I would cut defense spending in half (so we only spend three times as much as our nearest competitor.)
Close bases in most parts of the world.
Quit giving subsidies to oil companies.
Raise taxes on the rich.

And as a preemptive strike to the RWN who will come in here and say "I would cut food stamps, welfare, medicaid and all social aid programs" - give it up. Cutting those programs to zero would impact the budget about as much as a fly hitting my car impacts the windshield.

Answer:

 

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I would stop paying for anything and continue to take in taxes until the country melted in on itself. Then I would hand out lollipops and loafs of bread.

 

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It would take a decade to balance the budget at least unless you did some crazy math in order to claim the budget was balanced.


I think the key to fixing the budget is cutting defense spending and reforming spending there, reforming healthcare to be a UHC system that has far better fiscal constraints, reforming taxation, and balancing the trade deficit. I would also try and integrate all social welfare stuff into one system. EITC, food stamps, housing, Medicaid, education, etc all should be considered as one plan instead of different programs.


The other major issues are oil, transporation, and inflation. These issues are not necessarily budget deficit issues but need to be addressed.


Education also needs to be addressed. We need to leverage the massive amount of money we spend on education to achieve efficiencies while also providing more choice.

 

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I would start by using spell-check.

 

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Flying monkees


That would be my starting point.

Any plan that doesn't involve cutting both defense and welfare programs doesn't involve enough money to actually balance the budget.

Also, we spend way more on social programs than on defense. Saying that cutting those programs would have zero impact is mentally deficient.

 

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That would cost money


Just like a woman - spend spend spend


That's how you know Rosa is a check!

 

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Honestly I think that very few conservatives seriously consider cuts like these to be meaningful. The "waste" with these programs is a tiny drop in a huge bucket of waste from other programs and corporate welfare and pork in general. Yes social program spending is high, but I believe most of it is necessary, and so should any sane, rational person. In time, under wholly different economic circumstances, sure, some of the social programs could be phased out, but they are necessary for now and for the foreseeable future.

However, what these programs DO show is ineptitude of government run programs and that's most often why conservatives point and laugh at them so frequently.

Anyone in their right mind knows that we need some social programs and that the abuses of them by actual citizens is relatively minimal. Abuses of them by corporate entities however, is grotesque in a lot of cases.


A note on government programs too just in general:

The prime directive of any government office, organization, or program, is self preservation. The service that the office itself performs is a distant second. That is not to say that individuals working in such programs aren't "believers" and aren't genuinely interested in helping and providing the services to other individuals, but that the organizations themselves are less interested in that than they are in their own survival as an entity.

You can see this anywhere you go and look at any sort of government run organization by comparison to private enterprise.

A government run business is more interested in when it closes and will shut the door in the face of a customer as the clock strikes "closing time". A private business, especially a small one, will see that customer coming and think of it as a possible sale and thus serve them.

A government run business isn't interested in providing any better service than what is the bare minimum requirement. A private enterprise must compete with other businesses and so, strives to serve its customers...

Anyway, my remarks are a bit afield of your original premise so I'll shut up about that topic now.


As for how I'd cut the budget, I'd probably do mostly what you've said above, though I'd clean up the tax code and not necessarily raise tax rates per se, but get rid of tax loopholes and exemptions so that people actually paid taxes. Of course that would be a de facto raise in taxes, and the distinction I'm making is semantic, but no more so than all the other arguments about high tax rates and whatnot.

 

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You went to school with Ash, didn't you.

 

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