[Vision2020] Budget cuts could slash $1B from vets health care

Tue Jan 3 21:50:36 PST 2012

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your calculations.  I was relying on memory about a statement (at least 3 years ago) that I read that federal spending accounts for 25 percent of GDP (your Wiki figures give 23 percent) and 20 percent comes from revenue; hence the 5 percent gap.  But I don't know how that revenue is calculated.

Significantly, the Ryan budget--after shredding the safety net and cutting taxes--still has a $155 billion deficit after ten years and it is not yet balanced after 30 years.

Yes, we need more taxes and more GDP growth to avoid falling into a financial abyss.

Nick

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. 

-Greek proverb

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Rumelhart [mailto:godshatter at yahoo.com]
Sent: Tue 1/3/2012 5:07 PM
To: Gier, Nicholas; keely emerinemix; dickow at turbonet.com; vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Budget cuts could slash $1B from vets health care

I question your numbers.  I don't have 2011 numbers, but from this page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget) it looks like the total spending for 2010 was $3.456 trillion and the total receipts coming in was $2.162 trillion leaving a deficit of $1.294 trillion.  Even if you increased money from all sources by 5%, that's still only $108.1 billion (2.162T * 0.05).  Unless I'm missing something here, we would have to increase our receipts by just under 61%  ((($3.456 T / $2.162 T) - 1) * 100) to close that gap.

I still see the need for massive cuts to, basically, everything.  Defense, entitlements, wasteful expenditures, helpful programs, etc.  Raising our taxes can help close the gap as well, but the amount of money that comes in from personal income taxes is only 42% of the total receipts coming in.

According to that Wikipedia page, income tax accounted for $899 B.  If we wanted to solve this by *only* raising taxes, then we would have to get to a value of $899B + $1.294 T = $2.193 T.  Getting to that amount would mean a tax increase of just under 144% ((($2.193 T / $899 B) - 1) * 100).

We're talking about getting us to the point where we are no longer hemorrhaging money.  It would take even more than that to start whittling away at our current debt.

Of course, the numbers are different for 2011.  I don't know if we're better or worse off than 2010, but I'm assuming we are still in the ballpark.

Paul

________________________________
 From: "Gier, Nicholas" <NGIER at uidaho.edu>
To: keely emerinemix <kjajmix1 at msn.com>; dickow at turbonet.com; vision2020 at moscow.com 
Sent: Tuesday, January 3, 2012 3:42 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Budget cuts could slash $1B from vets health care

RE: [Vision2020] Budget cuts could slash $1B from vets health care 
Greetings:

The European countries that make sure that their people's needs are met and raise sufficient revenues to meet those needs are also the countries with sine of the lowest nation debt and AAA credit rating. My column on this topic will be posted soon.

The German economy grew 5,7 percent last year and the Swedish economy (also 50 percent taxes/GDP) is now growing at 4.6 percent with a full safety net for those in need.

We don't need to take 50 percent of GDP as the Nordics do (that's their choice) but a mere 5 percent increase in taxes would meet our needs without slashing basic programs.

Yours for a sensible tax policy,

Nick

Nicholas F. Gier, Professor Emeritus
Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho
"The Palouse Pundit" on Radio Free Moscow, 92.5 FM
President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFT/AFL-CIO www.idaho-aft.org/ift.htm
208-882-9212, 410 Samaritan Lane, Moscow, ID 83843

"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! 'Have courage to use your own understand-ing!-that is the motto of enlightenment.

--Immanuel Kant

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.

-Greek proverb

-----Original Message-----
From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com on behalf of keely emerinemix
Sent: Tue 1/3/2012 2:01 PM
To: dickow at turbonet.com; vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Budget cuts could slash $1B from vets health care

I spent most of the 1970s sporting a pin that said "Wouldn't it be a great day if schools had the money they needed and the Air Force had to hold a bake sale to buy a new bomber?"  A woman can dream, can't she?

No, Paul -- The only answer isn't to cut spending.  Cutting waste, bloat, and fraud -- yes.  But vital human services are just that, vital, and are part of not just a social safety net, but a contract between taxpayers and the government to whom they pay those taxes.  To a large extent, infrastructure maintenance and additions are, too.  Cutting spending in areas and on projects left wallowing because of the eight years of horror that was the Bush administration -- eight years that took us from surplus to debt by waging two wars while slashing tax revenues -- is penny wise and pound foolish.  Ronald Reagan, who raised taxes several times during his administration, also took the richest Americans from a 70 percent income tax to a level half that.  No one wants to go to 70 percent again, but today's pledge-signing GOP wants to give away the farm.  No reasonable person believes that the debt can be addressed without asking those who most  benefit
 both from the liberties preserved by those wars as well as from the tax policies currently in hand to pay a reasonable percentage of their income.  It seems beyond belief that the GOP also believes that overseas profits made by U.S. corporations should be off-limits as well.  I'd love to slash welfare programs and actually RAISE revenue -- that is, do away with policies that coddle the superwealthy and spend wisely the revenue that that attracts.  But don't penalize veterans, students, the elderly, the sick, the unemployed and the already-struggling.  And don't "penalize" the rich -- just respect the needs of the citizenry by asking that they do what the rest of us have to. 

Let's assume that good Americans ought to face taxation that's fair, proportional, reasonable and brings in revenue that's spent wisely, building our nation and not tearing down others.  That would seem to be neither a Democratic nor a Republican position -- just a solid, fair, strong and pro-American one.

Keely
www.keely-prevailingwinds.com

From: dickow at turbonet.com
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 12:27:30 -0800
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Budget cuts could slash $1B from vets health care

Another solution is the take in more revenue to offset expenses. Since increased taxation seems to be a dirty word, how about car washes and bake sales? We have do it at the community level, in schools, etc, why not the Fed? Shouldn't the government have a PayPal 'Donate Now' button on their website? Bob Dickow, troublemaker From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of Paul Rumelhart

<snip>The simple fact is that we are spending more than we are taking in.  The simplest solution is to stop spending so much. Paul
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