Peter Schiff: If We Don't Slash Government Spending, We Have To Raise Taxes On Middle Class
Money with Melissa Francis | Fox Business | January 7, 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=QDV7RzZOarU
http://youtu.be/QDV7RzZOarU
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Peter Schiff: If We Don't Slash Government Spending, We Have To Raise Taxes On Middle Class
Money with Melissa Francis | Fox Business | January 7, 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=QDV7RzZOarU
http://youtu.be/QDV7RzZOarU
Here's the part 2 of the segment with Peter:
Peter Schiff: We Can't Afford The Amount Of Government We've Been Promised
Money with Melissa Francis | Fox Business | January 7, 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTnmJJthiH8
http://youtu.be/tTnmJJthiH8
Did not like that host at all. 40% taxes across the board? Why is she hosting that show?
If the goal is a balanced budget, you have to do both. But let's say you want to choose between one or the other. If you want to balance via government cuts, you must cut everything besides Social Security, Medicare/ Medicaid and interest on the debt. By 100%- including the Department of Defense. The "Discressionary spending" which included DOD is about $1.3 trilliion- which is also the amount of the deficit. Or you can raise taxes. Income taxes would have to double without any spending cuts to try to balance the budget. Anything less is adding to the debt. There are not any easy or pain free options which is why nothing really will be done. Otherwise you are handing out tea cups to try to bail the water flowing onto the Titanic.
If you want to use a VAT tax to accomplish this, you would need a 35% tax on everything you buy. Of course that means that the cost of everything is higher so people buy less so the rate would have to go even higher.
SS, Medicare, and Medicaid need to be cut. No doubt about it. That's why I don't believe it's feasible to balance the budget in one year, but certainly possible over the term of one presidency.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zippyjuan
Start by cutting Medicaid by 10% and block granting it to the states.
Raise the retirement age for Medicare to 67 for over the 4 years, and then to 68 over the course of another presidential term.
Means test Medicare for those earning over $75,000 eventually phasing out benefits to those earning over $1 million (or something like that)
Raise retirement age for SS to 70 over 4 years and link changes to retirement age to average life expectancy (adjust automatically every 5 years)
Means test SS benefits
Chain Medicaid/Medicare/SS growth to inflation
In regards to discretionary spending, I'd start with going back to 2005 levels for all departments, eliminate automatic increases and baseline budgeting and freeze growth for 4 years.
That should balance in 1 term.
Those will certainly help and I agree are good suggestions- but not enough to balance the budget in four years by themeselves. With the start of the wave of "baby boomers" retiring, it will slow the growth of those programs- not reduce them. Social Security spends about $600 billion a year and Medicare another $400 billion with $250 in Medicare- out of a $1.3 trillion deficit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Un...federal_budget If you cut them to zero you could balance- but that isn't going to happen.
To get to 2005 spending levels of $2.5 trillion you still need to either raise taxes or cut spending by about $1 trillion. (Amazing spending has grown by that amount in just seven years). http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0873746.html
Yeah, I'm looking at 2005 numbers and it's mind boggling. Military spending up by $200 billion, same with Medicare and SS, Medicaid up by almost $100 billion, same with interest...ridiculous.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zippyjuan