How bad is it?

[spqrzilla]

The mantra "cut waste" is all well and good and there is plenty of waste. But the government is currently spending such immense amounts of money in excess of tax revenue that you could zero out the defense budget and still not be in "balance".

Large amounts of social spending will need to be dealt with by controlling its growth or outright cutting of benefits very soon.

The Democrats are hiding this fact from the American public by refusing to even pass a budget (because part of the overall budget process includes 10 year window deficit projections).

[tmleadr03]

The mantra "cut waste" is all well and good and there is plenty of waste. But the government is currently spending such immense amounts of money in excess of tax revenue that you could zero out the defense budget and still not be in "balance".

Large amounts of social spending will need to be dealt with by controlling its growth or outright cutting of benefits very soon.

The Democrats are hiding this fact from the American public by refusing to even pass a budget (because part of the overall budget process includes 10 year window deficit projections).

According to the video the mandatory spending is larger then the entire revenue the federal .gov takes in.

I just went to the historical tables on Whitehouse.gov and it looks like for 2011 we are only overspending by 36%. So if EVERY department took a 30% cut this year and then held to a growth in spending of 3% for the next five years and we saw an increase of revenue by 5% each year in five years we would be over spending about 255 Billion each year and still in debt by over 120 Trillion in unfunded liabilities. Not to mention our regular debt of 16 Trillion would not have gone down either.

We have unfunded liabilities of 120 Trillion. To cover that we would need to see a cut in spending of 50% and a growth of 10% a year for the next 60 years. I am not actually going to work an excell spread sheet for the real numbers to be able to cover all the debt right now. But you get the idea. It isn't happening.

[cstone]

Our government has over promised and over obligated our economic future. We cannot pay everyone we have promised to pay. IMO we have to cut spending on one or more than one of the following:

Social Security
Medicare
Medicaid
Federal Pensions
Interest on our current debt

While we are trying to figure out the cuts we need to make, lets stop borrowing more for current spending. More borrowing only increases the interest on the debt. No more debt ceiling increases!

There are no good choices, only choices which hurt different people differently. The cows are coming home and it doesn't matter whether we want them or not. To do nothing is to admit defeat and invite destruction.