Why A Balanced Budget Is Impossible In America

[Lucille]

Why A Balanced Budget Is Impossible In America
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-16/why-balanced-budget-impossible-america


If the US government cut all government services except Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest payments, federal spending would still outpace revenues. As we noted here, these four mandatory items dominate costs. All the arguing over sequestration and the fiscal cliff are moot since as Professor Antony Davis notes in this brief clip, there are no specific cuts that will enable government to balance the budget; in fact "nothing less than a complete redesign will solve the problem." That redesign begins with determining the proper role of government.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asRDOhgN70Q

Also (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-16/why-balanced-budget-impossible-america#comment-2895294): http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2012/07-2/Govt%20Spending.jpg

Related:
take heart from the knowledge that ultimately this criminal enterprise will attain such bloated size and scope that its own survival will no longer be possible, and it will implode, as the Soviet Union and other similarly overreaching politico-economic orders have imploded. Governments that grow and grow ultimately find that their predation becomes greater than their prey can support, at which point such predators are doomed. Thus, the present system of government in this country and many others contains the seeds of its own destruction (http://blog.independent.org/2009/11/02/can-the-rampaging-leviathan-be-stopped-or-slowed/)

:)

[acptulsa]

The dollar will shrivel up and blow away. With it will go cash; they won't bother to put thousand dollar, and ten thousand dollar bills back in production, much less Zimbabwe-style million dollar bills. We'll be back to the South during the Civil War: We used to take our money to market in our pockets and bring the groceries home in a basket. Now we take our money to market in a basket and bring our groceries home in our pockets.

Next we get a new IMF currency, after everyone but the insiders is broke and the insiders are wealthier than any oligarchy in the history of man.

And since we won't like it, there will be riots enough all along to install the police state.

Win-win-win. Unless you happen to be We, the People.

[Zippyjuan]

Thanks. I have been trying to point this out for some time. The deficit is basically the same amount as the entire category of "discressionary spending" which includes every dollar for every department of government including Defense (and again, not including "mandatory" spending on Social Security, Medicare, unemployment, interst on debt).
Figures for 2010 with a deficit of $1.3 trillion (this year's estimates shortfall is $1.1 trillion):

Mandatory spending: $2.173 trillion (+14.9%)

$695 billion (+4.9%) – Social Security
$571 billion (+58.6%) – Unemployment/Welfare/Other mandatory spending
$453 billion (+6.6%) – Medicare
$290 billion (+12.0%) – Medicaid
$164 billion (+18.0%) – Interest on National Debt


Discretionary spending: $1.378 trillion (+13.8%)

$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%-NA) – 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
$0 billion (−100%-NA) – Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)
$0 billion (−100%-NA) – Financial stabilization efforts
$11 billion (+275%-NA) – Potential disaster costs
$19.8 billion (+3.7%) – Other Agencies
$105 billion – Other