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FrankRep
04-06-2011, 01:21 PM
http://www.thenewamerican.com/images/stories2011/09aApril/imfworkingpaper-t.001.jpg



Economists at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned of U.S. government finances in disarray and out-of-control entitlement and health-care spending in a report that predicted significantly higher taxes for Americans, even with less government spending.


IMF Economists: Huge U.S. Tax Hikes Needed (http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/commentary-mainmenu-43/7013-imf-economists-huge-us-tax-hikes-needed)


Alex Newman | The New American (http://www.thenewamerican.com/)
06 April 2011


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http://www.thenewamerican.com/images/stories/Econ_9_10/2619-cs.jpg (http://www.shopjbs.org/index.php/tna/subscriptions/1-year-standard-subscription.html)


2010: The Emerging Global Federal Reserve (http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/economy/economics-mainmenu-44/4602-the-emerging-global-fed)


As powerful as the Federal Reserve is, just imagine how much more powerful a global Fed would be in terms of its ability to control the global economy and an emerging world currency. By Alex Newman

2010: Waking up to a World Currency (http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/economy/economics-mainmenu-44/4591-waking-up-to-a-world-currency)


If global financial elites have their way, America will move quickly toward accepting a planetary fiat currency (a currency not backed by a precious commodity like gold) issued by a world central bank. by Alex Newman

2010: IMF Report Promotes Global Fiat Currency, World Central Bank (http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/economy/economics-mainmenu-44/4262-imf-report-promotes-world-currency)


An April report from the International Monetary Fund promoting a world central bank and a global fiat currency went totally undetected by the global press for months, but after a blog post earlier this month, it is now in the media spotlight. By Alex Newman

FrankRep
04-06-2011, 01:34 PM
Better Solution:


http://www.thenewamerican.com/images/stories/Econ_9-2009/2613-lw.jpg


2010: Alternative Currencies (http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/economy/economics-mainmenu-44/3738-alternative-currencies)

Congressman Ron Paul has introduced a bill called the “Free Competition in Currency Act” (H.R. 4248), which would end the government-enforced monopoly by repealing “legal tender” laws, allowing private mints, and eliminating taxes on gold and silver coins. by Alex Newman

Zippyjuan
04-06-2011, 02:03 PM
They are not wrong. It is impossible to balance the budget only via cuts. They also suggest cutting welfare programs like Social Security and Medicare by 35% to put them on more fiscally stable footing. Link to their piece: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2011/wp1172.pdf

We find that the U.S. fiscal and generational
imbalances are large under plausible parametric assumptions, and, while not much affected
by the financial crisis, they have not improved much by the passing of the Final Healthcare
Legislation. We find that, under our baseline scenario, a full elimination of the fiscal and
generational imbalances would require all taxes to go up and all transfers to be cut
immediately and permanently by 35 percent. A delay in the adjustment makes it more costly.


The United States is facing an untenable fiscal situation due to the combination of high fiscal
deficits, an aging population and rapid growth in government-provided healthcare benefits.
IMF and Congressional Budget Office forecasts imply that U.S. debt will rise rapidly relative
to GDP in the medium to long term (Figure 1).
Since a large part of the U.S. fiscal liabilities relate to commitments to future transfers (under
federal entitlement programs) that will generate outlays in coming years, traditional fiscal
indicators like the current fiscal imbalance or the stock of federal debt cannot capture well
issues of fiscal sustainability nor give indications of the fiscal adjustment necessary to
stabilize the debt permanently relative to GDP. Equally, they cannot measure whether, in the
light of that adjustment, future generations will face an equal fiscal burden to current or past
generations. With this in mind, this paper measures the U.S. fiscal imbalance and assesses the
long-run sustainability of the U.S. fiscal structure. It then applies the methodology of
generational accounting to establish how the burden of adjustment required to attain fiscal
sustainability is shared across generations.

You need to take $1.7 trillion out of this to balance it via cuts alone:

Mandatory spending: $2.009 trillion (-20.1%)
$695 billion (+4.9%) – Social Security
$571 billion (−15.2%) – Other mandatory programs
$453 billion (+6.6%) – Medicare
$290 billion (+12.0%) – Medicaid
$164 billion (+18.0%) – Interest on National Debt
$11 billion (+275%) – Potential disaster costs
$0 billion (−100%) – Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)
$0 billion (−100%) – Financial stabilization efforts

Discretionary spending: $1.368 trillion (+13.1%)
$663.7 billion (+12.7%) – Department of Defense (including Overseas Contingency Operations)
$78.7 billion (−1.7%) – Department of Health and Human Services
$72.5 billion (+2.8%) – Department of Transportation
$52.5 billion (+10.3%) – Department of Veterans Affairs
$51.7 billion (+40.9%) – Department of State and Other International Programs
$47.5 billion (+18.5%) – Department of Housing and Urban Development
$46.7 billion (+12.8%) – Department of Education
$42.7 billion (+1.2%) – Department of Homeland Security
$26.3 billion (−0.4%) – Department of Energy
$26.0 billion (+8.8%) – Department of Agriculture
$23.9 billion (−6.3%) – Department of Justice
$18.7 billion (+5.1%) – National Aeronautics and Space Administration
$13.8 billion (+48.4%) – Department of Commerce
$13.3 billion (+4.7%) – Department of Labor
$13.3 billion (+4.7%) – Department of the Treasury
$12.0 billion (+6.2%) – Department of the Interior
$10.5 billion (+34.6%) – Environmental Protection Agency
$9.7 billion (+10.2%) – Social Security Administration
$7.0 billion (+1.4%) – National Science Foundation
$5.1 billion (−3.8%) – Corps of Engineers
$5.0 billion (+100%) – National Infrastructure Bank
$1.1 billion (+22.2%) – Corporation for National and Community Service
$0.7 billion (0.0%) – Small Business Administration
$0.6 billion (−14.3%) – General Services Administration
$19.8 billion (+3.7%) – Other Agencies
$105 billion – Other

Stary Hickory
04-06-2011, 02:05 PM
IMF needs to just go away, really. The IMF is in no position to tell anyone what they NEED to do.

Stary Hickory
04-06-2011, 02:06 PM
They are not wrong. It is impossible to balance the budget only via cuts.

You need to take $1.7 trillion out of this to balance it:

No its not. It is quite possible to cut the governments size to get a balanced budget this is entirely silly.

AuH20
04-06-2011, 02:09 PM
No its not. It is quite possible to cut the governments size to get a balanced budget this is entirely silly.

Of course it can be done. But the special interests will not allow us to balance budget. They'll go back to the well.

Zippyjuan
04-06-2011, 02:11 PM
No its not. It is quite possible to cut the governments size to get a balanced budget this is entirely silly.

Pehaps you can show what you would do to balance it. If you are a polititian and vote for significant cuts in Social Security and Medicare you will probably be voted out in the next election. Getting rid of 100% of the "discressionary" programs- including the Department of Defense- would still leave you about $400 billion short.

The IMF is not TELLING the US what to do but making suggestions for what should be done if they are serious about addressing the fiscal problems.

Stary Hickory
04-06-2011, 02:12 PM
Pehaps you can show what you would do to balance it.

How about cut the budget....news flash go back 15-20 years to those levels of government spending with some cuts to the expendable areas and you have a balanced budget.

FrankRep
04-06-2011, 02:12 PM
Pehaps you can show what you would do to balance it.

Deeply Reduce Spending. Follow the Constitution.

AuH20
04-06-2011, 02:13 PM
How about cut the budget....news flash go back 15-20 years to those levels of government spending with some cuts to the expendable areas and you have a balanced budget.

You have to attack medicaid, medicare and the DoD. There is alot of savings in those departments.

Stary Hickory
04-06-2011, 02:16 PM
You have to attack medicaid, medicare and the DoD. There is alot of savings in those departments.

Yeah, we increased those areas we can reduce them as well. The problem is people try and have the mentality that you can do something but never undo it. That is ridiculous.

AuH20
04-06-2011, 02:18 PM
Yeah, we increased those areas we can reduce them as well. The problem is people try and have the mentality that you can do something but never undo it. That is ridiculous.

Well, that's the problem. We're 100 years behind the progressives. The poison has been running through the veins of the corrupted citizenry for countless decades. It's easier to watch the thing fall apart. We're not going to see a majority in the House and Senate sign off on Medicare, Medicaid and DoD cuts.

Zippyjuan
04-06-2011, 02:20 PM
How about cut the budget....news flash go back 15-20 years to those levels of government spending with some cuts to the expendable areas and you have a balanced budget.

Getting rid of 100% of the "discressionary" programs- including the Department of Defense- would still leave you about $400 billion short.

Yes, you do have to reduce the DOD and Social Security- these are the only places you can get significant savings. The problem is that these are political hot boxes- mess with them and get burned in the next election- so while you can get the biggest bang for your buck in terms of reducing the deficit, they are also the most difficult politically to cut.

LibertyEagle
04-06-2011, 02:23 PM
Well, for one thing, I see a long list of federal agencies that are unconstitutional. Excepting out Social Security and Medicare, get to abolishing the rest and sending those functions back to the states and the people. That, and produce a plan of action for greatly reducing the spending by the Dept. of Defense, for those things that have absolutely nothing to do with our national security.

That would be a great start.

LibertyEagle
04-06-2011, 02:30 PM
Where is foreign aid in that list?

Zippyjuan
04-06-2011, 02:32 PM
Mostly within the Departments of State and Defense.

sailingaway
04-06-2011, 02:36 PM
Because they know best how our country should be run, bailing out all the world's banks through our discount window is no issue, but make sure to get those taxes!

LibertyEagle
04-06-2011, 02:40 PM
This isn't going to be done overnight. But, if all unconstitutional departments/functions/programs were abolished, with exception of Social Security and Medicare for those currently on them or close to getting them, all foreign aid was ended, and we got out of these various wars we are in and took a good hard look at which other countries we could pull our military out of and followed through with it, I cannot believe that the budget wouldn't be balanced. I'm betting there would be a surplus. To know for sure, we'd need much more detail than was provided by Zippy's post.

sailingaway
04-06-2011, 02:41 PM
This isn't going to be done overnight. But, if all unconstitutional departments/functions/programs were abolished, with exception of Social Security and Medicare for those currently on them or close to getting them, all foreign aid was ended, and we got out of these various wars we are in and took a good hard look at which other countries we could pull our military out of and followed through with it, I cannot believe that the budget wouldn't be balanced. I'm betting there would be a surplus.

Rand balances it in 5 years in his plan, and doesn't touch SS nor medicare, but they would have to be addressed to keep it in balance thereafter. Meanwhile we'd have some breathing room, though....

Zippyjuan
04-06-2011, 02:57 PM
Rand balances it in 5 years in his plan, and doesn't touch SS nor medicare, but they would have to be addressed to keep it in balance thereafter. Meanwhile we'd have some breathing room, though....
Rand's proposed cuts- the $500 billion- would only reduce the deficit by about one third. Even with that, the deficit would still be over $1 trillion. It is a start, certainly, but still a long ways from balancing.

DamianTV
04-06-2011, 03:05 PM
If they cant afford to not raise taxes, perhaps we cant afford the people that say such things.

Remind me again on how we can have a balanced budget when the government employs more people than our manufacturing, farming, and producing parts of our economy combined?

LibForestPaul
04-06-2011, 04:44 PM
So the IMF, which exists from a majority of US subscriptions, quite a bit paid for in gold, which comes from US citizens, is stating that the US should raise even more taxes on its citizenry?
Hmmm...