Nicole Tichon is the Tax and Budget Reform Advocate for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group; Andrew Moylan is Director of Government Affairs for the National Taxpayers Union.
Our nation faces unprecedented fiscal challenges, as the commitments we've made now and into the future far outpace our fiscal capacity. Congress, the President's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, and citizens across the country must grapple with very difficult decisions about how we can put our fiscal house in order. It will be critical to reach out across party lines and across ideological persuasions to achieve common-sense reforms that can bring us closer to balance.
The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) and National Taxpayers Union (NTU) have joined together to propose a list of 30 specific recommendations to reform our future spending commitments. If enacted in their entirety, these changes would save taxpayers over $600 billion in total by 2015, the target date for the Fiscal Commission to reduce our publicly-held debt-to-GDP ratio to a more sustainable level of 60 percent. While our organizations have often differed about the proper regulatory scope of government and a host of tax policies, we are united in the belief that we spend far too much money on ineffective programs that do not serve the best interests of the American people.
The cuts deal with specific reforms to entitlement programs, defense spending, wasteful subsidies and a broad range of discretionary items of a smaller scale. While these proposals won't get us all the way there, it is a start that could establish some common ground and make government more accountable in the process.
Some of the suggestions are aimed at procedural improvements, like collecting errant payments for Supplemental Security Income or housing subsidies. Others seek to eliminate programs that are wasteful or unnecessary, like the Market Access Program, which helps some of the most profitable companies in the world advertise their products abroad.
Every item on the list includes a five-year savings estimate for the Commission's 2015 target. Those estimates are backed up by authoritative official sources such as the Congressional Budget Office, Government Accountability Office, Joint Committee on Taxation, or the Office of Management and Budget, as well as bipartisan panels and audit agencies. The recommendations are specific, detailed, and actionable items that Congress could pursue right now to reduce spending.
Most importantly, we strongly believe this list represents a consensus that can be reached between political factions that spend a great deal of their time fighting one another. In our estimation, these recommendations reduce spending without significantly degrading the level of services provided to the American taxpayer and without neglecting the federal government's commitments.
As a nation, we can no longer afford to delay difficult decisions. It is our hope that this list of spending reductions can serve as a starting point for long overdue reforms and lay the groundwork for a bipartisan approach to those decisions.
What follows is a general summary of spending reductions that fall into four rough categories: ending wasteful subsidies, improving contracting and asset acquisition, improving program execution and government operations, and addressing outdated or ineffective military programs to align spending with current needs. Download the full report for a list of each specific recommendation,with an estimate of its savings by 2015, totaling over $600 billion, and a reference to the source from which the estimate is based.
Follow Nicole Tichon on Twitter: www.twitter.com/uspirg
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Otherwise, within our lifetimes, we're going to be taxing more than 100% of GDP as money cycles back and forth to bondholders and taxpayers at a rate exceeding real economic activity. We won't default on the debt, exactly, but when the payments to bondholders are the only game in town we'll have to tax them.
Not only is it not clear, the authors don't go nearly far enough. We should cut military expenditures by at least fifty percent, thereby scaling back the largest welfare program in the world.
Hang onto your delusions. You are luckier than some, if you can; too many who have been sent to spill blood in the name of "freedom" awaken in the midst of horror to realize that it is, indeed, all a lie. Too many have not been able to handle that awakening.
has there been a debate on this expenditure ------
are the authors of this piece aware of the planned purchase
1Tubby
http://www.slate.com/id/2093707/
Reagan, Clinton and Bush all plundered Social Security for political gain. The entitlement programs are not bankrupt. The government just owes them hundreds of billions of dollars. The government just does not want to pay it back its obligations. Social Security and Medicare won't be in trouble till I am an old man. Medicare could crash quicker due to the health care bill Obama just signed (My prediction is that insurance companies will drop sickly people and the government will take over their medical). But, these programs have paid for themselves up to this point. If they become unaffordable, then either cutting benefits or raising taxes should work. The problem with our deficit is not Social Security or Medicare. It is the federal taxes that cause the deficit. CUT THOSE PROGRAMS! Unfortunately, most of those taxes go to the Defense Department. I am perfectly o.k. with dumping the Department of the Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce. How about slashing military spending by 40% and closing our overseas military bases? That should get us back on the fast track quicker.
Proposals:
1. We can't fix the budget withour ending the wars. If we make a commitment to have a less invasive overseas presence, the WAR DEPARTMENT could be cut by at least $400 Billion per year.
2. Require that people receiving Medicaid and Medicare assistance pay 10% of their income toward health care before the government pays any additional cost.
3. End all direct payments to corporations that aren't part of a specific mission (such as high speed train development).
4. Raise taxes on net incomes over $100,000 sufficient to get the job done.
5. Develop luxury taxes.
Why do you imagine that Republican talking points like cut spending (when the greatest expenditure is intelligence and defense and their attendant agencies, which no Republicans will ever cut-- so it's not really a real point) and lower taxes, will suddenly derive outcomes they never have before? Is yours a faith-based politics?
To him, 10% of the little he makes amounts to about a meal. So you're saying he has to go hungry one day a week so the Koch brothers can pay less tax than I do?
Yeah, that's American justice for you.
Now, please take my question in proper context. For too long, govt has treated our Treasury like a giant trough that they pony up to & use for things other than what income taxes should be used for. Each year our tax codes become more cumbersome & average citizens like me can't figure out how the IRS arrives at the answer to "how much is MY portion of the overall bill?" The reason they can't give us good answers is because they're simply sticking their hands in our pockets without accurately & completely accounting for how that money is spent!
Oh sure, the GAO publishes an annual budget, but how does it translate for the average citizen, being that it's probably over 1000 pgs long? It's ridiculous that govt tells me I owe X% of my annual income to them for taxes when there are corporations who never pay their fair share because of their off-shore shenanigans (like the recent revelations about Google's tax avoidance schemes).
It's all unfair. Firstly, we know our govt spends way more than they take in. This should be illegal ! Secondly, why do others get tax breaks that I don't because they make more than me? Thirdly, why do we have loopholes at all?
BECAUSE THAT'S THEIR JOB! Politicians and bureaucrats work for the GOVERNMENT, not you and me; to get things done they need MONEY. Who has the money? WE DO, in our POCKETS.
Get the picture?
And the government is a MONOPOLY that can go on forever, because it can PRINT ITS OWN MONEY, and is protected from we consumers and competition in the open market! The Founders knew that, they fought a revolution against government, it is a necessary evil and like any monopoly a tyranny if too big, so the constitution allows a government with LIMITED POWERS, whose prime directive is to PROTECT OUR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS, not establish Government rights (that's what "group" rights are: minorities, gays, gender, workers, etc., all separated from INDIVIDUAL rights). INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS evolve through amendments; emancipation proclamation, women's vote, voting age set at 18; NOT through government edicts or group preferences!
Want tax fairness? GET GOVERNMENT BACK TO ENFORCING INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS, instead of granting rights to people based upon their income, that's unconstitutional. EVERYBODY PAYS THE SAME %! Best way: consumption tax, we pay taxes when we spend, NOT when we earn or take in money!
The simple solution overall? THROW THE BUMS OUT REGULARLY, KEEP 'EM STIRRED UP, so they cannot settle into one spot too long and wreak havoc.
The first thing these f$#r's did was raise ceiling on SS contribution from 108k to 125k(more would have been a back door tax increase), Change the way inflation(thus benefits)was calculated, and gradually raise the retirement age.
They did the budget in 3 days with the implication being, no political pressure allowed them to get er done. Well thats just not good enough. No effort to reform/simplify nor to restore progressivity to the tax code. No mention of the regressive nature of treating capital better than labour. No "tobin tax". The elite, even after holding office, can't conceive of a system that would be fair. Not in their toolbox. Pisses me off!
The Rich and the Corporations need to be TAXED more not less.
And there's the key to cleaning it up: LIMIT ITS POWER, like the founders set up in the constitution.
The most faith I have in the government is when LESS of it is around me, except in the areas needed: enforcing the law, running the court system, running the offices of government, but NOT running our daily lives!
The current "real" budget exceeds $1.1 trillion each and every year. The $107 billion proposal over five years amounts to less than a 2% reduction per year. Obama and Gates have already talked about phasing out certain systems but "spending the savings" on more modern systems. That's not a savings at all.
The US currently maintains more than 750 military bases overseas. The costs are staggering. Furthermore, sorry for the cliche but we really do need to stop being the world's policemen. Worse, we need to stop being the world's imperialists. The US needs a strong defense; we do not need a strong "offense." End the two senseless wars now.
If we spend too much on "security", we weaken the fabric of our country by falling behind in infrastructure (e.g. highways, bullet trains, wifi), by falling behind in education, by falling behind in health care, by falling behind in economic competitiveness and by falling behind in many other areas.
The real problem that must be addressed is not the laundry list of savings the authors have proposed. Leaving a corrupt process in place, i.e. corporate lobbying and excessive corporate dollars perverting the electoral process, any spending reductions, even if they could be achieved, would soon be replaced with other misguided spending. There's no point bailing out the basement before you fix the roof.