Our Budget Breakdown: Or what we should Cut

This is a pretty good primer on what we need to cut in order to get our house in order.

Though the Federal budget is a lengthy beast, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities neatly lays out the spending breakdown: 20% of spending goes to Social Security, 21% goes to Medicare & Medicaid, 20% goes to defense, about 6% goes to interest payments on our debt and another 14% to so-called "safety net" programs. The remaining 20% is spent on veteran's benefits, medical research, education, infrastructure and other smaller programs. 

So it is pretty clear. Cut social security by 10% by moving the age up or reducing payouts or whatever. Then cut Medicare by 10% by doing the same. I like the Ryan plan that provides you with vouchers where you can buy your own health insurance instead of Medicare. As long as the government stops abuse by insurance companies then it might work out. Whatever the case make both things solvent before I retire or cheerfully refund my money.

Then we can cut defense now that we are winding down one of our wars. Maybe 5% or whatever savings we will get from leaving Iraq. The 14% safety net programs can be cut slightly or just farm some out more to the states or to church and charity groups. That last 20% might be hard to cut but maybe they can shave off 5% somewhere.

Then we raise revenue but cutting out tons of tax breaks and simplifying the tax code and we would be back on the path to solvency again. I would first get rid of the interest deduction on mortgage debt. I mean living in your house is enough of a bonus why should the tax payers also give you some free cash as well? Then get rid of all tax breaks for certain corporations. GE and Exxon needs to pay some taxes like everyone else.

Then you cut the corporate and individual tax rates like the Gang of 6 plan did and suddenly you are back on the path to growth again. Too bad Congress and the White House are full of people that want to be reelected more than they want to fix our economy. Hopefully getting our debt rating cut will wake up some people and get them from playing the blame game to fixing the economy.