The National Debt - Something all of us can agree on?
 

Some alternate subtitles for this thread could be:

Spend Now, Pay Later!

Who cares about our childrens' future, anyway!

Baby Boomers going Bust.

Yeay, more Tax Cuts that my kids will be paying off for their entire lives!! Wheeeee!!

<a href="http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/">National Debt Clock</a>

I think this is one of the biggest issues facing our country today. 11% of our federal spending right now goes to pay just the interest on it. That's money that could be spent on defense, education, infrastructure, the war on terrorism, but the fact is we're spending it on creditors. The US used to be THE creditor nation in the world, and now, thanks to reaganomics and trickle-down theory (that persists to this day!) we are now the largest debtor nation in the world.

No one likes paying taxes, and I'm sure most would think that having 11% of it going to the creditors would upset them. It makes me sick.

Here's the link to <a href="http://www.concordcoalition.org/">the Concord Coalition</a>, a nonpartisan organization advocating fiscal responsibility.

I doubt we can all agree on this. Some people believe in deficit spending, as well as trickle-down economics and Reagan's other policies. The bottom line is it looks good for your administration and sticks someone down the road. Who wouldn't love that. With the American attention span being what it is, people won't remember all this in a few years when it comes back to bite them, thanks to the latest bombshell regarding the hot celebrity couple.

The debt isn't something that you can just raise taxes to pay off. It accumulated because of unnecessary spending of money on things that government shouldn't even be involved in. The "war on drugs"? Waste of money. The National Endowment for the Arts? Waste of money. Cutting unnecessary government programs and outsourcing to more efficient private companies would be a better way to approach it, rather than just taxing the hell out of working-class Americans and giving $50,000 grants to people that ignite a dollar bill with a joint and call it art.

Let's not forget other things, like allowing huge corporations to pay almost nothing in taxes, and subsidies for farmers, and all kinds of shit the government does that cost money. You can't single out two things you disagree with and then imply that will fix the deficit. Further, suggesting outsourcing to private companies that are "more efficient" indicates that you've never worked for any sort of government or government contractor. Those contracts are huge money pits.

bush really needs to do something about the deficit.

there's a shitload of pet projects going on in the nation, i'm sure we can balance the budget if we trim the pet projects and the riders.

kinda miss the line-item veto huh?

Deficit spending is perfectly acceptable if it is controlled properly.

What is important to remember is that the government a) prints the money and b) owes money back to itself.

govt doesnt owe back to itself. it owes to people.

the treasury bonds that they sell are bought by people around the world.

I agree, when it is controlled properly it can be a helpful part of sustaining growth.

To The_Dude:
About 40% of the debt is money the government "owes to itself". That leaves about 4 trillion dollars in public debt (the kind you're thinking of) to 2.5 trillion the government owes to the Federal Reserve and other central banks.

I wasn't suggesting that only those two things would reduce the budget by trillions of dollars. The waste that you're referring to is covered in my below statement, which was in my original post:

"It accumulated because of unnecessary spending of money on things that government shouldn't even be involved in."

As for private companies and efficiency, yes, private companies are in general more efficient than government-run organizations because private companies are all about profit profit profit. Outsourcing does not mean that the government should not understand the value of said services and be sure not to get completely screwed when it comes to costs. The idea is to lower costs, not spend the same amount of money elsewhere.

if we actually cashed in on the people that owe us money, we'd make up some ground, but our gov't wants its precious leverage.

there are a LOT of ways that we can make up the red ink. but in each of those ways, there will be a loser and the logrolling never ends.

According to figures from the IRS, the Government collected $1,037 Billion from individual taxpayers and $862 Billion in Corporate payments for income and employment taxes. Collections from individual taxpayers accounted for 52% the total IRS collection for 2002 while according to the BEA they accounted for 72% of the total national income. Corporations pay more than their share of taxes, according to these figures.

You may recall that there was a sizeable SURPLUS when the current administration took office, despite the National Endowment of the Arts, etc. The BUSH Endowment of the Upper Class is what has brought this upon us. They gave away even more than he had to spend! While they couldn't forsee the tragic blow our economy suffered post 9/11, the refusal to roll back some of the give-away, coupled with their additional spending without making arrangements for sufficient funding, has plunged us deeper in debt, faster, than any time in history. Not even FDR spent money he didn't have this fast!

That, uh...that's stunning logic there. Because corporations pay 48% of all taxes, they must be paying their fair share. Can you take me from step A to step Zed Zed Alpha cubed in more than one hop?

Well, if the figures from the BEA are correct, and I have no reason to doubt them, then corporations account for 28% of the national income, yet pay 48% of the taxes.

What is the BEA?

http://www.bea.gov/

bureau of economic analysis

i'm assuming that's it

That is correct. Look for the NIPA (national product and income accounts) tables.

I think I might have to take some time to absorb all this data. Sweet, sweet raw data....

Kadath,

The numbers could be read in a myriad of ways.

1) Corporations only account for 28% of the national income yet they pay 48% of the Federal Taxes.

This statement doesn't seem to take into account overseas earnings or other methods employed to reduce domestic tax liability. That is, domestic corporations might account for more yet not show up in the figures. Likewise, foreign based corporations without domestic liability may not be included in those numbers you are crunching.

2) Individuals account for 72% of the national income yet only pay 52% of the Federal Taxes.

This statement doesn't seem to take into account that individual taxpayers on this side of the equation may be escaping tax liability. That is, if enough people don't pay taxes (or enough income from individuals isn't taxed appropriately, whether discussing impoverished workers or wealthy individuals) then the proportion of corporations' liability will increase even though they aren't paying "their share."

3) A third reading is that individuals make up the bulk of income generators yet have a low tax responsibility while the corporations pay a disproportionate level of Federal Taxes.

Even if this reading is correct, it doesn't seem to take into account the proportion of state and local taxes that individuals presumably pay from which corporations may find ways to be exempt.

In short, the IRS bill is a relatively small slice of the tax pie.

You guys want to save some serious dough.

Cut your rediculous levels of military spending.

The US spends more on its military than the next 50 countries in the world combined.

Everything else would seem to be a drop in the bucket.

How many nuclear powered air craft carriers do you really need?

i agree. military would be the first place i would cut spending.

i just cant see how legislators can cut funding for insurance for poor kids or something like that, when we're pretty much "wasting" shitload of $$ on military.

look @ all the bases we are operating around the world. before 91, i see why, but why now?? keep a base here n there, but shut down most of the overseas ones.

Of course, Pres. Bush would be all "...now the bases are more important than ever in providing homeland security...blah blah blah..." I bet, if we closed a few bases around the world, a lot of radical groups might be happy to see us leave their country, and we might not be so intemidating to others, making them like us a little bit more.

Bush just needs to find some way to balance the budget. If he can pull that off, I'll forgive all his faults and re-elect him a zillion times...

cut the subsidies
cut the loopholes
make the military more efficient & less glutted
make the government depts. more efficient & less glutted also.

The GAO finds out so much shit on how the agencies
are wasting & losing our assets each year, it's scary.

and get rid of the fuckin' pork!

Talking about cutting military spending you have to be more specific. If you're talking about stupid weapon systems like the crusader or the navy's LCS or the joint strike fighter, then yeah. But (and I'm no army proponent) the Army is stretched like it's never been stretched before right now. What we're doing is a 12 division deployment of our 10 division army, and it's crazy. We need more boots on the ground, and they need to be better trained.

We also need to re-open the Army's Peacekeeping Institute, it was really stupid of the current administration to shut it down, especially when we're racking up commitments left and right, and now we're talking about going into West Africa...

Oh yes, and what do we need new nuclear powered submarines for? The chinese? They're DECADES behind our oldest active sub technology, and they're probably the closest in terms of potential antagonists...

Cutting military spending is not the solution. It may help, but first we should pay the military better. We don't need the people defending our country living on food stamps. Closing a few bases around the world is a great idea. Why exactly do we still have western europe? Germany is not a risk, and there is no more USSR.

Another idea for cutting a rather nice percentage is getting rid of foreign aid. I'm not sure how much all our foreign aid comes to, but we could use it to pay off some of the debt.

I think we covered something like this on the old board.....

Projected amounts of federal foreign aid for 2003 are likely to total around $13.6 billion. The top two are Health and Human Services ($502 billion) and the DoD ($358.2 billion) so if you're looking to cut some serious money it would be advantageous to streamline these two. The nearest challenger to these two is the Dept. of Agriculture ($72.8 billion).

But I guess every little bit helps, eh? :)

For all you fact nazis

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2004/budget.html

I should note....there is no "official" cost of the War in Iraq, but every budget estimate I've seen (CNN; National Review; CBO) is in the $100-$150 billion range. Of course, there won't be any official numbers until all the data is in (rebuilding cost; length of occupation, etc.) but all estimates point to a significant amount.

Rumsfeld recently said that our presence in Iraq is costing us 4 billion per month. I don't know the cost savings, however, of our drawdowns in saudi arabia and turkey...

Found that as well. Here's a link for those wanting.

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-break...3042-2417r.htm

Add that to the actual reconstruction costs plus the $900-950 million every month in Afghanistan and the whole "campaign on terror" is going to cost us quite a bit.

Democrats conveniently forget the $920 BILLION national healthcare program that Gephardt proposed.

Are you a democrat? If so, then don't vote for him in the primary. Many in the party have derided his plan, so no, they haven't forgotten it. Remember though, it's just a plan, it's not something that's happening right now, on a daily basis.

i'm all for a limited health care plan, but not a complete one.

but that money would have been of better use in the health care plan than the war in iraq