President Obama will roll out a $3.7 trillion budget blueprint Monday that would trim or terminate more than 200 federal programs next year and make key investments in education, transportation and research in a bid to boost the nation’s economy and reduce record budget deficits.
Senior administration officials cast the document as a responsible alternative to the deep spending cuts that Republicans will urge in a vote this week on the House floor. Obama’s plan would reduce deficits by more than $1.1 trillion over the next decade, the officials said, with two-thirds of the money coming from spending cuts that would strike hard at programs that Democrats have long favored.
However, the president also will call for targeted investments that would increase funding for energy and medical research, expand the tax credit for corporate research and development, pay to train 100,000 new science and math teachers, and fund a wireless network that would bring high-speed Internet access to 98 percent of Americans.
“The debate in Washington is not whether to cut or to spend. We both agree we should cut,” said a senior administration official, who briefed reporters Sunday night on the condition of anonymity because the budget had not been released. “The question is how we cut and what we cut.”
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We need to put the sacred cow on the table – the military.
Military.
Cut back from the combined total spending of the next 27 nations to say something more reasonable like, say 15 nations.
Raise the SS retirement age.
Lots of moaning but it needs to be done. Obama can do it with his powers of persuasion. The GOP scumbags simply don’t have the trust of the people to pull this off. Obama does.
The above alone will put the country back on course.
Take a 10% cut in defense. We spend too much on smart weapons and not enough on smart citizens.
ALL programs not specified in the Constitution as being part of the federal govt.
Cut ALL foreign aid, and UN spending until we have a balanced budget
oh and Dallas STFU
Cutting ALL foreign aid will save $23 billion. Cutting %10 of the D of D budget will save $68 billion. (Feel free to check my math. Both numbers came from Wikipedia.)
Neither will happen. Inflation for the win.
This is a simple answer. You need to cut everything. Nothing should be taken off the table. Neither military, or social programs. Every agency should be required to shed 20% within the next two years.
For the military I am willing to compromise on their deployment. Let the rest of the UN take over the DMZ in Korea, and close the rest of our Europe bases.
The department of education should be eliminated, its done nothing to help kids education. Return full control of education back to the states were it belongs.
In fact most social programs should be run by the states. If it doesn’t effect interstate commerce directly the federal government really should not be involved. I would think this would make my liberal friends in New York and California happy, since they are always saying that they pay a disproportionate amount of taxes to the feds. This way that money could stay home and solve their financial problems.
The never ending war in Afganistan. Face it. They are a bottomless pit of greed, graft, and corruption. They have always been backwards, primitive, brutal tribes, and they always will be.
The three biggest programs are defense, medicare and social security. You can’t get the budget and our debt under control unless you tackle those. The problem is finding politicians with enough back bone to get it done.
Cut the budget for the District of Columbia.
Let it go back to a malaria filled swamp.
No more salaries and expenses for congress, for the senate, for the presidency.
The lobbyists can wave goodbye to staying in DC on our dime.
No more paying our hard-earned money for that bunch of TOAB*.
Lets get back to a volunteer government.
George Washington was a farmer because he needed to earn a living.
If the schmucks need to meet, let ’em Skype together.
Cut the budget for elections.
Why are we paying?
What are we buying?
Do we want to waste our money?
If they love the country and being servants of the citizens, let ’em prove it by doing it for free.
* TOAB => Tits On A Bull
>Raise the SS retirement age. Obama can do it with his powers of persuasion…
Obama ruled out benefit cuts in his State of the Union address. I agree he could make a difference here, and that he has failed to lead on this issue.
10 year reduction in the deficit is less than this year’s deficit. In other words, this president is not serious on the issue, he just wants to generate some headlines to trick some independent voters sufficiently to get reelected.
If you look at defense spending as a percentage of GDP for the US, you will find that thru most of our history defense spending represented about 4 or 5 % of GDP during peacetime. During wars this percentage went up as would be expected, usually to the 8 to 10% range as in the Civil War.
However, defense spending went over 5% of GDP in 1941 and has stayed there ever since. In budgetary terms the US has been in a continual state of war for 70 years. No society can do this forever. Even Rome and Carthage had to take a break or two during their 120 year struggle.
The US is destroying itself with this insane desire to police and control the entire world through military pressure. This is the same way the Soviet Union destroyed itself.
We have got to reconcile ourselves to a world where we don’t call all the shots and we are not the dominant military power in every section of the globe. Define a sphere of influence and stick to it. Recognize that US miltary power can’t control the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
We also need to recognize that supporting miltary dictatorships for expedient reasons is an expensive and shortsighted policy with only short term payoffs and long term liabilities. Look at Iran and now Egypt to see how much influence billions and billions of dollars buys.
While we’re at it, how about an energy policy that encourages the US to be self-reliant instead of pumping hundreds of billions of dollars to the royal families in Arabia which will be the next dominoes to fall.
The US is a rich and powerful country. The only real threat to America is from bad leadership that squanders our resources in reckless military adventures around the world. Returning military expenses to a peacetime footing would probably slice 400 to 500 billion dollars from current spending.
#9 The only thing I agree with you is that you’re in a nut shell
Lessee : Social Security. Paid for eah month from the pockets of the working class. Nope, no need to cut that. Its paid for.
Military : How many bases, rockets, planes are truly needed to fight a group of ‘cave dwellers’? Oh wait, we are nation builders and democracy spreaders now. Lets end the fluff. Lets end the Contract Killers and the Halliburton cooks payroll feeds. I am sure that would save quite a bit, just by ending the trough.
Congress : Lets make them earn the salaries they raise EVERY session. Lets cut travel, or make them travel on the military transports. That would save money on gas alone.
We need to take a stand as a people, and recognize the way the banks have taken over our Tax Returns (Visa…US Bank….JP Morgan…) How do you think they are making profits by handling what should be a Government run and controlled event? Food stamps anyone? Just going to cost you $1.50 per transaction.
Government is NOT For Profit. We need to quit thinking it needs to be run by a CEO, and realize it should be limited to what its duty truly is. Not what the Politicians state ‘its what I am running on’.
-Unconstitutional agencies out… Good example to start from is Rad Paul proposal: 400+Bil/year cut.
-Intelligent military cuts… Removal of most (90%+) US forces from EU and Japan: 250Bil/year cut.
-Realizing that we do not have money for social engineering here and abroad (cut in any international aid that is not ongoing natural disaster; ban on any Govt. “incentives” or “investments” at home): 150Bil/yr cut.
@#16: “Social Security. Paid for each month from the pockets of the working class.” – wrong. If everyone is putting in less than taking out it is Madoff Ponzi scheme. Return to what it started as: annually adjusted SS retirement year equal to average lifespan. It was supposed to be insurance, not benefit.
-Finally: cut across all (legal) Departments equally, 10%. Cut in workforce 10%, cut in funding 10%,… Followed by the 5 year freeze in spending and workforce size.
Result: no deficit.
Second issue not raised: what to do with debt? Make a starting dent in it by aggressive sell of Govt. land holdings in the West and aggressive offerings of resources exploitation permits wherever resources are (now that unconstitutional EA does not exist), … with side benefit of exponential job growth.
“Obama’s plan would reduce deficits by more than $1.1 trillion over the next decade…”
Ok, so that’s an $110 billion a year. Which is about 2.9% of the overall budget. Barely a dent in other words.
Well, everyone hated Bush right? So why not cut every program that Bush started? That’s probably a few 100 billion at least.
Next, how about making Social Security only payable to old people (over 65) who are actually poor? And disability payments only go to people who are actually disabled.
TSA would be a good start.
$7 billion a year for people that aren’t even required to have a high school diploma. None needed. (18 years old and a year as a security guard at Wal-Mart gets you in.)* Just the ability to eat donuts and feel up people’s junk.
Require airports and airlines to provide security – the way it should be. A side effect might be to increase tourism. US dollar is down and should result in higher tourism except for the horror stories of the TSA.
* In a current job announcement for a second level TSO (starting wage $29,300 or about $14/hour):
•Have reached his/her 18th birthday at the time of application submission;
•Be proficient in English (e.g., reading, writing,
speaking, and listening);
•Have a high school diploma, GED or equivalent; OR Have at least one year of full-time work experience in security work, aviation screener work, or X-ray technician work.
Cut the military. The Egypt story proves its not tanks that get democracy, it’s facebook and twitter. Put a few satellites in orbit for free, unrestricted access and watch it bloom.
For SS, it has been a line item on my paycheck for 37 years (separate from taxes). DC has been stealing from it which is why it’s in sad shape. Raise taxes on rich and close loopholes to make it solvent again. It’s insurance alright, and with pensions gone, my 401k stolen, I want my insurance when I need it. Raise it to 70 for new comers to the workforce, but the rest of us have a “insurance contract” that needs to be fulfilled.
Dusanmal
Energy developers have pretty good access to public lands already. Check out the price of natural gas.
In the last ten years natural gas reserves and in the pipeline supplies have gone up. Market prices for gas are actually quite low now. Companies with wells are pretty much forced to produce a certain amount to keep their rights intact. Even though most would prefer to shut the supply and drive prices up. Which is what they would be doing if they owned the rights instead of leasing them.
We can argue both sides of the benefits and negatives of that but the fact is a lot of well development has gone on on public land without the land being sold.
Selling off public lands is definitely a short term benefit type plan. Would you trust politicians to actually spend down debt with any funds raised?
The long term benefits of public land particularly in terms of water resource and timber resource development shouldn’t be dismissed as having little or no value.
A pretty large share of America’s water resources fall on public land and are collected and “developed” in those lands. A lot of Americans depend upon that water. Think industry and agriculture. Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.
Eliminate the department of education. Hasn’t educated one child during its existence.
The Republicans want to cut. Why the hell did they not demand all these cuts when Bush was in office. You know, the one that kept on spending, and spending into the record books of the most spending of ANY president! Clinton had the budget under control. It was a mission of his of sorts, and along comes the Republicans, and spend spend, then hand it off to Obama to deal with.. Is it wise to cut Defense, at a time where Russia, China are bolstering the defenses of their respected countries?
#26 – it’s not that simple.
The budget is $3.7 trillion, which includes a $1.5 trillion deficit. In other words, simply to balance the budget everything must be cut by at least 40%. That’s not padding.
The military and social security is 70% of the entire $3.7 trillion budget. The remaining 30% is everything else the government does.
In other words, if you shut down the government entirely, laid off every federal government employee, canceled welfare, unemployment and closed every federal government office across the country, there’d still be a deficit.
In somewhat-related news, Belgium hasn’t a government for 241 days and no one seems to care. So do we really need a government?
#27 – I’d blame Obama and Bush.
Who was worse?
Bush, alleged Republican, starts 2 wars and goes on a spending spree, signing every spending bill provided by a Democrat congress. Apparently he lost his veto stamp.
or:
Obama, definitely a Democrat (and probably not a secret Muslim) continues spending spree, continues wars, loves every program Bush ever approved of, then proposes biggest expansion of government spending (health-care) ever, then suddenly decides it’s time to worry about the deficit (but only willing to cut 2.9% of the budget).
Chuck,
Belgium has a government. You can still register a car, get a marriage license, pay tax on your beer. The government apparatus still functions.
What they lack is a sitting legislature. Raises an interesting question on government. Is it better to do nothing or do what is almost sure to be wrong?
In Belgium’s case it would seem that this cobbled together little country is destined to split into two pieces. Another testimony to nation building.
The first step is to tell current EPA personnel to clean out their desks and pack it up, because the American people are sick and tired of being ruled by a bunch of hard left, eco-minded bureaucrats who want to rule over milk spills because there is oil in milk.
jb #31 — GOOD idea. That’s another $10 billion annually.
war is making us poor
2 wars are bankrupting the US
Endless 2 wars are bankrupting our kids and their kids as well
DoE…some of their programs work exceptionally well. Too many of them overall, but being absolute is to be a demagogue.
Same with EPA. Wasn’t that cool when in the last Olympics Beijing was caked in smog? I’d like that here, too.
1. Drastically reduce our foreign military profile and foreign military aid. Total budget down by 1/2, including the research and other stuff that usually gets excluded from the overall numbers.
2. Totally end agricultural subsidies for corn, sugar, wheat, and cotton.
more to come…
Historically, as in always prior to this decade, we considered the revenue side of the equation at times like this. With that in mind, perhaps the answer is to cut taxes for the rich, again, to generate more revenue. That always works, right?
See! Problem solved.
Gut’n idea!
Start a war with those bastards in Morrocco and pay for it with a tax cut.