How would you fix the United States' budget problem?

[Etharnor]

i'm curious to see what NS thinks should be done to fix the budget crisis.

things I would consider doing if I was president:

increase reduction of troops in iraq and afganistan
reduce our nuclear arsenal
reduce the naval fleet
cut the overall size of the military
raise the tax rate on capital gains
eliminate tax breaks for the fossil fuel industry
enact the buffet rule
raise the social security tax cap
raise the normal retirement age to 68, and increase the years used to calculate benefits from 35 to 40
increase the medicare retirement age to 68
create a public health care option



just a few ideas that i think would put the country on the right track.

how would you guys fix it? i love to read articles on economics, so if you could back up your suggestions/comments with articles that would be great!

[Laissez-Faire]

Do away with the government.

There, problem solved. Sorta.

[Melas]

stop bombing other nations and keep the nation off foreign matters

[Arkinesia]

Cut spending by streamlining all government departments, and consolidate redundant departments. Cut foreign aid to countries who have a continued track record of unfriendliness. Increase taxes to pre-Bush levels across the board.

[Ryanisking]

No post office litle or no welfare no sales tax on USA products and finally give tax breaks for the amount of jobs you create

[Ryanisking]

And no foreign aid at all

[Grenartia]

Do away with Social Security (temporarily), slash the military budget, use the money not going towards those departments to pay the debt. Improve education, give companies incentives to relocate to America, where they can provide jobs, and legalize same-sex marriage.

[Blazedtown]

Take Cain's take plan but instead of 9%, make it 18%, Eliminate redundant government agencies, like DHS, DEA, ATF, ICE, and merge them with the FBI. Remove military bases from Asia by selling South Korea, the Philippines Japan and the Republic of China our surplus nuclear warhead along with export deals for American made delivery systems. This means we don't need to keep troops stationed all over the Pacific, keeps China, and their lackey north korea in check by virtue of MAD, and saves us money because we don'5t have to pay for the upkeep on those warheads.

[Arkinesia]

I'm not the OP but shouldn't one of the ground rules be that we only discuss policy changes that directly affect the budget?

[Ryanisking]

Do away with Social Security (temporarily), slash the military budget, use the money not going towards those departments to pay the debt. Improve education, give companies incentives to relocate to America, where they can provide jobs, and legalize same-sex marriage.

How will same sex marriage and Improving education help the debt and how will you find 16 trillion in military cuts we wil have negitive military

[Wotanchester]

increase reduction of troops in iraq and afganistan
reduce our nuclear arsenal
Cut the military to sustainable levels
cut the overall size of the military
raise the tax rate on capital gains
eliminate tax breaks for the fossil fuel industry
Bring the retirement age to 65
create a public health care programme
make a progressive tax system
invest in green electricity
Have a state banking sector
have fair amounts of public security in line with the rest of the world

[Arkinesia]

increase reduction of troops in iraq and afganistan

Already doing/done that.

reduce our nuclear arsenal

Eh.

Cut the military to sustainable levels
cut the overall size of the military

Aren't these the same thing?

raise the tax rate on capital gains

While trickle-down economics doesn't usually hold true, here, it does. Increasing capital gains taxes results in reduced revenue because of reduced investing.

eliminate tax breaks for the fossil fuel industry

That will just result in decreased productivity.

Bring the retirement age to 65

It needs to be higher than that.

create a public health care programme

That's an increase of spending so it really doesn't help reduce spending.

make a progressive tax system

We've had that since the 1910s.

invest in green electricity

Most every effort thus far has failed.

Have a state banking sector

Federal Reserve?

have fair amounts of public security in line with the rest of the world

What?

[New England and The Maritimes]

Eliminate the cap on payroll taxes, means test social security and medicare. From there, we invest in surface transport infrastructure and education on all levels, roll our effective tax rates back to FY2000 levels(in stages,) and let rising economic activity make up the remainder of the gap. A strong middle class is what is lacking and it's the key reason for our structural deficits.

[Ashmoria]

make a jobs program focused on infrastructure to get the unemployment rate down.

when the economy is back i would do away with the bush tax cuts starting at the top and phasing them out over 5 years for the middle class.

i would remove the cap on SS contributions so that program will be solvent.

on the spending side it would end the war in afghanistan and stop outsourcing military manpower. i would cut 20% out of the military budget and redo the homeland security department and slash that budget too.

then i would take a good hard look at our deficit and decide to raise or lower taxes based on where we are.

[Grenartia]

Do away with Social Security (temporarily), slash the military budget, use the money not going towards those departments to pay the debt. Improve education, give companies incentives to relocate to America, where they can provide jobs, and legalize same-sex marriage.

How will same sex marriage and Improving education help the debt and how will you find 16 trillion in military cuts we wil have negitive military

I don't quite understand the need for the smiley in context of the post...

Anyways, its been shown that states that have legalized SSM see an economic boost. That definitely can't hurt.

America, according to Dr. Michio Kaku, can't compete with other countries academically unless it provides incentives for intelligent people to study here. Which implies that most Americans are deficient in education. Which is bad. So what needs to happen is that education needs to be improved, so that people can not only compete internationally (providing innovations that will stay here as opposed to being thought of here and taken back to the various students' homelands), but also so that people will know how not to screw up, economically. In addition, there seems to be a culture of stupidity, which needs to be reversed. Teachers should be given more incentives to get students interested in academics early on, while high school and college students should be given more incentives to get good grades.

You seem to forget that in addition to the military cuts, I also have social security cuts in mind.

[Riqenia]

Higher taxes for the rich, stop the waring

[GrandKirche]

Why not sell some stuff? You've got Guam, Puerto Rico, Alaska, Hawaii, Manhattan, a massive nuke surplus, NASA...

[Parpolitic Citizens]

Cut the military, raise taxes. Problem solved.

[Divair]

I have a very simple five step plan.

1. Reduce military spending by 50%. Yes, vague, but a committee can deal with selecting what has to go.
2. Close all tax loopholes.
3. Increase taxes on the rich to about 55-60%.
4. Replace the entire healthcare clusterfuck with a streamlined universal healthcare plan.
5. Using the money that the military doesn't have any more, start public works programs.

[Parpolitic Citizens]

I don't get the aversion to foreign aid. It does good work and is only 1 percent of the total budget.

[Parpolitic Citizens]

I have a very simple five step plan.

1. Reduce military spending by 50%. Yes, vague, but a committee can deal with selecting what has to go.
2. Close all tax loopholes.
3. Increase taxes on the rich to about 55-60%.
4. Replace the entire healthcare clusterfuck with a streamlined universal healthcare plan.
5. Using the money that the military doesn't have any more, start public works programs.

We could also be supporting Solar energy. It'll be at parity nation wide by 2020 and we could actually have a chance of becoming energy independent.

[Grand Britannia]

My flag has the answer.

[Divair]

I have a very simple five step plan.

1. Reduce military spending by 50%. Yes, vague, but a committee can deal with selecting what has to go.
2. Close all tax loopholes.
3. Increase taxes on the rich to about 55-60%.
4. Replace the entire healthcare clusterfuck with a streamlined universal healthcare plan.
5. Using the money that the military doesn't have any more, start public works programs.

We could also be supporting Solar energy. It'll be at parity nation wide by 2020 and we could actually have a chance of becoming energy independent.

I would consider establishing a proper energy sector part of "public works".

Within that energy sector plan, I have an additional five steps:

1. End oil subsidies.
2. Start a campaign to educate people about nuclear power. It isn't dangerous as long as you don't employ horrible staff.
3. Invest in solar, wind, geothermal, biofuel, and nuclear.
4. Push companies like Better Place to start developing an electric car infrastructure. Invest in battery tech to increase range (the only real downside of electric cars).
5. Start a campaign to encourage electricity conservation.

[Herrebrugh]

By ignoring it entirely.

What budget problem?

[Parpolitic Citizens]

Do away with Social Security (temporarily), slash the military budget, use the money not going towards those departments to pay the debt. Improve education, give companies incentives to relocate to America, where they can provide jobs, and legalize same-sex marriage.

I know a lot of old people who wouldn't enjoy living in American any longer. Most people over 65 DEPEND on social security as their main source of income. Secondly how would ending social security change anything. The fica tax is capped at the first $100,000 made. Most employers would just pocket the money they wouldn't have to pay back to the state.