The deficit problem is solved...

[Pancho Villa]

Yeah, I'm just a tad more than annoyed about the fact that we've run a deficit for decades and as a result are now shoveling 10% of our government revenue into servicing that debt.

I fail to understand how anyone who is against the deficit can not be behind Ron Paul. None of the other candidates seem serious about cuts.

H.

I haven't heard a solid plan from Paul about cutting, either.

Also, the reason no GOP candidate for dog catcher, let alone president, is presenting any detailed budget cut plan (and no, Paul Ryan's "lets increase our spending LESS FAST than we are right now" doesn't count as a budget cutting plan) is because there is a vanishingly small number of people who support actual, as opposed to theoretical, cuts.

Let me explain. You see, for example, a recent poll that 75% of Americans support a "spending cap." Splendid. That means no more deficeit, right? Get on it.

Hold on there. Numerous other polls show that when it comes time to make actual cuts, the story is different. Only 24% of Americans support making cuts to social security, medicare and medicaid and other mandatory welfare-state expenditures.

This is a big problem, because if you axed all discretionary spending - the military chief among it, I mean just said the US isn't having a military anymore - we're just barely be in the black.

People are under the false impression that we could cut pork or a few (or even a lot) of unimportant programs, we'd be back in the black again. Or even a few structural changes to social security or medicare or medicaid. This is untrue. We are at the point that balancing the budget for a year requires drastic cuts or complete phase-outs of large segments of the governmeent, with any realistic plan to pay back the debt in 20 years or less to mean more cuts.

1.2 trillion is a lot of money. The entire military is half of that. Social security, medicare, medicaid and other mandatory expenses don't need to be "adjusted" or "made more efficient" - they need to go, and fast, or the entire economy will tank.

I don't see any candidate - or any large chunk of the voting public - demanding that, so there will not be that.

[Pancho Villa]

I'll give you an example of how drastic the problem is.

Let's start cutting the 2010 budget and see how long it takes us to get to 1.2 trillion dollars, or just barely in the black. If we cut 1.9 trillion dollas and kept growth in government pegged to growth (or shrinkage) in GDP, we'd be on pace to pay the debt off in about 20 years, so that's our #2 budget goal.

Let's start cutting! (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Un...federal_budget)

Let's just completely axe these departments. All numbers are in trillions of dollars. We just need to get to 1.2 to be barely in the black, and 1.9 to be on pace to pay the debt off in under 20 years.

Here we go! Let's just axe all these departments. All dollar figures are in trillions.

0.078 - Department of Health and Human Services
0.072 - Department of Transportation
0.052 - Department of Veterans Affairs
0.052 - Department of State and otherInternational Programs
0.047 - Department of Housing and Urban Development
0.047 - Department of Education
0.043 - Department of Homeland Security
0.026 - Department of Energy
0.026 - Department of Agriculture
0.019 - NASA
0.014 - Department of Commerce
0.014 - Department of Labor (490)
0.013 - Department of the Teasury
0.012 - Department of the Interior
0.011 - The EPA
0.010 - The Social Security Administration
0.007 - National Science Foundation
0.005 - Corps of Engineers
0.005 - National Infrastructure Bank
0.001 - Corporation for National and Community Service
0.001 - Small Business Administration + General Services Administration
0.125 - "Other" (per the budget)

Okay! We've cut ALL discretionary spending EXCEPT the military and department of justice. How far along are we?

About $680 billion in cuts. A little over halfway to a balanced budget, and about 1/3 of the way to paying off the debt in 20 years or less!

Okay, let's cut the military in half. We don't need all those overseaas bases, nuclear carrier fleets and wars in the mideast, right? That brings us up to 1.011 trillion dollars, or still short of our goal of a balanced budget by about 190 billion bucks. If you insist on not cutting tthe military, make that about 520 billion dollars.

Okay! Let's see what we have left:

Social Security: $695 billion
Medicare: $453 billion
Medicaid: $290 billion
Other Entitlement Programs: $571 billion

If we cut expenses on all of those programs by 10%, we have a (barely) balanced budget. This can be done by raising the retirement age on SS, and making it harder to collect medicare or medicaid. If you don't want to cut the military, an across the board cut of about 25% is needed (or some mix and match thats effectively that.)

We have a problem, though; the national debt still doesn't get paid off in less than around 100 years in this scenario. And who knows! that half of the military we cut before might eventually come to bite us in the ass. Its possible.

So lets try to get to that magic 1.9 trillion:

If we cut all programs by about 40% - so, raise the retirement age effective immediately so that half of the rolls of social security are shed, and about half of the people on medicare and medicaid no longer qualify for payments from that.

If you don't want to cut the military, increase that to about a 60% cut in all programs.

It's time people fessed up. We aren't balancing the budget. Everyone has their finger in the pie and everyone is going to whine when their handout gets cut. What the people won't demand, the politicians won't deliver.