US deficit down 9%

[CorvallisBMW]

over 60% of the Budget as it is now is ENTITLEMENTS. thats a good place to start.

Bail outs, Earmarks, Pork in general, unnecessary travel, Govt employee Unions (aka Collective bargaining agreements) Education (return that to a state and locally run programs and not a federal agenda, The schools are not shitty from being short on cash)

Shall I continue.

Yes, please continue. Bailouts are done and over, you can't count those. How are you going to eliminate the dept of education? How are you going to limit pork and earmarks? How much will it save?

You're still just blowing out hot air.

If I had to wager a guess, I'd say that "Earmarks, Pork in general, unnecessary travel, Govt employee Unions" cost about $50bn per year put together. Congrats, you've cut about 2%. Care to try again?

[mrsleeve]

Dept of Heath and Human services (entitlements other than SSI) Has a larger budget that the DoD then the Interest on our debts.
CUT THEM OFF, OTHER THAN BARE LIFE ESSENTIALS


You could cut the waffleswaffleswaffles by 50% and save 50b Right there.

DHS can go bye bye and save another 50b

HUD can go bye bye too and save a good 25b

End farm subsidies there is a good 75B

Kill the EPA 12b

Kill the IRS and go to a 1-2 page tax code and get every one to pay taxes no matter the income level Via the flat tax or Better the Fair tax.

DOT could be down sized and streamlined and save 30% or better on its budget of 80b

Dissolve Fannie and Freddie and that black hole of impending economic doom

There are plenty of place to cut spending from and place the money on the debts to pay them down and lower the amount paid to service it thus getting 500b back in the budget. Look at that I have just saved 200B I bet there is at least 3 times that that could be cut in other areas

All while leaving taxes the same or even lower them a little more, thus bringing stability as to what Washington is gonna do and allow people to take risks, hire, start or expand business. All which is what is needed to get people to spend money STABILITY, and put people back to work lowering the U/E rates, and put more money back into the economy.

Get the Greenies in govt appointments outta the way and the EPA and streamline the permitting process for infrastructure retrofits and upgrades. After all the biggest share of the Infrastructure in the country is dam close or well past life expectancy since we have put the lions share of monies into Social programs rather than Infrastructure we will start see lots more issues like the I35 Bridge in Minneapolis, or the PG&E pipeline blow out in CA last month. I have been waiting on a job to go in PA for 5 months, the person in charge of enviro permits for the state is dragging their feet on getting them done and holding up about 350 people form going to work, on a 14 month project THAT IS PRIVATELY FUNDED.

[z31maniac]

So where do you all propose we cut spending from? Defense? Education? Medicare? Food safety?

Every single conservative I've talked to loves to rally and bitch about how the government needs to cut back spending. But not a single one, NOT ONE, has been able to give me a specific cut they would make.

So how about it guys? Where are you going to find $500bn next year to cut? You can't cut the Stimulus, it's already over. Same with the bailouts, TARP, etc. I don't care if you want to cut from discretionary, non-discretionary or both (yes, you can cut from non-discretionary spending, there are ways to do it)

Across the board cuts, everything takes a hit.

15% at least, is it going to suck? Yes.
Be difficult? Yes.

But it needs to be done, right now politicians basically treat entitlements and defense as untouchable which leaves an incredibly small portion of the budget with which to make significant progress.

And working in Defense I can tell you so much money could be saved or we could get so much more from what we do spend if there weren't such a "union, that ain't my job type mentality."

[CorvallisBMW]

Dept of Heath and Human services (entitlements other than SSI) Has a larger budget that the DoD then the Interest on our debts.
CUT THEM OFF, OTHER THAN BARE LIFE ESSENTIALS

Cut off Medicare and Medicaid? That's a tall order. Hope you've outlawed the AARP before you strike out on that one.

You could cut the waffleswaffleswaffles by 50% and save 50b Right there.

The 2010 dept of education budget was $46.7B, that doesn't quite pencil out. But I wouldn't mind seeing all the $ spent of standardized test and such being cut. Things like student loans and grants, however, need to be strengthened not cut. Every $1 you put in to educating someone comes out 100x fold in their contribution as a worker/taxpayer

DHS can go bye bye and save another 50b

HUD can go bye bye too and save a good 25b

Agreed, for the most part. Some of what Homeland Security does has become indispensable however, such as airline security. Someone has to run that stuff.

End farm subsidies there is a good 75B

Good luck getting that past the ultra-conservative farm lobby.

Kill the EPA 12b

Kill the IRS and go to a 1-2 page tax code and get every one to pay taxes no matter the income level Via the flat tax or Better the Fair tax.

Neither are possible. Someone has to make sure the country doesn't end up a toxic sludgepool with arsenic being put in your family's drinking water, that's the EPAs job. And do you really think either party is going to kill it off? Or the IRS? Nothing short of a +60% Libertarian congress and a libertarian president are going to do that. American's are overwhelmingly in favor of progressive taxes.

Get the Greenies in govt appointments outta the way and the EPA and streamline the permitting process for infrastructure retrofits and upgrades. After all the biggest share of the Infrastructure in the country is dam close or well past life expectancy since we have put the lions share of monies into Social programs rather than Infrastructure we will start see lots more issues like the I35 Bridge in Minneapolis, or the PG&E pipeline blow out in CA last month. I have been waiting on a job to go in PA for 5 months, the person in charge of enviro permits for the state is dragging their feet on getting them done and holding up about 350 people form going to work, on a 14 month project THAT IS PRIVATELY FUNDED.

You can't blame anything currently going on on the 'Greenies', sorry. They didn't have a damn thing to do with the subprime crisis, or wall street, or any of that. The infrastructure does need a lot of work though. But now you're looking at hundreds of billions more for thousands of new roads, bridges, pipelines, etc. And when Obama tried to push a transportation infrastructure spending bill a few months back the Republicans went insane. We would have new bridges going up right now if it weren't for them.

And fracking should be illegal, good for PA for trying to stop it.

Across the board cuts, everything takes a hit.

15% at least, is it going to suck? Yes.
Be difficult? Yes.

But it needs to be done, right now politicians basically treat entitlements and defense as untouchable which leaves an incredibly small portion of the budget with which to make significant progress.

And working in Defense I can tell you so much money could be saved or we could get so much more from what we do spend if there weren't such a "union, that ain't my job type mentality."

That's tough though, are you going to cut 15% from Medicaid and expect to get re-elected? Hell no. Seniors will boot you out of office so fast your head will spin. The union thing can suck, yes, but you work for a private company which has obviously allowed unions within their business. It's not the DoDs responsibility, they just give you the contract(s) after bidding, correct?

In the end it all comes down to, 'will this help or hurt my chances of re-election?' That's what drives a huge part of current lawmaking. Not what's best for the country or the people, but what will look best on the next TV clip.

[pureaudio]

Education can stand to take a huge hit still, all that schools have done in this economy to cut costs is to cut the jobs that will make the biggest difference so they have a reason to gun for increased budgets. Never mind the admins stroking each other off with bigger raises and stipends that fall under "confidential" pay lists.

In the end it all comes down to, 'will this help or hurt my chances of re-election?' That's what drives a huge part of current lawmaking. Not what's best for the country or the people, but what will look best on the next TV clip.

Absolutely correct.

[mrsleeve]

Cut off Medicare and Medicaid? That's a tall order. Hope you've outlawed the AARP before you strike out on that one.

Yeah I know, but there is plenty of room to trim it a long ways

The 2010 dept of education budget was $46.7B, that doesn't quite pencil out. But I wouldn't mind seeing all the $ spent of standardized test and such being cut. Things like student loans and grants, however, need to be strengthened not cut. Every $1 you put in to educating someone comes out 100x fold in their contribution as a worker/taxpayer

Please consult the graph

http://www.federalbudget.com/

oh and educating and making loans so people can attend secondary education are supposed to be the responsibility of the federal govt and the tax payer.

Agreed, for the most part. Some of what Homeland Security does has become indispensable however, such as airline security. Someone has to run that stuff.

The TSA really, Have you been to an airport recently?????

Good luck getting that past the ultra-conservative farm lobby.

Yeah I know that I grew up on a farm. I know all about it. Most of the neighbors were getting paid not to farm, to save the environment Via the CRP programs in the 80's

Neither are possible. Someone has to make sure the country doesn't end up a toxic sludgepool with arsenic being put in your family's drinking water, that's the EPAs job. And do you really think either party is going to kill it off? Or the IRS? Nothing short of a +60% Libertarian congress and a libertarian president are going to do that. American's are overwhelmingly in favor of progressive taxes.

EPA is a weapon nothing more nothing less, Its out lived its usefullness and either needs to go away, or be defunded to the point where it can only do what it was intended to do, over see and enforce things NOT WRITE NEW POLICY. IRS again a weapon, and has been since the beginning.

You can't blame anything currently going on on the 'Greenies', sorry. They didn't have a damn thing to do with the subprime crisis, or wall street, or any of that. The infrastructure does need a lot of work though. But now you're looking at hundreds of billions more for thousands of new roads, bridges, pipelines, etc. And when Obama tried to push a transportation infrastructure spending bill a few months back the Republicans went insane. We would have new bridges going up right now if it weren't for them.

Right greenies have not caused the sub prime deal (govt still did that though). But greenies have made it so its near impossible to make infrastructure upgrades and what not.

And fracking should be illegal, good for PA for trying to stop it.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAAHHAAHAHHAAHAHAH

Again talking out your ass about something you obviously have NO CLUE about. You were watching that Douche bag actor on the Dykes show on MSNBC last week weren't you???? Even the EPA has deemed the process safe.

Oh its not a Frack job either, I am not rig hand.

In the end it all comes down to, 'will this help or hurt my chances of re-election?' That's what drives a huge part of current lawmaking. Not what's best for the country or the people, but what will look best on the next TV clip.

Agree 100% has nothing to do with what is right, or whats best for the nation but what is RIGHT to keep me in power. This is not how our govt is supposed to work.

[z31maniac]

That's tough though, are you going to cut 15% from Medicaid and expect to get re-elected? Hell no. Seniors will boot you out of office so fast your head will spin. The union thing can suck, yes, but you work for a private company which has obviously allowed unions within their business. It's not the DoDs responsibility, they just give you the contract(s) after bidding, correct?

In the end it all comes down to, 'will this help or hurt my chances of re-election?' That's what drives a huge part of current lawmaking. Not what's best for the country or the people, but what will look best on the next TV clip.

I know, possibly an argument for term limits?

We aren't a Union shop, some defense contractors are, some aren't. But there is always multiple companies working on one project.

A small example of "It ain't my job, I ain't doing it" union-type mentality.

I finished a manual back at the beginning of the year, unfortunately, I missed some paragraph numbering errors (which wouldn't happen period if the other Tech Writer was open to getting real publishing software vs using Word for what are sometimes 2500+ page documents, anyway..)

It was a super easy fix, took approxmiately 30 minutes. And the other companies writers could have fixed this because they were ultimately going to be the ones coverting the Word document to the SGML file for the Navy. So to get things moving they just fix the numbering, right? Nope, they send the manual back through our sister company who has to review it, who then sends it me so I can fix it, then goes back through our sister company, then back to the company.

Not to mention it was originally sent to me on a Monday and I don't work Mondays. So they added nearly 36 hours to when the errors were corrected and added nearly 6 hours of additional billed labor to the gov't.

Bad thing for me? Unfortunately most Tech Writing work in OK is in the Defense sector. ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!

[CorvallisBMW]

Please consult the graph
http://www.federalbudget.com/

Not sure where they're getting those numbers, but they're 100% wrong: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fy2010...ent_education/

The TSA really, Have you been to an airport recently?????

Yes, as a matter of fact I've taken a half-dozen trips since the beginning of the summer. Is the TSA fun? No. Is it absolutely necessary? Yes.

Are you saying we should get rid of airport security? How else do you propose we prevent terrorist hijackings? Flowers? Kind words? Maybe a nice sign that says, 'Please don't hijack'?

EPA is a weapon nothing more nothing less, Its out lived its usefullness and either needs to go away, or be defunded to the point where it can only do what it was intended to do, over see and enforce things NOT WRITE NEW POLICY. IRS again a weapon, and has been since the beginning.

You sure have a fucked up definition of weapon. The EPAs job is environmental protection, which includes environmental policy. The IRS is there to collect taxes. If you don't pay your taxes they will come after you because you broke the law. I can't see how you classify enforcing the law as a weapon...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAAHHAAHAHHAAHAHAH

Again talking out your ass about something you obviously have NO CLUE about. You were watching that Douche bag actor on the Dykes show on MSNBC last week weren't you???? Even the EPA has deemed the process safe.

Not sure what show or 'douche bag actor' you're talking about, I don't watch MSNBC. Nice homophobic little insult there though.

I'm talking about the widely known and extremely dangerous consequences of fracking, including natural gas explosions, poisoning of ground water and wells, etc. I've posted lots of videos for you before about flammable tap water and such, but you always ignore them because you don't want to admit I'm right.

I know, possibly an argument for term limits?

I've always wondered if that would be a reasonable solution. I really haven't thought through the whole thing enough to make an educated decision. I'm sure there are good arguments on both sides. Experience is important, but it also breeds corruption. Do we want a bunch of newbies running the country? No. But do we want a bunch of entrenched career politicians who are more concerned about bringing home the bacon and getting re-elected? Certainly not.

[Joey Link]

Hmmmm

[CorvallisBMW]

Oh c'mon joey, I know you can't wait to jump in and prove me wrong ;)

[mrsleeve]

darrin I dont have time too poke holes in you theory tonight. have to cram 3 very thick manuals and 5 sections of code of federal regulation into my head for a couple of cert tests tomarrow

[Joey Link]

Oh c'mon joey, I know you can't wait to jump in and prove me wrong ;)

I'd rather do it over a couple of beers ;)

[CorvallisBMW]

I'd rather do it over a couple of beers ;)

Deal. Sorry I can't make it over for UFC Sat night though.

[Joey Link]

I could use a pint of Black Bear Stout and some political conversation tonight, if you're up for it.

[CorvallisBMW]

Sounds good. Give me a buzz when you're off.