Barackonomics
It's econ for dummies, and this country is apparently filled to the gills with 'em. At reason, Jacob Sullum writes about the joke that is fiscal responsbility, Obama-style (not that I was impressed with the last guy in there, either):
The president dismissed critics who were unimpressed by his $17 billion in savings as inside-the-Beltway snobs with no understanding of howregular people view things. "In Washington," he told reporters, "I guess that's considered trivial. Outside of Washington, that's still considered a lot of money." White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs used the same rhetorical strategy. "I've said this before, and I'll say it again: $17 billion is a lot of money to people in America," he said. "I understand that it might not be to some people in this town, but that's probably why we're sitting on a $12 trillion American Express bill"--a reference to the national debt.This is the sort of faux-populist argument that insults the public's common sense while pretending to flatter it. Yes, $17 billion is a lot of money for an individual, a municipality, even a mid-sized state. But it is emphatically not a lot of money for a federal government that spends trillions of dollars every year. If you had $12,000 in credit card debt and paid off $17 of it, would you feel like you had made significant progress?
"These savings, large and small, add up," the president said. That is literally true, of course; they just don't add up to much.
...This year, the Associated Press notes, "the government will have to borrow nearly 50 cents for every dollar it spends." Even with optimistic economic assumptions, the administration projects budget deficits of more than $500 billion every year from 2010 to 2019, totaling $7.1 trillion in additional debt at a time when Social Security and Medicare spending will be skyrocketing--a looming crisis Obama has not begun to address.
"We can no longer afford to spend as if deficits do not matter and waste is not our problem," the president said in May. "We can no longer afford to leave the hard choices for the next budget, the next administration--or the next generation."
We can no longer afford it...but we in the White House really don't give a flying crap!
But a question for you: If you were in the White House, how would you deal?
How would I deal?
"We can no longer afford to spend as if deficits do not matter and waste is not our problem," the president said in May. "We can no longer afford to leave the hard choices for the next budget, the next administration--or the next generation."
I'd run and hide from outrageous lies like pretending what I was doing is anything else.
If this does not show you the Emperor is naked, you simply cannot read.
Radwaste at July 28, 2009 2:17 AM
Well, start phasing out Departments over 5 years: Housing and Urban Development and Transportation would be a good start.
Simplify the tax code, so you can cut the number of IRS folks needed to get taxes.
Simplify the Federal governments appropriation code. Allow the government to buy foreign stuff if its significantly cheaper. Keep only vital defense spending in the country (don't want to outsource our ability to go to war).
Start letting defense companies sell our second-rate weapons to democracies around the world, in exchange for money to the government.
And, simplify the agricultural kickbacks and regulations, so farmers can sustainably farm and not depend on importing fertilizer and pesticides. It'll drop food costs in the long run, and drop oil dependency too, and giving our state department more leverage in the Middle East.
That would be my "New Deal." Then again, thats probably why I'm not in office.
Ryan at July 28, 2009 4:09 AM
Stick to the Constitutionally authorized functions and close the rest. Prediction - I wouldn't last 24 hours before I was impeached or killed.
MarkD at July 28, 2009 4:37 AM
My plan?:
-lose the department of education. It's the state's job, not the feds.
-end farm subsidies. If you can't be paid enough to live on what you grow, people don't need or want it that bad.
-end HUD. People can find their own housing without that help.
-eliminate the IRS and go to a national sales tax on everything but essential foodproducts and medical care. Meaning businesses pay taxes on what they buy only, just like the rest of us.
-overhaul welfare to literally keep you from starving in the street, period. Nothing else. No additional amount for more kids. If you're on welfare and have a new kid, it goes up for adoption period. No more section 8 either. If you can't keep a roof over your head, you go live in dorms that will be very basic-no cable tv!
-Put condom kiosks on every corner, right next to the newspapers.
-legalize prostitution. Make hookers pay periodic registration fees that require proof of clean health, that go to the government.
-shut down businesses that get caught employing illegals. No jobs, they leave, freeing up multiple tens of billions a year in welfare and free medical care to them. Better yet, put the military in charge of protecting our borders, with lethal force. Really people, actual americans WILL bus tables, pour concrete, and pick fruit. I promise!
-get rid of unions.
momof4 at July 28, 2009 5:42 AM
I'd start with what Ryan said, and assume that congress is on board (which they wouldn't be):
Include Education in the departments being phased out, and have the phase-out take 3 or 4 years so that it's complete before my (undoubtedly single) term is over.
Consolidate federal law enforcement under the FBI. BATFE in particular is redundant.
As part of tax reform, bill taxpayers monthly or quarterly.
Change now the rate of growth of entitlement programs (it would be nice to eliminate them but I don't know how) so that they are sustainable.
Pension reform: make defined benefit plans illegal because they threaten the existence of the republic; replace them with defined contribution plans. Change the law so that the feds won't bail out companies and unions that failed to fund their own pensions.
Get out of the car and finance businesses.
Reform immigration so that legal immigrants have an easier time than illegal ones.
Rationalize federal employment by, among other things, making it possible to fire federal employees based on the results of performance reviews.
Pseudonym at July 28, 2009 6:00 AM
I echo what MarkD said.
Pirate Jo at July 28, 2009 6:51 AM
Lot of good suggestions by the posters above. I'll add to cutting down on the total number of Cabinet-level departments. Re-combine HUD, Education, Veterans Affairs, and all of the welfare and assistance programs (except Social Security, which will have to be dealt with separately) back into Health, Education, and Welfare, like it used to be. Pass a Constitutional amendment setting HEW's maximum budget at a fixed percentage of federal revenues (say 25%), and prohibiting federal assistance programs from being funded, directly or indirectly, from any other federal department.
Get rid of Labor; it serves no purpose other than adjucating union disputes, a function which can be assigned to Justice. Fold all of the various independent law-enforcement agencies, such as the DEA and the BATF, into either Justice or the FBI. Fold the TSA's intelligence functions into the CIA, and place the rest under Justice.
Another thing that needs to be addressed is the sheer size of federal employment. Make it a goal to reduce total federal employment 7% by 2012, and another 7% by 2016, and cap Federal employment by constitutional amendment after that. And all newly hired federal employees should be brought under the same retirement system as the private sector, whether that turns out to be Social Security or something else. (Existing employees will probably have to be grandfathered.)
Cousin Dave at July 28, 2009 6:52 AM
Mostly agree with you Cousin Dave, but:
"Re-combine HUD, Education, Veterans Affairs, and all of the welfare and assistance programs (except Social Security, which will have to be dealt with separately) back into Health, Education, and Welfare, like it used to be."
'Health, Education, and Welfare' should not exist at the federal level, but at the state level.
Veterans Affairs are a different matter - that should be a (valid) part of military spending.
Pirate Jo at July 28, 2009 7:06 AM
I would demand that congress give me the bill with enough time that I had several days to go through it.
I would then hack the damn thing down -- de-funding the pork, earmarks, etc. Then send it back to congress and say -- this is what we can/will fund.
They can then re-work it under the budget numbers I give gave them or I'd continue to veto it. And it would be defense, highways, civil construction; fund Social Security, VA and valid stuff and the rest would be gone.
Oh and I'd put a $.50 per 2 liter of soda (or soda syrups and other "soft drinks").
Jim P. at July 28, 2009 8:07 AM
Legalize some recreational drugs. Ding people for extra health insurance if it's something that is viewed as detrimental to health, and fine and arrest people for driving or injuring people while under the influence.
Amusing/not serious answer: Bomb China. a) we don't have to pay enemies what we owe them, do we? b) more jobs for everyone (i.e. WWII), plus we'd start to having to either produce our own crap, import from a new country, or learn to live without ridiculously cheap $5 tank tops.
Of course, they could probably kick our ass at this point, unless we could convince the rest of the world to join our side. Maybe once the rest of the world owes China as much as we do us can all gang up on her.
Stacy at July 28, 2009 12:36 PM
"Of course, they could probably kick our ass at this point,..."
Not even close. Don't even begin to open your mouth to tell me about Iraq, where our guys are not only forbidden to engage in actual warfare in the middle of a civilian population but are also misrepresented daily in the national press.
It's the press, not the US Army, that decided Iraq would look like Vietnam.
Sit back and think about that 100 hours, against the third largest army.
Current doctrine suggests that China will go to theater nukes immediately in any naval action, because their ships are unlikely to live more than two hours no matter what. Why do you think we casually shot down a satellite with a US Navy missile?
Fortunately, China is knows this, and is moving in other directions to make itself a world power while apathy takes over America. You don't care if "your" President lies as long as he says what you want to hear, you learned about warfare sitting in the dark with popcorn in your lap, you turn the television away from news on the issues to watch Lady Gaga, and you drive to WalMart because you're bored and buy stuff on credit you don't have.
Uh, the "you" and "you're" are plural; nothing personal, I'm sure YOU don't do that.
Radwaste at July 28, 2009 3:59 PM
By kick our ass, I just meant that if we were agressors that China + their allies would have more numbers than us. Which is why I suggested waiting until everyone owes more than their yearly GDP to China and then we all attack together.
Stacy at July 28, 2009 4:16 PM
Stacy - you don't appear to have even a zeroth approximation of combat tactics knowledge.
Keep in mind that on this topic I'm a complete moron.
However, in any conflict, durable victory requires that either one side be completely destroyed, or be occupied.
The worst case scenario is a stalemate. Neither we nor China have the wherewithal to occupy the other.
The most likely scenario is a Chinese surrender within hours. They don't have enough nukes to destroy us, whereas we could obliterate their military and manufacturing in I'd say an hour. Their navy doesn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell against ours. And if they tried to send ships full of infantry to launch an invasion of the mainland, they'd be sunk before they got anywhere near the US.
You just have no idea what we are capable of. If we were so inclined, we could have killed every living thing in Iraq with a single carrier group.
This is why no sane nation is willing to fuck with us.
brian at July 28, 2009 6:01 PM
I have no doubt that, at full capability, we'd have no problem with the Chinese. (It'd be a different story, however, if they were able to first shoot down or otherwise neutralize our communication satellites and disrupt things like our electric grid. Don't know if they could -- just sayin'.)
The real question, however, is whether our politicians would let the military fight a no-holds-barred war (fight to win, IOW), instead of the politically correct crap we've gotten in every war since the Korean conflict. I have serious doubts our metrosexual elites would ever allow the gloves to be taken off, short of actual mass invasion of our mainland.
cpabroker at July 28, 2009 6:58 PM
I'm with MarkD, too.
Also, let's keep in mind that as horrible as Bush was and as incredibly horrible as Obama is, as far as I know neither one has spent a dime that wasn't authorized by Congress.
In the last election over 90% of congresspeople seeking re-election won. There's a lot of blame to go around, but most of it belongs squarely on the people who either selfishly or stupidly voted for these incumbents.
Shawn at July 28, 2009 9:18 PM
Don't blame me, I voted against every one of the fuckers I could. Told everyone I know to do the same. No guarantees that they listened, though. And I doubt a couple dozen are really enough to make a dent.
But I try to talk sense into people. It doesn't seem to work too well. It's almost as though they don't WANT to be sensible.
brian at July 28, 2009 9:39 PM
Ideal But Will Never Happen: (1) eradicate the administrative state, (2) repeal the 17th Amendment
Would Work But Won't Happen: Have state governors re-establish tenth amendment privileges, threaten a new Convention to enact a federalism amendment as follows,
Useful but Unlikely: drastically reduce the federal budget.Possible but Ineffective: gripe, convince fellow citizens to vote for candidates favoring limited government, gripe some more
Most people I meet, including graduate students don't even know the purpose of the branches of the federal government, much less the role of the states. For example, I shock a lot of people when I tell them that the Executive Branch was created to allow for secrecy in government.
Jeff at July 28, 2009 10:27 PM
Sorry, was just trying to be funny. Well, actually putting my personal politics into it because I hate China. I'm part of humanitarian team that works with other organizations to sneak in papers and people in and out of mainland China (papers being religious teachings of various faiths, or acquired visas and passports). When I bitch about it enough, people I’ve always assumed know what they are talking about say it’s not really a good idea. China is buddies with Russia, North Korea hates us and would love to at least pretend they are helping (while their missles fall out of the sky), and depending on how annoying we are about it, half of Europe would side with China, and you have to be concerned with what Pakistan and India would do. I’m not saying we’d lose or be occupied, but it certainly wouldn’t be a good idea.
It sure would make things easier for me to not buy anything from China though.
Stacy at July 28, 2009 11:05 PM
Stacy -
We own the internet.
Never forget that.
We can take the internet away from the world in an instant, and it would take them months, if not years, to recover.
A good bit of international telecommunications goes through this nation, either by wire or satellite. We can shut that off too.
Oh, and GPS is ours. We can turn that off for civilians in a blink.
In other words, we can put the bulk of the world back to pre-WWII conditions faster than they can sneeze.
It would be inadvisable to fuck with us.
brian at July 29, 2009 5:26 AM
Oh, and GPS is ours. We can turn that off for civilians in a blink.
You may want to take a look at the Russian GLONASS system being redeveloped with India.
Also the EU is working on the Galileo global navigation satellite system (GNSS).
We can do a lot of damage, but the US isn't so advanced that we don't have to consider other countries capabilities.
Jim P. at July 29, 2009 8:50 AM
I didn't say that. But the fact that their capabilities are either being redevloped or are not yet deployed kinda blunts their impact.
Although if Obama gets his way, our military won't be able to turn back a rogue college football team in ten years.
brian at July 29, 2009 9:51 AM
This is fascinating and a lot of the ideas on here are good. The truth is we have given Washington far too much power and they are never going to relinquish it. The last time anyone in politics showed any real reform for the common good was in 1776. 200 plus years later we have effectively removed the principles and ideas by which we were founded.
I'll still throw in my two cents though. Remember as well to VOTE THEM OUT!!! This is the only real way to effect change.
1) Removal of the party system, require term limits on all elected officials with no pensions. All elected officials must use the systems enacted.
2) Sovereignty back to the states and those who reside in them.
3) No earmarks of any kind (it's just a way to sell the vote).
4) Legalize marijuana and decriminalize simple possession of all other drugs.
5) Eliminate mandatory social security and make it a choice.
6) Remove all federal restrictions on our fossil fuel deposits.
7) Remove all federal non essential programs and down size the government by 50%.
8) Removal of all lobbyists from Washington.
9) De-unionize the entire nation.
10) Limit welfare to 3yrs. maximum and require all recipients to be available to work as general labor in the public and private sector.
Ed at July 31, 2009 10:05 AM
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