Getting Closer To A Fiscal Cliff Deal

[JayHawk]

Quick question: governments don't cut spending, they cut services. What services, if any, is it currently performing that are not worth doing?

Not necessarily. They could easily chop ten percent of our spending off the top by demanding only what the bill is designed for be included in spending bills. NO PORK.

Then require an outside of the state or particular agency auditor to review contracts. A good recent example is here at Ft Leavenworth which is a military prison. Guess how much we spent in 2012 for a inmate Soccer field? 750,000. That three =quarter of a million is a drop in the bucket to be sure BUT it is indicative of the problem times every city in the nation.

Remember the bridge to nowhere? Had say an auditor from Texas reviewed that they would have raised warning flags everywhere. Same thing goes for building a three quarter of a million dollar soccer field on the flat fucking plains of Kansas.... how expensive is a fence and grass? Military commands control there own facilities budget. There is a process but it is internal.

So the long and short is we could eliminate waste and make a lot of headway.

Finally, I have no idea why extending the payroll cap on the Social Security payroll deduction and means testing Seniors to determine if they need a safety net provided by Uncle sam.... WHY is is so difficult?

 

[Jack Springer]

The Obama administration and democrats are approaching the budget and financial situation in a balanced approach. Of course the republicans refuse to give credit to the democrats. They are irrationally angry and the whole bill was against most of what they wanted. The bill increased taxes on the rich to more respectable levels, and in the end it was the republicans who blinked. The democrats have the upperhand and will for years to come in my opinion.

Cutting spending needs to be done in a balanced approach, and DEFINITELY NOT what they did in England or Spain. The republicans want severe austerity and it's a great way to send this country back into a recession.

There are always places to cut. You cut certain things in your own personal budget -- maybe you're paying too much for food, cable tv, car, house, entertainment, booze -- so you become a better shopper, you buy the store brand rather than the national brand, you move cut back on things you don't really need -- the government has to do the same thing. Not everything the government supplies is life-and-death.

Obama got his tax increase, now he has to accept spending cuts.

 

[xbuzzerx]

There are always places to cut. You cut certain things in your own personal budget -- maybe you're paying too much for food, cable tv, car, house, entertainment, booze -- so you become a better shopper, you buy the store brand rather than the national brand, you move cut back on things you don't really need -- the government has to do the same thing. Not everything the government supplies is life-and-death.

Obama got his tax increase, now he has to accept spending cuts.

The difference though Jack is that cutting on cable TV and eating out can help a nuclear family wage earner get out of his debt. Simple conservative thinkers who use these kinds of analogies to address national debt problems don't understand how HUGE the sums of money involved are. That's why when you do something like blow a gasket because Clinton got a $200 haircut and talk about how this kind of tax & spend waste is why our economy is so bad just makes the individual in question look really stupid.

Right now if the debt were approached as a credit card debt that each U.S. man, woman and child had to pay on... it would be $52341.17 per person. So that's x315 million people. So when you talk about "pork" or how Obama should forego an extra secret service agent or whatever else.... you're talking about less than change in the couch cushions. You're talking about particles of dust on the change in the couch cushions.

 

[Jack Springer]

^^^

There is much waste. Go back to JH's example - $700,000 for a soccer field for a prison. Why do we need that? Multiply that examples by hundreds of thousands.

Clinton's $200 haircut cost much more -- the wait of AF1, redirecting of other aircraft, security, cost of private business, etc.

A penny saved is a penny earned. After a while all that shit adds up.

 

[xbuzzerx]

^^^

There is much waste. Go back to JH's example - $700,000 for a soccer field for a prison. Why do we need that? Multiply that examples by hundreds of thousands.

Clinton's $200 haircut cost much more -- the wait of AF1, redirecting of other aircraft, security, cost of private business, etc.

A penny saved is a penny earned. After a while all that shit adds up.

I agree there are bigger wastes to cut. But you are STILL incorrect in thinking only by cutting "waste" will we approach turning the deficit around. You would need real, actual cuts to things people, the voters and taxpayers, largely want, need, or don't want to see go away. There's a reason even your own party won't attach its name to suggestions of specific programs to cut if it means they'll have to go face voters over it. It's going to take a lot more than "cutting waste."

 

[JayHawk]

Total nonsensical argument. I've already said there are some things that can be cut, like the MILITARY. But most people don't want to do that. And this has nothing to do with personal shopping habits. This is about the government. The moment someone cuts funding for services or infrastructure costs can actually increase in the long term. Reality check please.

Actually this morning on MJ most folks were talking about the bloated military. I was quite happy to see it.

I agree there are bigger wastes to cut. But you are STILL incorrect in thinking only by cutting "waste" will we approach turning the deficit around. You would need real, actual cuts to things people, the voters and taxpayers, largely want, need, or don't want to see go away. There's a reason even your own party won't attach its name to suggestions of specific programs to cut if it means they'll have to go face voters over it. It's going to take a lot more than "cutting waste."

No legislator wants to bring home job cuts. That is what making spending cuts boils down to at the level you are talking. HOWEVER, making strategic cuts to the military where people have a way out is the best way to go. Consider that using a five to ten year draw down plan could allow natural attrition (at the 20 to 30 year) point. Those folks would have a economic safety net in their planned retirement. The folks who simply finish their tours and only want to do one are equally protected because everyone gets educational benefits. SO between that net, learning a new skill and the recovering economy, it could work quite well.

People cost the most out of every asset the Department of Defense has at its disposal. People cost the most to maintain, pay, and support all the ancillary benefits. So reducing back to pre-2000 levels of manpower in the Army and Marines could save trillions. Some of you may wonder why i never mention the Navy or the Air force in these cut military talks. They would do a small portion of the share but both services have been shrinking in size this entire decade. Manpower wise we are as lean as we can be and still meet all the required treaties and security agreements our congress has signed. So the only real savings will occur in returning the Army and the Marines to pre-2000 levels.

That said plenty of things can be cut other than slicing and dicing Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. Social Security should be strengthened and not cut in any way shape or form. The medical services should be able to be cut as a more cost effective product with the same services replaces it in the ACA or Obamacare.

 

[frankfrank]

I know this used to happen, but does it happen anymore? The military would sometimes buy one or two of a quantity of something very simple, such as a cotter pin, but it would have to be made to a very specific measurement, and perhaps there had to be some kind of identifying mark on it to show that it belonged to the government, and they might spend $30,000 in tooling to produce it, and maybe there was something within tolerance that could simply be bought for a few cents.

For that matter, are any defense/military materials ever simply "bought out of a catalog" or are they always custom-made for the military, even if something with identical specs already exists?

When I was auditing the line-item costs of weapons in my early adult years (yes I was part of the military-industrial complex, can y'all imagin THAT while considering what I post here?), I don't remember ever seeing ANY evidence of anything simply being bought out of a catalog.