Congress now has until March 18th to approve a budget bill. Everyone says they want to balance the budget, but so far no one has a plan that even comes close.
There are three ways to balance the budget. One is budget cuts, another is generating new sources of revenue, and finally we can reduce the deficit by growing the economy. To grow the government we need to generate jobs. The reality is that we will need a combination of all three to balance the budget.
Let's look at cutting the budget first:
The Republican plan is to cut $60 billion from discretionary spending – mostly in programs that benefit the poor and other Democratic constituents. The Republican budget may cost 700,000 jobs and reverse the growth in the economy by two percentage points according to an independent study.
http://blogs.cfed.org/cfed_news_clips/20...A Democratic study broke down where the jobs would be lost and concluded the Republican plan would actually loose 1 million jobs.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011...Non military discretionary spending is only 14% of the budget and it is obvious that with a $1.4 trillion deficit, even the draconian cuts the Republicans propose are only a drop in the bucket. It is obvious that to balance the budget it will be necessary to make substantial cuts in the military, and to make cuts that require sacrifice from all segments of the population and not just the poor and the middle class. How do we do that?
A new GAO study identifies waste and duplication in the government that could result in $200 billion in savings by consolidation and by making the government leaner and more efficient.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...Now with $200 billion we are starting to talk about real money, but that is still only one seventh of the deficit.
What about the entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare?
What you need to understand about Social Security is that it doesn't contribute to the deficit at all. Social Security is the only government program that is not bankrupt. Social Security has a separate funding program in which workers pay into a trust fund. This trust fund has a $2.6 trillion surplus. It will be solvent for another 27 years at which point if nothing else is done to adjust the revenue, the program will be forced to reduce outlays by 20%. So we have 27 years to tweak Social security, and if we don't, people will still get 80% of what they were promised.
Medicare is a different problem. Medicare takes care of the oldest and the most infirm people in the nation and the cost of caring for the elderly takes up most of the health care budget, because only 5% of those people take 50% of the health care budget.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2...Taking care of the elderly is paid for by payroll taxes, but as the baby boomers become older and as the number of workers and their wages has decreased with the recession there will be a great imbalance. "80% of U.S. residents age 65 or older have at least one chronic condition that could lead to early death or disability. The report also found that the cost of caring for older U.S. residents is three to five times greater than the cost of caring for younger adults, indicating the increased need for preventive health care"
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles...We need to do three things to make Medicare sustainable. We need to increase the number of jobs and increase revenue, we need to increase prevention so those elderly conditions are not as serious, and we need to bring costs down for their care. It is a complicated issue and not easily solved by simplistic bumper sticker slogans.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2...We also need to cut in other areas. We need to attack the biggest of government programs. The biggest slice of the pie is the military. We spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined and more than ten times what our nearest competitor spends. Why? We all know the military is renowned for wasteful spending, but the problem with the military is that there are thousands of competing agencies that are all very protective and secretive about their budgets. No one knows how much the military really spends, or where the money goes.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03...Many programs are hidden from regular accounting. All of our nuclear weapons and their production and maintenance are in the Department of Energy budget. In Afghanistan and Iraq we have more "Private Contractors" (mercenaries) than we have regular troops. In many cases we pay these private contractors five times what we pay the military personnel to do the same jobs. How much does that cost? No one knows because those funds are secret and hidden. Shouldn't we do a GAO study to find duplication and waste in the military so we know where we can cut waste?
It costs a million dollars to send one soldier to Afghanistan for a year. Ending the war and bringing the troops home would save hundreds of billions of dollars. The current plan from the administration is to start bringing troops home starting in July. Why don't we bring them all home, including all of the contractors who the president of Afghanistan wanted out several months ago? We have thus far spent more than $3 trillion on these foolish wars. What has that investment bought us?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...There are serious questions about the effectiveness of all of this military spending. Why do we need weapons systems designed to fight other super powers when there are no other super powers? The fight against terrorism is mostly a police action, and using bombs against terrorists, is often counterproductive because innocent civilians are often killed and when they are, friends and relatives join the other side because they live in an area where retribution and vengeance is culturally demanded. There are many reasons why we can no longer afford to be the cops of the world.
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archive...The American people are tired of our longest period of war. Support has continuously slipped from 59% just a year ago to 41% now. Instead of waiting till 2014 to withdraw troops, we should declare victory, and begin removing troops in July as originally planned, so we can start reaping that peace dividend earlier.
http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2011/01/...We could probably save hundreds of billions by cutting waste in the military, but cuts that involve jobs would have to be phased in so the military jobs could be converted to civilian jobs. We need to invest in green jobs to replace jobs in the military industrial complex.
An added benefit is that almost any other job would be more beneficial to the country than spending on the military. If you spend on infrastructure jobs you get roads, bridges, trains utilities and health care. When you spend on the military you create death pain and suffering for someone in the world and that generates hatred. Instead of spending that money on destruction we could be spending it on many things that everyone would consider better.
http://nationalpriorities.org/en/tools/t...The reason few politicians of either party are considering military cuts, is that the military industrial complex intentionally split production up so there are military jobs in the districts of every member of Congress. These same members of Congress are addicted to the campaign cash from the military Industrial Complex.
Perhaps it is up to the newest members of Congress, those who were elected by the Tea Party, who are dedicated to balancing the budget and reducing the size of government, who can bring about cuts to the military because their souls haven't been completely purchased yet by the military Industrial Complex.