Take A Chainsaw To The Budget (Stossel Gets It)

Just my wish list possum.

“This way a family of four that makes $40k pays zero tax.
This way seniors and fixed income people will end up paying little to no tax and still the top 10% of americans will pay over 90% of the tax.”

What part of that seems like a good idea ?? EVERYBODY needs to pay painful tax rates to get EVERYBODY to care about how wasteful government is. You’ve just turned a majority of the populace into freeloaders who couldn’t care less what government does because they only benefit from additional government and don’t actually pay for it.

We already have a system that punishes success and rewards failure, and you want to make it worse.

$475B in cuts presumably comes from eliminating all the Overseas Discretionary Operations (Iraq&Afghan) of $160B and reduces the $388B (Procurement of $112B, R&D of $76B, Operation and Maintenance of $200B) to only $73B.

The $250B remaining after cuts still pays for all Military Personnel $138B, plus the $73B above, plus another $40B miscellaneous. Probably that $138B on personnel would drop considerably without Iraq & Afghan. The FY2000 Defense budget was only $267B including all the foreign bases. Inflation to 2011 would make that $267B into $349B today, yet we are over double that.

So really, closing foreign bases and the concomitant personnel reduction only has to produce a $100B decrease compared to our inflation adjusted FY2000 $349B budget.

It doesn’t sound all that impossible if we assume closure of all foreign bases and an end to policing the world with ground forces.

2011 Defense Spending (in millions$)
Discretionary Base budget authority:
Military Personnel ..................................................................................... 138,541
Operation and Maintenance ...................................................................... 200,248
Procurement ............................................................................................. 112,873
Research, Development, Test and Evaluation .......................................... 76,131
Military Construction ................................................................................. 16,924
Family Housing ......................................................................................... 1,822
Revolving and Management Funds .......................................................... 2,380
Subtotal, Discretionary Base budget authority ................................................ 548,919
Discretionary Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) budget authority:

Requested (2011 includes $254 million in U.S. Coast Guard funding) ..... 159,336
Subtotal, Discretionary OCO budget authority ................................................ 159,336
Total, Discretionary budget authority (Base and OCO) ................................... 708,255

Total, Discretionary Outlays (Base and OCO) ................................................ 714,428
Memorandum: Outlays from American Recovery and Reinvestment Act ...................... 2,491
Mandatory Outlays:
Existing law .................................................................................................. 3,959
Legislative proposal .....................................................................................408
Total, Mandatory outlays ................................................................................ 4,367
Total, Outlays ................................................................................................. 718,795

Cut: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy. $445 million annual savings.

Save America’s Treasures Program. $25 million annual savings.

International Fund for Ireland . $17 million annual savings.

Legal Services Corporation. $420 million annual savings.

National Endowment for the Arts. $167.5 million annual savings.

National Endowment for the Humanities. $167.5 million annual savings.

Hope VI Program.. $250 million annual savings.

Amtrak Subsidies. $1.565 billion annual savings.

Eliminate duplicative education programs. H.R. 2274 (in last Congress), authored by Rep. McKeon, eliminates 68 at a savings of $1.3 billion annually.

U.S. Trade Development Agency. $55 million annual savings.

Woodrow Wilson Center Subsidy. $20 million annual savings.

Cut in half funding for congressional printing and binding. $47 million annual savings.

John C. Stennis Center Subsidy. $430,000 annual savings.

Community Development Fund. $4.5 billion annual savings.

Heritage Area Grants and Statutory Aid. $24 million annual savings.

Cut Federal Travel Budget in Half. $7.5 billion annual savings

Trim Federal Vehicle Budget by 20%. $600 million annual savings.

Essential Air Service. $150 million annual savings.

Technology Innovation Program. $70 million annual savings.

Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program. $125 million annual savings.

Department of Energy Grants to States for Weatherization. $530 million annual savings.

Beach Replenishment. $95 million annual savings.

New Starts Transit. $2 billion annual savings.

Exchange Programs for Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Their Historical Trading Partners in Massachusetts. 9 million annual savings

Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants. $2.5 billion annual savings.

Title X Family Planning. $318 million annual savings.

Appalachian Regional Commission. $76 million annual savings.

Economic Development Administration. $293 million annual savings.

Programs under the National and Community Services Act. $1.15 billion annual savings.

Applied Research at Department of Energy. $1.27 billion annual savings.

Freedom CAR and Fuel Partnership. $200 million annual savings.

Energy Star Program. $52 million annual savings.

Economic Assistance to Egypt. $250 million annually.

U.S. Agency for International Development. $1.39 billion annual savings.

General Assistance to District of Columbia. $210 million annual savings.

Subsidy for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. $150 million annual savings.

Presidential Campaign Fund. $775 million savings over ten years.

No funding for federal office space acquisition. $864 million annual savings.

End prohibitions on competitive sourcing of government services.

Repeal the Davis-Bacon Act. More than $1 billion annually. (1931 US Federal Law which established the requirement for paying prevailing wages on public works projects. All federal government construction contracts, and most contracts for federally assisted construction over $2,000, must include provisions for paying workers on-site no less than the locally prevailing wages and benefits paid on similar projects.)

IRS Direct Deposit: Require the IRS to deposit fees for some services it offers (such as processing payment plans for taxpayers) to the Treasury, instead of allowing it to remain as part of its budget. $1.8 billion savings over ten years.

Require collection of unpaid taxes by federal employees. $1 billion total savings. WHAT!!!

Prohibit taxpayer funded union activities by federal employees. $1.2 billion savings over ten years.

Sell excess federal properties the government does not make use of. $15 billion total savings.

Eliminate death gratuity for Members of Congress. Lord help us!!!

Eliminate Mohair Subsidies. $1 million annual savings. MOHAIR??

Eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. $12.5 million annual savings

Eliminate Market Access Program. $200 million annual savings.

USDA Sugar Program. $14 million annual savings.

Eliminate subsidy to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). $93 million annual savings.

Eliminate the National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program. $56.2 million annual savings.

Eliminate fund for Obamacare administrative costs. $900 million savings.

Ready to Learn TV Program. $27 million savings..

HUD Ph.D. Program.

Deficit Reduction Check-Off Act.

TOTAL SAVINGS: $2.5 Trillion My question is, what THE HELL is all this doing in the budget in the first place?

“However, technology has made the world smaller and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are not the barriers they used to be - as was perhaps best demonstrated when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.”

This cuts both ways. We don’t need to maintain foreign bases manned with hundreds of thousands of personnel to strike anywhere in the world. Carrier groups can keep us in range of any of our potential enemies. ICBMs and B2s give us striking range from our own territories to anywhere on the planet. Drones piloted from Edwards can hunt down terrorists anywhere, and can be logistically supported from very small Naval ships.

Boots on the ground is expensive knee-jerk political correctness, pretending populations that support terrorists will “like” us if we meet them on a level playing field mano a mano rather than bomb them into the stone age from a distance. We need to treat terrorists as representing their native countries, give their governments a chance to deal with their “criminals” themselves or face our full wrath as though the country itself had attacked us.

I am forced by law to pay into SS. But, if I was wise enough to plan for my retirement, I can't collect?

That's what means testing means.

Only those who pay into SS should be permitted to collect.

Only those who pay net taxes should be able to vote.

"We’re screwed and I can tell you why with one question: What would the people that currently get the money we would be saving do if we really cut as he suggested?

Why..they would go on government assistance of course! That is why there is a need for cutting it all gradually..so the system can absorb the shock without the entire economic house collapsing.

No one is mentioning what illegals aliens are costing us [from a recent email]:

It's easy to dismiss individual programs that benefit non-citizens until they're put together and this picture emerges. Someone did a lot of research to put together all of this data. [the CNN links don't seem to be working at this time; sorry; I'm sure they can be verified]

Often these programs are buried within other programs making them difficult to find.

You think the war in Iraq is costing us too much? Boy, was I confused. I have been hammered with the propaganda that it is the Iraq war and the war on terror that is bankrupting us. I now find that to be ridiculous.

I hope the following 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them. I also have included the URL's for verification of all the following facts...

1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments. Verify at: http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecenters7fd8

2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML

3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens. Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML

4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANscriptS/0604/01/ldt..0.HTML

5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies. Verify at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANscriptS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML

6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/%20TRANscriptS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML

7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens. Verify at: http://transcripts.CNN.com/TRANscriptS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML <http://transcripts ..

8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers. Verify at: http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.HTML

9. $200 Billion dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens. Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSC%20RI%20PTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the U.S. Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn..com/TRANscriptS/0606/12/ldt..01.HTML <;

11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 million illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from terrorist countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U.S. from the Southern border. Verify at: Homeland Security Report:

12. The National Policy Institute estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period. Verify at: http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute..org/PDF/deportation.PDF

13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 billion in remittances to their countries of origin. Verify at: http://www .. rense.com/general75/niht.htm <;

14. 'The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One million sex crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States. Verify at: http: // www.drdsk.com/articleshtml <; http://ww/ % 20w.drdsk.com/articleshtml <;

The total cost is a whopping $338.3 billion dollars a year and if you're like me having trouble understanding this amount of money; it is $338,300,000,000.00 which would be enough to stimulate the economy for the citizens of this country.

Are we that stupid? Yes, for letting those in the U.S. Congress get away with letting this happen year after year!

Good post. Thanks

A lot of those on government assistance would be the ones losing their money, I think. And we all know what a sense of entitlement, and a loss of your check, can mean to your “riot/looting” tendency. ;-)

Do not implement Obamacare: $1 Trillion

The whole Washington “thing” has become Kafkaesque, hasn’t it?