I think this is great in that it gives people a sense of the real-life decisions that have to be made and how much vs how little various things make a difference.
I guess its a good learning tool but the cuts and taxes don't have a lot of context. The cuts area also bundled together when there are implications about the individual cuts in each bundled.
Or maybe baby boomers can stop sending chain emails to each other. Or just travel back in 30 years in time and not screw things up in the first place.
Let's say that is 50 million people. Where do you suppose we get 50 trillion dollars from to pay for this?
The population between 50 and 65 is indeed about 45-50 million... but in all fairness, he did say they would have to retire and I suspect the number in that age group still working would be significantly less. You wouldn't count current retirees, housewives, etc. Also, you could narrow it more by excluding those who already have a house and a car. Regardless, there's some major problems with this plan.
Basically, everything you do would be criticized by some of those at the top in their field (whether military-industrial, Big Pharma, Big 4 Auditing, IRS, general govt workers, investment bankers, doctors, etc.) and they will contact their respective lobbyist/special interest group - who will team up with others of similar interests - which will secretly fund anyone in the media that will rail against your proposals. The media person's comments will be sensational and superficial, but they will get airtime, and you'll probably lose much political capital. Such is the way of things today. /jaded spiel.
73% Tax Increases, 27% Spending Cuts Cut military spending. Didn't touch Social Security or Medicare. Returned to Clinton-era tax rates on some. Had to add a national sales tax, carbon tax, and millionaires tax. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=s3t005lq
39% Tax Increases, 61% Spending Cuts That's how I roll b$tches...only if it were so easy...too much politics and bs red tape...
It'd be interesting to get a lot of different viewpoints on this and then check to see the budget cuts/tax increases that most of us agree on.
Ha! Beat this! http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=000406qz Yeah suck it tax payers!
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=yv6pg9nk where do i sign up to eliminate food stamps and poor people handouts? it's not an option in here.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=zz9rc000 100% spending reduction. I also only needed a couple of cuts (troop reduction in Iraq and Afghanistan and halving of foreign aid) for the short term deficit, so those could slowly be phased back up an not create a problem in the long term.
Fix Taxes: 47% Cut Spending: 53% http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=m3b1b6lj
Military Reduce military to pre-Iraq War size and further reduce troops in Asia and Europe Reduce Navy and Air Force fleets Cancel or delay some weapons programs Reduce the number of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to 30,000 by 2013 Reduce nuclear arsenal and space spending The Bush Tax Cuts Allow expiration for income above $250,000 a year Existing taxes Return the estate tax to Clinton-era levels New Taxes and Tax Reform Eliminate loopholes, reduce rates (Bowles-Simpson plan) Millionaire's tax on income above $1 million National sales tax Carbon tax Changing the retirement age: Choose one or none Use an alternate measure for inflation (This one was really interesting for me as an economist, since COLA (cost-of-living adjustment) is one of those programs that many taxpayers don't realize create a huge deficit. COLA tends to overstate the effect of inflation since it fails to account for substitution effect, or the tendency for consumers to change their tendencies because of changes in relative prices of goods. This is because the index used is usually either the Fisher or Laspeyres index. The Fisher is the geometric mean of the Paasche (which tends to understate inflation) and Laspeyres (which tends to overstate inflation). I'm assuming this is referring to using the Paasche index to measure COLA payments, which I think is fair given how inflation is slowing to a crawl. However, once inflation kicks in (as it will with the amount of money being printed), this will cause some problems-but so will all these measures to some degree. Health care Cap Medicare growth starting in 2013 hoorah! http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=03t114m6 50% savings from tax increases 50% savings from spending cuts 2015 deficit goes from $418 billion to surplus of $110 billion 2030 deficit goes from $1.345 trillion to surplus of $430 billion -Spend surplus on tax cuts for small business/middle class/investment ELECT ME MOTHERF****S all in all, interesting exercise, but probably a dream in the skies. The military is a powerful enough lobby so that all these cuts will probably never happen (even though most are judicious). also, agricultural subsidies, i'd have cut on principle, but they represented such a small change in the whole scheme of things, i never bothered-(already pissed off NASA-heads, militants and rich people in general, who's for more!) cutting foreign aid in half-very against this in principle. however, I wouldn't mind cutting American aid to Israel by 100%, since that represents a large bulk of US foreign aid, and that particular relationship makes no sense. i'd also like to see some other options-reducing jail sentences for drug possession, increasing penalties for tax evaders etc. but eh. thus ends my tl;dr post.
