how big of a pay raise could congress give itself from the money saved? 
@dagosa With respect to foreign aid, some countries are mulling over the idea to send no foreign aid to any country that spends more on its military than on education or healthcare.
Many foreign dictatorships. like Zimbabwe, spend the bulk of the countryās revenue on keeping their dictators in power with army and police.
The amount of money congress makes in salery is minimal compared to the connections they make and the lobbying jobs they get when they leave. I would happy they get a bonus if the could work together enough to actually find a way to insure those millions who will suffer and die because of the lack of it.
When the poor get desperate enough they jump to support people who promise relief for them and punishment for those they perceive to be cheating them
Far too many of our āleadersā are blissfully ignorant of that fact.
So the choice is; support those who " promise " not to take away their social security benefits and Medicare, or support those who " promise " they will.
So we assume that the poor are so really dumb and gullible that they will not to support those who promise NOT to give them relief, personal freedom and liberty. Hmmm in other words, support those agaisnt their own interest ?
The poor, they must be hording all the money.
@Docnick
We spend more on our military from the general fund tax dollars. What we spend on general healthcare, social security and Medicare, we pay directly from enrollment and payroll taxes. Our govt. gives us NOTHING that we donāt pay for.
"Our govt. gives us NOTHING that we don't pay for."
Exactly who is the āusā that you are talking about? Is āusā the people who pay taxes, if so then those who donāt must be āthoseā and as one of the āusā, there seems to be plenty of āthoseā around. Someone recently mentioned that there are about 47% of āthoseā.
Who are the 47% that āsomeoneā recently mentioned, Keith? The smoke and mirrors can be used to rally a mob on either side of the equation.
I donāt know but they were in the news just before the election.
@dagosa I donāt distinguish between general revenue or specific payroll taxes; they are all taxes collected by the government. Social security is forecast to be a financial timebomb when all these babyboomers are retired.
In any case, goverments have to balance their books; itās OK to run deficits for one or two years, when better years are ahead. At this stage Obama has proposed $1 of cuts for every $40 increase in taxes. State governments must do the same as well. It was gratifying to read that California is actually going to run a balanced budget soon.
Doc
We have forecast time bombs many times. SS is 2.6 trillion dollars in the black. You talk like we should reduce benefits now to what end? Increase the size of the trust find so more can be taken out for defense ?
The money already taken isnāt even counted in the deficit. What specifically do you want to do to cut YOUR benefits?
States must balance budgets as they canā t print money.
Kieth
Please check your facts. The vast
Majority of 47% people are retirerees on SS and Medicare, both of whose trust funds are in the black. They owe nothing more. Unemployed people are payed unemployment funds from money they payed into unemployment insurance and those left still pay payroll tax, state and local taxesā¦they just donāt pay income tax which majorly goes for DEFENSE.
. The poor are hoarding all this moneyā¦this i guess, is causing the rich undue hardshipsā¦,true?
dagosa, the 47% are not my facts. But are you saying that there are NO people in this country on welfare? And I donāt mean those on temporary welfare while getting back on their feet but those who spend their whole life on welfare, and often without good reason.
Again, I did not come up with the 47% number, but if the vast majority are retirees, why did Romney think that they would not vote for him? Most retireeās I know where voting for him. I think he must have had a different 47% in mind.
But you too are playing with numbers. You argue that a majority of income tax money goes to defense and if you play the numbers that argument can be made. I looked up several sources for data and got different numbers, but basically, give or take a few billion, we collected about $1.1 trillion in income taxes and spent roughly $700 billion on defense, including the wars but not including veterans benefits.
I could argue that non of the income taxes collected went to defense because we borrowed over a trillion $ last year. I could argue that all the income tax money collected went to domestic programs like Medicaid, welfare and other and only the money borrowed went to the DOD.
But if you count all the taxes collected (not counting social security and medicare) plus the money borrowed, that comes to about $1.5T from taxes, $1.3T borrowed for a total of about $2.8T, of which $700B went to defense.
The reality is, I donāt know. If you want to wade through the tens of thousands of pages that make up the federal budget, you might find the truth. What I see on the internet is peoples interpretation of that budget, I sure with some slanting (spinning) done, but a lot of the rhetoric is pure manipulation of the facts and figures. Trying to get to the truth is like trying to pick out the pepper from the fly specks. Just like that 47%, I have no idea what that number is supposed to represent, but the number of chronic welfare recipients is probably pretty small, but it should not exist at all.
After 20 years in the Navy, I can assure you that there is waste in the defense budget. But it is not a great as many people believe. The biggest waste of taxpayer money by the military that I saw was the amount of money the DOD has to spend on āstudiesā because our congress just will not believe anyone in uniform who tells them anything, it has to be backed up by a study.
I was involved in helping the Navy change its Enlisted rating structure to a modern and more efficient system. But the Navy had to pay a beltway bandit err, defense contractor think tank, $300,000 to study the idea and approve it so that Congress would allow a few thousand dollars could be spent to make the change. Even then, on the first draft, the think tank made so many changes to the recommendations that it was costlier and more complicated than the existing system. After reiterating the goal to them, they finally came up with something a little closer to what we wanted, but they still screwed it up.
I think we could save a lot of money if we didnāt have so many āthink tanksā.
āwhy did Romney think they would not vote for him?ā Who knows. I would never take what he said during an election as anything more then an attempt to sway people with statements sofar from the truth, as to be Totally unbelievable. He bounced from one position to another like a yo yo.
. Romney had so many versions of different stories he would tell to electorates, you never knew what to believe. The 47% figure just represented those who do not pay ffederal income tax. Big deal ! These people still payā¦The vast majority of the 47% is made up of people who do pay other taxes or are retired and deserved their benefits. Romney is a businessman with a business manās mind which has little to do with governance. He will say or do anything to swing Voters and gain financial support in the same way some businessmen will say or do anything to make a profit.
Why anyone would use a reference from that man is beyond me and he got what he deserves, a second place finish. He will never be a legitimate candidate again, any more then Sarah Palin.
Btw, just as I saidā¦the majority of federal income taxes goes toward defense. Much of what is, so called borrowed, comes from the Social Security trust fund, as that surplus routinly goes into the general fund expenditures while this money does not show on the deficit.
The conservatives know that when pay - go for social security becomes negative, the money will have to be drawn from this trust fund that really no longer exist. These payments will then show on the deficit. So, to keep the deficit from showing, they want benefits cut from the same people who make up this 47%. Please look at the 2.6 trillion SURLUS in SS. No spin there, just fact ! There is presently a surplus in Medicare trust fund too.
That is the key to the Replublican big plan to cut the deficit. Cut the benefits to all of us who have already payed into a solvent social security and Medicare while they keep raiding the surplus. And, we are falling for it.
Iāve always held that welfare payouts to the few āchronic recipientā cases was more of a benefit FOR the wealthyāpaid to the poorāfor the purpose of social stability.
People literally starving start revolutions, kidnap for hire, etc. Making sure the very poor can swing processed food, cable TV, and rotgut makes them far more docile. No lefty revolutions there, TYVM!
MJ,thats what they did with Puerto Rico,its a state that gets benefits from the US taxpayers and I dont know what they contribute-Kevin ( I know its not officialy a state)
@meanjoe75fan
I agreeā¦you canāt PO a lot of money hording poor.
@dagosa All Iām saying is that the goverment has to anticipate this and increase taxes to pay for it. World War II was ruinessly expensive and financed through Victory Bonds. Iām not suggesting anyoneās benefits be cut, but there is a good case to be made for not increasing benefits.
States cannot print money, but they can raise money through bonds; if they act irresponsably, these bonds can become worthless.
But it is not a great as many people believe.
Depends on your prospective.
We currently haveā¦
50,937 military in Japan,
28,500 in Korea
47,761 in Germany
10,922 in Italy
Thatās NOT a waste. I can understand the need for military personal in Consulates (Usually a few hundred). But the above is military presence.
We waste hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars every year deploying them.
I do agree with waste in contracts. The consulting contracts is only the tip of the ice-berg. Most of the waste is in the actual defense contracts themselves. Ever hear of the āBradleyā.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Corporate_Welfare/Military_Fraud.html
A few excerpts from the above link.
- Grumman paid the government $20 million to escape criminal liability for coercing subcontractors into making political contributions.
- Lockheed was convicted of paying millions in bribes to obtain classified planning documents.
- Northrop was fined $17 million for falsifying test data on its cruise missiles and fighter jets.
- Rockwell was fined $5.5 million for committing criminal fraud against the Air Force.
In another study, the Project on Government Oversight (PGO) searched public records from October 1989 to February 1994 and found-in just that 4~/~-year period-85 instances of fraud, waste and abuse in weapons contracting. For example:
Boeing, Grumman, Hughes, Raytheon and RCA pleaded guilty to illegal trafficking in classified documents and paid a total of almost $15 million in restitution, reimbursements, fines, etc.
Docā¦
āthere is a good case to be made for not increasing benefits.ā Like cost of living ? Might as well reduce the benefits.
Let me repeat, as a āgreat man never repeats himselfā ;=) ā¦SS is solvent, always was, always will be. Itās the robbers who are creating the problems. SS (and Medicare) solvency scare has been going on since itās conception. It and Medicare solvency have always been solved by small adjustmentsā¦like increasing the cap on taxable income to match the cost of living increases. Life is simple in that respectā¦conservatives have lots of troubleā¦adding and multiplying. Itās amazing how poor their math is !
They keep saying that all the baby boomers will retire and draw off the account. What they fail or are too dumb to say, is that productivity of workers has increased many times over and if the minimum wage was increased the way it should have been to match it. and the middle class income keeps up with economic growth, there is plenty of money to pay for retirees. Life is THAT SIMPLE. The raids and the lying have to stop to talk about the real solution to entitlement cost reductionā¦universal healthcare.