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Federal Budget Deficit Hits $1 Trillion For 1st 9 Months Of FY'10

Lord Tammerlain

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Federal Budget Deficit Hits $1 Trillion For 1st 9 Months Of FY'10

Ok all you balanced budgetters what would you cut

with around 40 % of federal government spending being borrowed, what and by how much would you cut. With the realization of the political, sociological and military costs of cutting certain programs back

The federal budget deficit for the first nine months of the 2010 fiscal year was just over $1 trillion, the Congressional Budget Office reported Wednesday.

The shortfall, reflecting $2.6 trillion in outlays for the first three quarters and $1.6 trillion in receipts, narrowed slightly compared with the same point in fiscal 2009.



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But individual income and payroll tax receipts were down 4% over the nine- month period, suggesting that wages and salaries have not improved to the extent that corporate profits have.

-By Martin Vaughan, Dow Jones Newswires
 
I'd bring the troops home, do a review of military appropriations and cut the stuff we don't need, overhaul the military contracting process, switch to single-payer healthcare, let the Bush Admin's tax cuts expire, cut federal employee salaries, drastically cut senator and representatives' salaries, legalize and tax marijuana, put in much stricter scrutiny on "earmarks," eliminate the death penalty, and launch 3/4 of our ICBM's at the moon so that we don't have to pay to dismantle or maintain them. Also, screw the moon, what has it done for us lately?

edit: After all this, we might be halfway to a balanced budget! :(
 
Deuce!!! I'll vote for ya'.

To Deuce's list, I'd add: across-the-board 10% reduction in Federal employees; across-the-board 10% budget reductions in every department except those involving public assistance/social security/other entitlements. Renegotiate Federal pensions. Shop for cheaper healthcare for our senators and representatives. Slash THEIR budgets by 10%.

Just a slight disagreement with Deuce re letting Bush's tax cuts expire. BUT, if "they" did all these other things, I guess I could live with that, too.

Then I'd put a tax on every single hamster and gerbil sold in the United States. I think might just do it.
 
Ooh, slashing corn subsidies too! The subsidies screw with the market by making corn artificially profitable. The result is we produce way more corn than we "naturally" would. Nobody actually eats that much corn, so we grind it up into syrup and put it in everything. We even have enough leftover to try to turn back into fuel. We burn diesel fuel in tractors to make corn to grind up and turn... back into fuel. At a net energy loss.

Those Bush Tax Cuts added about $1.8 trillion to our deficit, and continuing them another decade would bring that number up to $4 trillion. (an additional $2.2 trillion) Bush dropped our taxes to the lowest levels in history, but our economy still tanked. Meanwhile, some of our fastest growth periods happened in the post-WW2 era where our taxes were through the roof. Clearly tax cuts aren't a magical fix to anything, there are numerous other factors.
 
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