, just has been political suicide to try it.

I like the ideas that that the debt panel put forth. I have mixed feelings about privatizing social security. I just didn't see a lot of people suggesting it when we recently narrowly missed a depression. I think legalizing and taxing weed is a good idea actually. No argument from me there. I don't have a problem with cutting programs and I am far a simpler tax system although if they would just quit messing with it, that would be a good thing. I don't like using the tax system to try an manipulate the economy. It is for raising revenues and that should be it's only function. As stated above, I think there should be some way that Americans actually have to pay for the wars they fight. There should be some sacrifice besides the sacrifice of our men and women in the armed services.

How would you "privatize medicare" (or would you just throw old people under a bus or make them work till they drop). Hell, the only reason I am not retired is there is no way I can afford health insurance from the private sector (I am 63). Privatizing medicare probably truely would be a death sentence. The only people I know who can afford health insurance in their 60's before medicare are millionaires. I know one of those couples and they are both 60 and retired. He has adult onset diabetes. Guess what he pays in insurance premiums with like a 25k deductible?

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I've noted it before...a 5% across the board cut to all federal programs including entitlements followed by a 5 year freeze on all pay and benefits and a 10% cut in federal employment and a 10% cut in all forms of contracting to insure federal employees are not replaced by contract employees.

That would result in a savings of $50 billion per trillion spent per year...at least $150 billion a year.

There is not a single agency, entitlement or person relying on such entitlements who could not survive a 5% cut.

So what is the loss of revenue from taxes for these accoss the board cuts? What amount did you factor in. Just thinking out loud, how about loss sales tax revenue for states and locals from lost purchasing power. I would be interested in your formulas.

Paul Krugman has an interesting article in today's NYT on the debt panel.

On another note: why are we assuming we should cut the deficit?

A number of economists don't think we should worry about it. Indeed we should engage in massive stimulus spending for the economy and when the economy recovers we can pay down the debt.

Some argue that the previous deficit spending was far too small and that's why we are still in a slump. Japan is an example of too little def. spending.

I'm not advocating one side or the other but I think it's interesting that the populous at large has bought into the idea that we need to cut the def. and cut back spending when many economists don't agree. Of course some economists do agree and therein lies the debate.

From my experience watching these politicians over the years, whenever a politican gives a program, panel, or commission a really, really nice name for public consumption....it usually means the opposite.

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Indeed we should engage in massive stimulus spending for the economy and when the economy recovers we can pay down the debt.

LOL! The government prints up 'stimulus' money from the treasury and We (the people) pay down the debt that they (the bureaucrats) incur on us in the form of new taxation.

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I've noted it before...a 5% across the board cut to all federal programs including entitlements followed by a 5 year freeze on all pay and benefits and a 10% cut in federal employment and a 10% cut in all forms of contracting to insure federal employees are not replaced by contract employees.

That would result in a savings of $50 billion per trillion spent per year...at least $150 billion a year.

There is not a single agency, entitlement or person relying on such entitlements who could not survive a 5% cut.

So what is the loss of revenue from taxes for these accoss the board cuts? What amount did you factor in. Just thinking out loud, how about loss sales tax revenue for states and locals from lost purchasing power. I would be interested in your formulas.

Would tax revenues go down if society found the government was serious about balancing the books? I doubt it. I expect the economy would boom and tax revenues would grow, not drop.

Besides, the issue is not abut revenues but spending.

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I've noted it before...a 5% across the board cut to all federal programs including entitlements followed by a 5 year freeze on all pay and benefits and a 10% cut in federal employment and a 10% cut in all forms of contracting to insure federal employees are not replaced by contract employees.

That would result in a savings of $50 billion per trillion spent per year...at least $150 billion a year.

There is not a single agency, entitlement or person relying on such entitlements who could not survive a 5% cut.

So what is the loss of revenue from taxes for these accoss the board cuts? What amount did you factor in. Just thinking out loud, how about loss sales tax revenue for states and locals from lost purchasing power. I would be interested in your formulas.

Would tax revenues go down if society found the government was serious about balancing the books? I doubt it. I expect the economy would boom and tax revenues would grow, not drop.

Besides, the issue is not abut revenues but spending.

What? The issue is about the deficit which is the difference between revenue and spending? If the economny started growing at a double digit rate, there would be much less talk of the deficit. Ah, yes supply side economics. Where is that Stockman guy?

Don't get me wrong, I am a fisal conservative (but not a social conservative) but I am not sure that cutting government spending is the way to proceed out of a near depression scenario. I also beleive that most of the recent deficit hawks and tea party conservatives don't believe that we narrowly averted a very serious world wide depression. I don't think they believe the bailout helped prevent it. I can only say that if AIG went down (as in banktupt), you would see dominoes that actually exist in the form or banks and company after company filing for protection with unemployment soaring to depression levels.

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From my experience watching these politicians over the years, whenever a politican gives a program, panel, or commission a really, really nice name for public consumption....it usually means the opposite.

Well, perhaps we should model our taxes after Mexico and Turkey.

http://www.oecd.org/document/9/0,3343,en_2649_34487_41498313_1_1_1_1,00.html

I am in favor of enacting their program with the provision that parts of it could be modified by substitue legislation which maintains equivalent effects in spending/revenue. That way we could start on the path of reducing our outrageous debt, but we could modify the plan if a better approach (giving same results) can be devised and agreed upon by our legislators.

This format is hard to follow. I cannot tell where one post stops and another begins...that said, when one lauds FDR in the 1930's and his big spending big government approach to the depression one forgets that the rest of the world was in the same depression in 1932...Only we tried the new deal and only we had not pulled ourselves out of the depression by 1936-1938. Europe was pretty much back to normal before WWII while we were still spending and failing.

And yes, I do not believe the trillion or so piddled away over the last two years solved anything...it simply prolonged the mess.