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View Full Version : Smoke and mirrors - reducing the budget to pre-2008 levels




tangent4ronpaul
01-22-2011, 01:20 PM
here's the kicker - non-mandatory, non-defense (which they have re-phrased to non-security, so all that police state on steroids spending is off limits too).

How much money are we talking about here? Well, here's the 2010 budget:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget

Total budget: $3.55 Trillion (actually $3.900+ Trillion in spending)
Mandatory Spending: $2.47 Trillion (SS, Medicare, Medicaid, Interest, etc)
Department of Defense: $964 Billion
Department of Homeland Security: $43 Billion

That leaves us with $73 Billion on the table that we are going to "roll back" to pre 2008 spending levels. Well, wait - couple of gottcha's here: Some Department of Justice, and Department of energy spending is hands off (security and maintaining nukes). Also, while the budget was $3.55 Trillion, the government spent almost $4 Trillion.

Lets look at this just from the perspective of discretionary spending:
2010: 1.368 Trillion. After removing defense spending that leaves ~$368 Billion.

Numbers for 2007 Discretionary spending are a bit hard to find, but I did find this chart for 2007 non-defense discretionary spending:

http://perotcharts.com/2008/05/non-defense-discretionary-spending-in-2007/

that says the number was $493 Billion

So the Repubs want to cut non-defense discretionary spending from it's 2010 levels of $368 Billion to it's 2007 level of $493 Billion resulting in a total savings of NEGATIVE -$128 Billion!!!! (before things like aid to Israel, DoJ and the parts of police state funding that have been shoved off onto just about every other agency of the federal gvmt are protected from cuts).

That can't be right. Well, the Budget committee is arguing that it would cut 1 in 6 non-defense discretionary dollars. From 2010 levels, that would mean a savings of $168 Billion total. Or roughly what Congress spends every 2 weeks. WOW! - I'm soooo impressed! - NOT!

That 2.5 Trillion over 10 years in cuts ($250 Billion a year) looks better. At this rate, we could pay off the deficit in 56 years, before factoring in interest. Except that no one is talking about paying off a penny of the debt.

What is most disconcerting is they want to pass this resolution before they have firm numbers and leave what is cut up to one committee chairman. Does this sound familiar? Maybe like "you have to pass it to find out what's in it" Pelosi and a bunch of non-accountable, appointed bureaucrats doing the fine grain that we have to live with?

Has anything changed? Did Congress get the memo that we wanted serious reform and not an endless series of dog and pony shows?

When you think about it, this country could be in the black again in 4-5 years if it axed the regulatory agencies, brought our military back home and downsized everything in the government to Constitutional levels, while still keeping social security, medicare and medicaid.

Pure insanity!

-t

tangent4ronpaul
01-22-2011, 01:42 PM
Here is a radical thought. Congress has to pass 14 appropriations bills a year to fund agencies. Lets make that number 12. Then take total receipts to the government, take Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and interest on the debt off the top. Of what's left, take 10% off the top and use it to pay off the debt. Of the remainder, divide by 12 and put a Debt Clock like counter in the House with a soft stop when only the appropriation amount for that month is reached. If people want to spend more, they will have to take it out of the appropriation budget for that month, which will be the last thing voted on. Whittling it down could be done anytime during the month. When the counter hits zero, no more spending that month.

It will never happen. It would be too much like having to do a family budget - that makes too much sense.

-t

Stary Hickory
01-22-2011, 02:25 PM
I get sick of Republicans refusing to cut defense as much as I hate Libs who won't get rid of their wealth redistribution schemes. I don't know why Republicans think people wat to hear this krap...non defense cuts....there is plenty of bureaucracy and bloat in defense. Just like in the welfare state.

Most of the expense is useless organizations and useless leadership positions filled by useless leaders. Not to mention overseas bases and wars, which are just about getting preposterous to keep continuing. I mean obviously its ludicrous to continue like this.

The GOP had better wake up and separate itself from the asscheeks of the Security Racket.