I could come up with about 80 Billion right off the bat by eliminating refundable EITC and ACTC.
Tax credits are expensive, I agree, and the totals there are even higher — $67B for EITC and 58 for child care. Those were budgeted to be more or less flat over the next couple of years, but now Obummer is asking for another $50B over ten years for children. Shameless liberal.
We might wanna look at the exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance, $153B last year and going up more than five percent every year. Or the exclusion for net pension contributions and earnings, $120B and increasing at around
ten percent annually. Then there are the preferential rates on capital gains and investments, $115B and growing at around six percent. Deductions of mortgage interest cost us $75B a year, and are of course expanding. That's $463B a year for mostly upper-income households, equivalent to 12.5% of the federal budget, and $24B more than last year's deficit.
Hmm. Nah, stick to the kids living in low-income households. That'll help
motivate them, teach 'em how life is in the
real world.
>>I could come up with another $1.5 Trillion (over time) if we phased out the current versions of SS/Med and replaced them with private, transferable accounts.
Too bad we didn't start doing that in, say, 2007.
>>Reining in EPA, Education and HUD could save another $20-50 Billion.
Any specific suggestions?
I say we split the bill. $100. from the taxpayers and the other half taken from the salaries of every federally elected and appointed worker. This excludes all workers considered poverty of less.
I'm guessing there are more taxpayers than there are "federally elected and appointed workers."
>>It is time the government workers tighten their belt every time they tell us we need to.
I've worked for the federal gubmint since 1999. My pay was frozen 2011-13. Everyone in my group got 1% in 2014. Last year, we got another one percent, and because I go to all the socialist worker party meetings, they gave me another 2.8%.
HUD, Dept of Energy, Dept. of Education could all be cut to about 15% of their current size.
Again, any specific suggestions?
>>Consolidate the Forest Service into the BLM to eliminate massive redundancy.
Details?
>>no more Navy pilots
:<(
Many of these people are CAREER politicians, so, no, their fortunes were not made in the private sector, so the question begs to be asked...where did that money come from?
The large and powerful corporations that pretty much control the gubmint. You've heard the expression, "You get what you pay for." The smartest investment we could make would be to publicly fund elections. Of course, then we'd need to survive without all those wonderful negative campaign ads on TV.
I'd suggest starting with anything that's part of HUD.
Throw 'em out on the streets. There are plenty of bridges not being adequately maintained that they could sleep under. If there's a collapse, that would soften the blow for the commuters.
That's about one percent of the budget, with Israel the largest recipient at around ten percent. A third of it goes to fight diseases like AIDS. Another fifth is military assistance.
Cut 30 billion dollars from the salaries and perks pool of Congress and the President until both get a handle on reality.
The total for the salaries involved is a little more than $800M. In case yer looking for a handle on reality.