Lets go over the cliff

General Discussion
541

Analyzing the Budget…

If you asked someone 10 years ago about writing software that can analyze the budget they would have told you it was too complicated and that there wouldn’t be much of a benefit.

Well times have changed. If the federal government would put the budget in digital format there are tools today that can run on a good high-end laptop that can analyze the budget. Help show waste and detect fraud. The problem is MOST of the budget is NOT in a digital format. Sure you can get on-line and read it…but it’s NOT in some kind of digital format. Even something like Excel can handle it these days. But governments don’t want to open themselves up to such scrutiny.

I know a guy who worked for a startup a few years back that designed a mid-level budgeting forecasting system. It was great for companies with less then 50k employees. Competed directly a product called Hyperion. One place they tried to sell to were local towns and school districts. They would have benefited greatly from a product like that. But they met very very hard resistance at almost every town or school district. The main reason they didn’t want a product like this was that the budget was too exposed. MOST companies WANT that…but governments are afraid of it. Have to think - what the heck they are hiding…The more complicated the budget the easier it is to hide something. These analysis tools really make it difficult for you to hide anything.

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I agree @MikeInNh
But as the last election showed, the Republicans put little faith in computer modeling. They still think they won the election cause they are still using “basic”. Climate change and election results are tuff to model using Roman Numerals. The House isn’t ready for it.

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@dagosa…Understanding basic math or science is NOT a requirement for being a member of congress or senate.

Remember the “Star War” hearings in the 80’s. A NASA laser researcher was giving testimony to congress and said that to meet the Star Wars initiative we have to have a laser capable or producing power of 10^16. Our current best laser is 10^8. Our brain-trust republican senator said “Gee we’re half way there.” The ditto-heads were all bowing in agreement. The 8th grade math students were laughing their *sses off.

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"Gee, we are half way there"
That is funny ! Wish I had been there. I still remember Ross Perot using an elliptical pie chart with obviously distorted areas, to convince the audience during a debate that the expenditures were swayed a different way then they actually were. That scares me more; when people just know enough math to be dangerous. There as to be an adult in the room, an educated one.

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Limbaugh is the poster child for neo conservative narcissism and he draws quite a few followers who envy him and apparently become mesmerized in their vicarious pleasure from watching and listening to his arrogant buffoonery. Rush would make a 180* turn in his political opinions if the money pointed in that direction.

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I get you Rod. I have friends who have more degrees then I have boats and they seem to check their minds at the door when it comes to Rush Limbaugh. I don’t have a clue how he mesmerizes people into believing some of the stuff he throws out there.

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Well mr.Limbaugh is tops in character asassination,the lack of respect people like him have makes me cringe .
As far as the math problems in the gov’t,are you suprised? Maybe if they understood what a trillion represents,they would be a little more concerned about the deficet-Kevin

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As for the math, even a basic understanding of elementary school mathematics would suffice in understanding that if you continue to pull meals out of the refrigerator and run the gasoline out of the tank we will soon find ourselves hungry and walking.

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As for the math, even a basic understanding of elementary school mathematics would suffice in understanding that if you continue to pull meals out of the refrigerator and run the gasoline out of the tank we will soon find ourselves hungry and walking.

But it doesn’t effect THEM.

550

dagosa, the DOD budget is not the majority expenditure of the income taxes. The government does not fund DOD solely with income taxes. It is funded from the federal budget that gets money from income taxes, other taxes and borrowing. Without including the SS taxes, the DOD budget does not make up more than 50% of this, therefore it is not a majority of our income taxes.

Depending on how you group the expenditures, or should I say who is doing the grouping, the DOD is not even the largest minority. As I said earlier, it is hard to figure out what is what when you look at various websites to try to figure out how the expenditures are divided. For example, healthcare is often grouped so that medicare, medicaid and some health program for children are all in one slice. Does the funding for all three come from our medicare taxes we pay? I don’t know, but the outlet for that expense far exceeds what is collected under social security taxes and the medicare tax is not listed as a separate income on any of the web sites I looked at.

BTW, I did not make many friends among defense contractors when I served on a staff command, in fact if you worked for MacDonald Douglas and talked to me for any reason that was not expressly required by a government contract, you would be fired. That was after I informed them of an industrial spy from Lockheed at one of their meetings. I don’t understand why they didn’t like me, I only cost them $50M when I convinced the Navy that the airframes mechanics in the Navy could fix the composite panels on the F-18, they did not need to go back to the factory for repairs.

But, I do think is is a bit disingenuous for a politician to DEMAND contributions to their campaigns or risk losing contracts, and then prosecute them for it.

I believe that Grumman, before the forced merge with Lockheed and one other plane manufacturer did give the government the best value for the money. They worked well with the fleet and often did extras for us without compensation. For example, I was the QA chief for the installation of the chin cameras on the F-14’s that were modified at Rota Spain. Their team made a lot of off the books repairs to the wiring and other systems on the planes that they were not contractually obligated to do and were not compensated for. This was not a case of the team doing things behind the backs of the executives because the President and CEO of Grumman showed up for a visit and approved. Grumman was the only defense contractor that I did not consider a bunch of (I don’t think I can say that here).

The biggest problem with the defense budget is Congress. So many defense contractors go through their congressmen to force unwanted and unneeded crap on the servicemen and women while blocking the things that are really needed. Let the people in uniform make the decisions on what is needed and where to get it. As I stated in an earlier post, if the size of the budget is prohibited from personal evaluations so that a vested interest in spending money is removed combined with allowing those who should be the decision makers in the service allowed to make decisions, the DOD budget could be greatly reduced.

Apply the same philosophy to the whole federal budget and we could really reduce the deficit.

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Keith…
The general fund excludes or should, Payroll taxes. More than 45% of the budget for expenditures for SS and Medicare does not come out of the general fund as they are pay-go from the payroll taxes with the surplus going back (raided into) the general fund. Income tax makes up the more than 60% of the taxes that go into the general fund with defense accounting for more then half of the REMAINING expenditures. You do not include SS and Medicare expenses as competing with defense in the general fund. Your so called “borrowing” if you will includes the surplus from the SS and Medicare. We could argue the exact percentages all day, but the fact remains. Of course you can’t support DOD with Income tax only…there isn’t enough for both they and our other requirements.

During the Iraq and Afgan wars, Payroll tax surpluses did help pay the DOD . You can never argue exact amounts. Rest assued, we bought lots of ammo and killed lots of people with SS and other trust funds.
I fully agree with all that you say. Capitalism and defense can bring out the worse when priorities are set by unlimited contributions from these contractors to election campaigns of polititions who sit on defense procurement committees.

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Gosh Dag,what a pragmatic view,at least you are not afraid to call a spade a spade,maybe some of these patriots should think about who is on the recieving end of these bombs and bullets.we wouldnt have crippled young people coming back home if we we weren’t there,maybe its time to we reevaluetad our priorties. I’m sorry if some of these defense contractors couldnt afford an island in the carribean,but sometimes we might have to make do with a gated compound in the Hood’.If you fancy yourselves as a Christain you better take heed,the end of our short lives is closer then you think-Kevin

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Kevin
Being a retiree, I know the end of my life is close at hand. No one is getting out of here alive. I would like to think that that for my grandchildren’s sake, decisions are made based on compassion over profit.

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dag, your first link makes me want to put on my hip waders, that a lot of bovine scat to wade through. Its all accusations and innuendo, no proof.

I have a little more respect of the wikipedia link, but again, it does not answer my question, but even it does not support you assertion that over 50% of the general taxes go to the DOD.

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FICA taxes are conveniently shifted in and out of the equation as needed to sell a position in political discussions. Taking FICA out makes it possible for the top 1% to claim they pay more than their fair share of taxes while including FICA cuts the Pentagons relative share of the budget in half. It’s an “I Love Lucy” episode that just keeps on playing out.

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Keith…
So you deny that monies from the SS trust fund ends up in the defense budget ?
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/fundFAQ.html
So, this link is unbelievable too. Where do you think the money from the treasury securities go ?
Please read, that it goes back into the general fund.
Wher does the DOD get it’s funding from ?
is it not the general fund ?
What is the largest expenditure out of the general fund ?
Are you following this ?
Is the trust fund surplus counted as debt ?
It is not until the the govt. must draw out of the treasury securities to make up the differense in the pay go SS system.
At that time, not until it is counted agaisnt out debt.
The 2.6 trillion over the course of the life of SS has bought treasury securities with guaranteed interest, that just like “war bonds” , treasury notes etc. helps pay for the DOD defense budget.

http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm
Knowing you will discount this source, it still gives a break down of defense spending as a percent AFTER welfare expenses have legitimately been discounted from the budget. But, it is an accurate break down that does indicate the percent of the general fund left, that the department of defense uses.

If you discount it, fine, use your own math skills and you come up with similar numbers. More then half of your tax dollars after the govt pays it’s FICA requirements, goes to the defense department. veterans benefits are a key RISING component that the military skillfully often fail to include in direct military budget discussion. Also fails to include interest on the debt of borrowing for military expenses which you admit the DOD has o do which is now legitimately included.

And Rod is right ! Convieniently shifting FICA INTO the budget makes the DOD percent much lower then it should be as a percent of our income tax and other NON FICA tax burden.
I’m done…
Let’s talk super bowl !

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One day I had an epiphany about these fancy engines of destruction(these these multi-million dollar warplanes,etc) mostly only something as big as gov’t can afford these things.Government controls now are pretty much assuring that the common man cannot resist the will of the moneyed(face it they are basically the ones who control our destiny) and they will look you straight in the eye and tell you its for your own good while forcing you to pay for it.
I love the armed forces there are so many good idealistic men and woman serving there,but I think its time for an overhaul,there is so much waste with questionable results,two programs come immediately to mind the ,the V-22 and the F-35(it took 40 yrs to get the osprey in some sort of usable status-nevermind the “Lightning”{several flaws in that program IMO},remembering that these weapon systems are obselete by the time they are implemented,thankfully some were finally abandoned(Sgt York,eg;) but there are a few cooler heads around and we must encourage and implement those.Please tell me why we have so many people stationed in Germany and Japan?
Why cant we rein in Eisenhower’s military industrail complex? Any way folks there are solutions,but dont depend on the mathematically challenged to implement them-Kevin

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Kevin
"Why can’t we rein in …industrial complex ?"
IMO, the contractors whose coffers bulge with tax payer dollars and whose boards award themselves bonuses and pay in the millions really make many of the decisions. Unabated political donations with scare talking points ( some actually justified) keep the democratic process on hold. If “we the people” got to vote on itemized defense budgets, the out come would be much, much better, or much , much worse, depending on your point of view.
But, those in power, in the military, in congress and in the board rooms, don’t think “we the people” are bright enough to handle the decision making. We might just decide someone is overpaid.

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As long as the Pentagon keeps the elephants and woolly mammoths and Godzilla off our shores we must pay whatever price the generals demand. No golf course is too large nor any villa too plush nor any office suite too large for the generals who protect us. All hail the GENERALS and the statesmen(?) who hand them our money, sans shipping and handling of course.

The US military has evolved to be a gentlemen’s club whose members enjoy dabbling in research of various kinds much like the “Mythbusters” cast.

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dagosa, once again, we have a failure to communicate. I do not deny that some surplus social security funds end up in the DOD budget. The only thing I questioned is the DOD budget comprising over 50% of the income tax revenues.

I don’t consider your first link unbelievable, other that the usual grain of salt from anything the government says. I don’t mean for that to sound unpatriotic or disloyal, I do think it is out duty to always keep tabs on our government.

I do discount your second source as I would any source that has an agenda. I did read the website and while I find a massive use of the Fairfax law (a derivative of Murphy’s Law that says only the facts that support my side of the argument are fair facts). I can only say that at least they state their agenda upfront instead of hiding it as so many other bloggers do.

I also discount all bloggers that do not have peer review or editorial review, which is almost all bloggers. Anyone can start a blog and say just about what ever they want, factual or unfactual. Unfortunately too many people read something on the internet and take it as a factual source. Even wikipedia has issues with this, but at least they do have ways of providing peer review and indicating it in their articles as well as pointing out things stated as fact but are not confirmed by a second source. A lot of people don’t check the bottom of the page on wikipedia articles.