Posted on 11/10/2011 10:19:11 AM PST by BradtotheBone
Democrats on the supercommittee have proposed that the savings from the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan be used to pay for a new stimulus package, according to a summary of the $2.3 trillion plan obtained by The Hill.
The latest offer from Democrats on the deficit panel, made Monday night to their Republican counterparts, would use some of the war savings to help pay for spending on infrastructure.
The budget savings from ending the wars are estimated to total around $1 trillion over a decade, according to an estimate in July from the Congressional Budget Office.
The plan includes $200 billion in defense cuts and slashes $200 billion from other discretionary spending. It raises $650 billion in new federal revenue by setting in motion an overhaul of the tax code, and generates $1 trillion in total revenue.
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), co-chairman of the deficit-reduction panel, told reporters that Democrats and Republicans still have significant differences to bridge. He said Democrats have not put forward a plan that deals with Medicare, Medicaid and other healthcare-related drivers of the deficit.
“Unless we fundamentally address that, we will fail in our statutory duty,” Hensarling said.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Not spending does not equal net savings. Turning around and spending that money definitely does not equal savings....but who’s surprised?
Funny, how the libs complain about how much the war costs, and then turn on a dime (pun intended) to spend the “savings.”
If the money is going to be spent no matter what - keep it with the military. We need a strong defense, we don’t need any more freeloaders leeching off the population. We have way too many parasites, and the host is critically anemic already. Economical death is just around the corner.
In the late 1980s, one of us, Richard Vedder, and Lowell Gallaway of Ohio University co-authored a often-cited research paper for the congressional Joint Economic Committee (known as the $1.58 study) that found that every new dollar of new taxes led to more than one dollar of new spending by Congress. Subsequent revisions of the study over the next decade found similar results.
snip
But no matter how we configured the data and no matter what variables we examined, higher tax collections never resulted in less spending.
snip
The grand bargain so many in Washington yearn for—tax increases coupled with spending cuts—is a fool's errand. Our research confirms what the late economist Milton Friedman said of Congress many years ago: "Politicians will always spend every penny of tax raised and whatever else they can get away with."
Well then it isn’t savings, is it?
They cannot resist. They cannot control their instincts.
sure that’ll work....I think i’ll use my savings from not buying a new BMW and go on a cruise.
Gee. What a surprise.
I.E., they want money to buy union votes.
If this were to be done by military vets who need the jobs, sure. Keep the unions totally out of it, and this could be a bipartisan plan.
“war savings” is the stretch armstrong of budgeting.................it pays for everything —woo-hoo
I would rather see my tax dollars being spent on huge wasteful military campaigns killing some jihadis, rather that seeing it go into stimulus spending, unions, Democrat coffers and individual jobs that cost $5 Million to create.
I am dead serious.
Bend over. Sounds like complete capitulation. BOHICA
Aren’t these the folks who’ve complained for years that the wars were “off budget?” If what they’ve been saying for years is true, then there will be no savings if we stopped shooting today and shipped everybody back home.
Another one? Have they already forgotten how the last one failed?
We’re running a $1.3T deficit.
Saving $1T over 10 years means reducing the deficit to an annual $1.2T ... nowhere close to enough to say “hey, let’s spend more!”
Do these people not understand anything? Time for a housecleanin’!
Eliminate several million jobs and spend the money on unemployment compensation.
If there was a balanced budget then they cut $200B that would be savings!
there ain’t no war savings. there’s less borrowing, at best.
If they get that, they will be fulfilling the campaign promise which got Bob Casey elected to the Senate in 2006
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