There are a few unpopular methods to reduce the deficit, over time. They begin with freezing all government spending, period. To that end, remove COLA’s from every form of federal program and contract that allows for them except for adjustments to the federal income tax brackets. Freeze the Federal Payroll, no more employees. Phase in additional age requirements for Social Security and Medicare after abolishing the early retirement option bringing the eligibility requirment in line with life expectancy say 70 for both (leave disability alone). Get rid of the earned income credit (welfare is the province of state and local governments, not the feds). Phase out farm subsidies. Get back to the enumerated responsibilities of the Congress as laid out in the Constitution.
IMO, these would be a good start.
I agree with you and would go a step further. With the exception of the active duty armed forces, immediately cut the federal payroll by 20%. Give the cabinet secretaries responsibility for determine which positions will be cut to a achieve a 20% reduction in payroll dollars versus 2008 levels (not the bloated levels we are reaching due to Obama’s padding of the payroll). Private industry has been downsizing for two decades while the government has been hiring. We need to take a meat axe to the bureaucracy in order to make it more efficient. In addition to cutting headcount to reduce government payroll, the “employee” contribution to federal worker health care and retirement programs should be increased to the levels private sector employees pay.
Don’t forget the billions going to “consultants”, worthless academic research, and activist community organizations. This money should be frozen immediately. Academia has become bloated over the past 20 years. There are too many tenured professors on the payroll who do little or no teaching while enjoying big government paid research grants. Cut government grants to Universities and let the Universities slash their bureaucracies and put the ivory tower tenure professors to work in the classroom.
Time to also charge for users, not the taxpayer, to pay for government services. Assess a fee on every container imported into the US to pay for the cost of the Customs Service, Immigration Service, Army Corps of Engineers, Coast Guard, and other agencies charged with administering and supporting trade. Let the importers pay the costs of these services. It might make US manufacturing more competitive if the importers didn’t get a free ride on the taxpayer for much of their infrastructure needs while domestic manufacturers are crushed by high taxes and regulation.
Remove the shackles on domestic oil production and refining. A resurgence of oil exploration and production in this country will result in new jobs, increased tax revenue for the treasury, and an improved trade balance.
Put an end to one sided “free trade” policies that have decimated America’s industrial base and cost us millions of private sector middle class manufacturing jobs. During the second half of the 19th Century, when America’s industrial infrastructure was being created, the federal government was financed through high tariffs, not an income tax. Those tariff’s provided favorable economics for investment in US production facilities which in turn created jobs for the immigrants streaming into the country. Twenty years of lowered tariffs and quotas has been a disaster for the American worker. Return tariffs to the levels of the boom years of the 1980’s and see production return to the US. Even better, eliminate the 35% federal tax on profits earned from manufacturing in the US. Any lost tax revenues will be recovered in a few years from the personal income taxes of the workers employed in new factories as production returns to this country.
We have to cut spending drastically while creating tax and regulatory conditions that will allow the private sector to create productive jobs.