Rand Paul returns $500,000 to Treasury
- Thread starter Chris0nllyn
- Start date
Larry Gude
Strung Out
So, let's see...2013 Budget, $3.8 trillion, receipts, $2.9 trillion, deficit, $900 bil or so, carry the one, uh...cut 16% off the top, $600 bil...
Viola! Deficit is down to a mere $300 bil. And change.
There is not one federal department or agency that couldn't make if they cut 16%. Not one.
ylexot
Super Genius
FreedomFan
Snarky 'ol Cuss
By SCOTT WONG | 1/12/12 1:50 PM EST
Did OP intend to post an article over a year old?
If I did my math right, that's $3,125,000 for a Senator to run his shop?
I feel that should be the real story here.
BOP
Well-Known Member
If congress worked the way the rest of the gov't budgeting process worked, that's $500,000.00 less that he'll get next time. If you don't use it, you lose it, and you don't get it back.
aps45819
24/7 Single Dad
X 100 senators
Larry Gude
Strung Out
This is why government can not function efficiently; there is no incentive to do so. And this is what amazes me about today's GOP; we can't even speak the language of efficiency anymore. We don't even argue that for profit is THE way to go on the vast majority of government functions. Government, easily, costs twice as much as it 'should'. This is to say NOTHING of the impact of policy on private sector expenses.
I was watching a really interesting forum with Tavis Smiley, Newt Gingrich, Cornell West and some others from a few weeks back, education, health care, etc, and one guy fussed and fumed about how private sector, for profit, health care COST us some $700 billion more last year, for non specialized care, routine stuff, than the exact same services would have cost in socialized medicine nations and I just burst out laughing.
We may have 'for profit' medicine but, we do NOT have free market medicine. We have government subsidized and protected health care. Our health care not only cost $700 billion for simple services BECAUSE of government protection BUT once you wipe away that $700 billion subsidy, or, if you like, tax, true market health care would cost something like HALF of what socialized medicine costs meaning we spent, easily, $1 trillion more last year on basic health care than a market based approach would deliver and this is to say NOTHING of the increase in quality and service of market based goods and services.
So, the socialists cry against 'for profit' is misplaced at best and misguided at worst and is why Obamacare has not, can not and will not cut even a penny from the cost of healthcare and is, in fact, helping costs to grow even more than they otherwise would; it does not address the problem. It is fantasy to sit there and day dream about how we could be spending $700 bil less were government MORE involved in health care.
So, take that $1 trillion, the, easy, 16% across the board government savings, the Rand effect, if you will, and that saving of some $600 billions that, in my view, could easily be more like nearly $2 trillion and we're looking at a federal budget under $2 trillion and net savings back into consumers pockets of nearly $3 trillion simply including health savings INSTEAD of the $1 trillion we're going to add in debt for '13.
That's a $4 trillion swing or, $13,000 per man, woman or child in this nation left IN the economy or, $52,000 per family. $52,000 saved in waste.
Again, this is to say nothing of the market costs of government including $100 oil, the wars, poor regulation, bailouts and good old fashion political pay offs like 'green' energy.
We have this irrational terror of slashing government as though this will collapse the economy and destroy everything. Well, while it is clearly true if you make your living off of government waste, the cost of that is enormous and not just in what is directly wasted from everyone's pockets but worse, much worse, all the other associated costs like higher prices and, worst of all, erosion of the value of the dollar.
Consider. $100,000 income is nothing special anymore yet that is twice the national average. If everything you bought, energy, food, auto's, homes, insurance, healthcare, cost something like TWICE as much as it would otherwise, or worse, what you make becomes rather irrelevant. If you make $100k and spend nearly every penny, is that better than making $50k and being able to save $5-10 k a year? Of course not but, we never think in terms of slashing costs. We must GROW!! Higher wages! More, more, more!
That would be great if it worked but, it doesn't. Put another way, would you rather get a raise this year of $4,000 or $2 gas and no raise?
Most people would say a $4,000 raise yet, if you have two cars and put on nearly 20,000 miles each and get something like 20mpg, you will be about even, not even accounting for taxes on the income and not even beginning to consider the savings across the board on EVERYTHING you buy and use.
So, on the macro, government has no interest in this sort of thinking even though it would be demonstrably better assuming the goal is more freedom and independence. Sadly, we have no interest either and reject this sort of thinking out of hand as we go merely rambling on in our intellectual boxes.
For government, 16% savings would be nothing. I would incentivize departments to save every penny they can and split the savings with the folks who work there and the tax payer. Imagine government that is trying, TRYING to serve the public in the most efficient manner possible so as to put more money in THEIR pockets while taking less from you instead of having NO ability to profit from savings and EVERY motivation to spend every last dime they can get.
Tilted
..
Sure, but there'd be a whole lot of pissed off people when they discovered that their Social Security check was 16% light or they couldn't have certain medical procedures because Medicare no longer pays (or pays enough) for them or that they had to pay for their own medicine. Some of those folks are quite upset when they don't get a significant COLA increase each year, they'd not take too kindly to actual benefits reductions.
Another thing to think about, though it just shifts the numbers around a bit: When cutting spending by a certain amount we have to account for the tax effect which reduces how much the cuts help the deficit - the same effect which reduces how much spending increases of a certain amount hurt the deficit. If the target is to get rid of a trillion dollars worth of deficits, we may need to cut spending by $1.1 or 1.2 trillion because some of the cuts will be from eliminating employees or reducing their pay, which means less tax revenue. The government is one employer that effectively gets a direct discount on its labor costs.
Anyway, a king might have little difficulty bringing a budget like ours into balance - a well backed, militarily strong king that is. But in a democracy like ours it's not that easy. Most elected officials worry about getting reelected, and those that would not - those that would speak the truth about what is needed - would have a tough time getting elected in the first place. We have a lot of voters that like to tell themselves they are fiscal conservatives when in reality they're fiscal liberals like so many others - they're just the good kind of fiscal liberals, the kind that supports massive spending but only on the right stuff.
So, you're right, fixing our deficit issues would be fairly easy as an accounting matter. However, as a political matter it's far from easy.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
But, the first step is TRYING to explain how taking your medicine, getting your rest, getting up a little earlier, getting a little exercise is actually good for you, not bad. We don't even do that anymore.
Had a conversation with someone close to me a couple of years ago and I laid out how, if they were able to choose the then $1200 a month their union was laying out for their health care and go get their own plan, would they do it. Of course, they said no way could they get that quality of coverage for that price. That the union gets a quantity discount.
This begins the tedious process of explaining that the ONLY reason it is so expensive is BECAUSE the union is paying for it. You walk folks through this time and again, how much would groceries cost if someone else was paying for it, your car, your house and, point is, we finally got to agreement that if ALL union members, tomorrow, had to get their own health insurance that, in very short order, the market would adjust to what they were willing to pay and what level of service and quality they wanted, same as their groceries, same as their cars and homes.
Private sector folks on these forums have the exact same blinders on about this so, it is not some sort of union/non union intelligence thing. We are all enamored of the idea that, somehow, if someone else is 'paying for it' it is better and cheaper and that is simply wrong. Exactly wrong.
Long story short, when that light bulb came on, my friend then made a brilliant point; her real fear would be the transition period between now, where $1200 (probably $1500 or more) gets X and however the market played out where she'd still have that $1200 but be paying substantially less for as good, or better, care. A really good, valid point.
Transition period.
Her husband, a very sharp guy, retreated to the position that too many guys would not go buy insurance and we'd all have to pay for it anyway, the "I am my brothers keeper' position, the we 'have to do this/that' position.
Not getting anywhere with him on repeal of the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment Act, the thing that requires 'we' pay for other people no matter what nor the argument that we'd STILL be better off simply because of market forces.
It always comes back to the same point; we do have the government we choose and simply are not honest with ourselves and are very un-trusting and hypocritical. We support dependency if we see it as in our own interest, even when it is demonstrably not, out of simple fear. We point at and blame others for the same thought process.
So, yeah, it's a tough sell and I guess most of my arguments boil down to fighting against what I see as the surrender of even trying anymore.
"Buy your own ####ing health care! It will be cheaper and better for us all except for those who live off the waste!"
Not much of a campaign slogan.
But, it could be!
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Not getting anywhere with him on repeal of the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment Act, the thing that requires 'we' pay for other people no matter what nor the argument that we'd STILL be better off simply because of market forces.
"Buy your own ####ing health care! It will be cheaper and better for us all except for those who live off the waste!"
Not much of a campaign slogan.
But, it could be!
you never will Larry, because Gosh people might die in the mean time, until market forces drive the cost down, and that would be unfair