Under my enlightened rule the US debt will decrease to 60% of GDP by 2028.
Though I will note that had there been an option I would have increased the number of ships in the navy. Of course, I would also have cut farm subsidies if that had been an option.
http://crfb.org/stabilizethedebt/#
Savings Relative to Current Law = $2.47 Trillion
QuoteChoose Your Path
Afghanistan
Eliminate War Funding After 2021 -$820B
Fully Repeal the Sequester $1,040B
Alter the Sustainable Growth Rate
Adopt Medicare Payment Advisory Commission Recommendations $100B
Defense, Diplomacy & Security
Cancel the Ground Combat Vehicle and Defer Development of the Long-Range Bomber -$50B
Maintain Current Army Levels $130B
Domestic Social & Economic Spending
Restart the NASA Moon Mission and Create a Moon Colony $250B
Enact Increased Transportation Funding $100B
Social Security
Include All New State and Local Workers -$90B
Health Care
Establish a Public Option in the Health Exchanges -$220B
Modernize Cost Sharing for Medicare -$160B
Require Manufacturers to Pay a Minimum Drug Rebate for Medicare Low-Income Beneficiaries -$170B
Enact Medical Malpractice Reform -$70B
Bundle Payments for Inpatient and Post-Acute Care -$70B
Replace Traditional Medicare with Premium Support -$380B
Revenue
Raise Tax Rates on Capital Gains and Dividends -$60B
Increase Excise Taxes on Alcohol -$80B
Impose a Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee -$70B
Restore 2009 Estate Tax Parameters -$150B
Enact Carbon Tax or Cap-and-Trade -$450B
Impose a 5.4% Surtax on Income Above $1 Million -$550B
Enact the Buffett Rule -$90B
Raise Social Security Payroll Tax Cap
Raise Cap to Cover 90% of Earnings -$550B
Tax Expenditures
Eliminate LIFO Accounting and Oil and Gas Preferences -$170B
Expand the EITC and Child Tax Credit $110B
Extend American Opportunity Tax Credit $80B
Does it let you go to an all-nuclear military and nationalize banks?
QuoteImpose a 5.4% Surtax on Income Above $1 Million -$550B
Ooh. I'd buy that for a dollar.
I think the goals are far too modest. You should not just aim to reduce the deficit. The real goal is to generate a fiscal surplus, repay all the debt, then use the surplus to set up an investment fund, and use the proceeds of the fund to generate additional recurrent income. That's what we do in HK.
Quote from: Ideologue on June 29, 2014, 10:28:55 PM
Does it let you go to an all-nuclear military and nationalize banks?
QuoteImpose a 5.4% Surtax on Income Above $1 Million -$550B
Ooh. I'd buy that for a dollar.
Why would you want to nationalize banks?
Since when have that aided the economy?
Quote from: Siege on June 29, 2014, 10:57:49 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on June 29, 2014, 10:28:55 PM
Does it let you go to an all-nuclear military and nationalize banks?
QuoteImpose a 5.4% Surtax on Income Above $1 Million -$550B
Ooh. I'd buy that for a dollar.
Why would you want to nationalize banks?
Since when have that aided the economy?
It's the Jews, stupid.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 29, 2014, 10:27:57 PM
Restart the NASA Moon Mission and Create a Moon Colony $250B
:lol:
Quote from: Siege on June 29, 2014, 10:57:49 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on June 29, 2014, 10:28:55 PM
Does it let you go to an all-nuclear military and nationalize banks?
QuoteImpose a 5.4% Surtax on Income Above $1 Million -$550B
Ooh. I'd buy that for a dollar.
Why would you want to nationalize banks?
Since when have that aided the economy?
1913
Quote from: Siege on June 29, 2014, 10:57:49 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on June 29, 2014, 10:28:55 PM
Does it let you go to an all-nuclear military and nationalize banks?
QuoteImpose a 5.4% Surtax on Income Above $1 Million -$550B
Ooh. I'd buy that for a dollar.
Why would you want to nationalize banks?
Since when have that aided the economy?
Nobody said anything about nationalizing the banks.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 30, 2014, 03:24:04 AM
Quote from: Siege on June 29, 2014, 10:57:49 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on June 29, 2014, 10:28:55 PM
Does it let you go to an all-nuclear military and nationalize banks?
QuoteImpose a 5.4% Surtax on Income Above $1 Million -$550B
Ooh. I'd buy that for a dollar.
Why would you want to nationalize banks?
Since when have that aided the economy?
Nobody said anything about nationalizing the banks.
Ides did.
Quote from: Monoriu on June 29, 2014, 10:39:28 PM
I think the goals are far too modest. You should not just aim to reduce the deficit. The real goal is to generate a fiscal surplus, repay all the debt, then use the surplus to set up an investment fund, and use the proceeds of the fund to generate additional recurrent income. That's what we do in HK.
Why would you want the government to do that?
Think for a moment what what happen if every country's government did the same thing.
Moreover, every country in the world should run a trade surplus.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 30, 2014, 09:53:34 AM
Why would you want the government to do that?
Presumably to finance the retirement of an aging population. Another use for a sovereign wealth fund is to distribute natural resource wealth across generations.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 30, 2014, 10:18:06 AM
Presumably to finance the retirement of an aging population.
Assuming that the government is assuming primary responsible for pensions, perhaps. But then why have 401k, etc. in the tax code?
QuoteAnother use for a sovereign wealth fund is to distribute natural resource wealth across generations.
Yes. But only an issue for a few countries.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 30, 2014, 10:29:57 AM
Assuming that the government is assuming primary responsible for pensions, perhaps. But then why have 401k, etc. in the tax code?
It still makes sense if the government has any responsibility at all for pensions.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 30, 2014, 10:32:25 AM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 30, 2014, 10:29:57 AM
Assuming that the government is assuming primary responsible for pensions, perhaps. But then why have 401k, etc. in the tax code?
It still makes sense if the government has any responsibility at all for pensions.
That would only be true if one thinks that the government will be more effective in investing the surplus funds. Otherwise it would be a better idea to distribute the money back for the general population to invest and rely on higher path growth rates to finance the pension obligation.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 30, 2014, 11:08:13 AM
That would only be true if one thinks that the government will be more effective in investing the surplus funds. Otherwise it would be a better idea to distribute the money back for the general population to invest and rely on higher path growth rates to finance the pension obligation.
This doesn't account for the distributional and moral hazard aspects.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 30, 2014, 11:08:13 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 30, 2014, 10:32:25 AM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 30, 2014, 10:29:57 AM
Assuming that the government is assuming primary responsible for pensions, perhaps. But then why have 401k, etc. in the tax code?
It still makes sense if the government has any responsibility at all for pensions.
That would only be true if one thinks that the government will be more effective in investing the surplus funds. Otherwise it would be a better idea to distribute the money back for the general population to invest and rely on higher path growth rates to finance the pension obligation.
Unfortunately a large number of people in the public are not very effective in saving and investing for their retirement. A great many people in this country seem to be planning to rely on lotto winnings and the Canada Pension Plan for their golden years. So as a result the CPP has started investing for the future, and now has a reserve fund of some $200B dollars invested.
Where are these growth rates going to come from? We can't do better than 2% a year in the modern safety net countries anymore. It might not be possible at all.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 30, 2014, 10:18:06 AM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 30, 2014, 09:53:34 AM
Why would you want the government to do that?
Presumably to finance the retirement of an aging population. Another use for a sovereign wealth fund is to distribute natural resource wealth across generations.
There is no government funded pension in HK ;)
Talk about numbers spiraling out of control
Quote
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You don't start threads, you just shit on them. Threadshitter.
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Quote from: MadImmortalMan on June 30, 2014, 01:37:00 PM
Where are these growth rates going to come from? We can't do better than 2% a year in the modern safety net countries anymore. It might not be possible at all.
It's not the safety net.
Quote from: Ideologue on June 30, 2014, 06:36:49 PM
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on June 30, 2014, 01:37:00 PM
Where are these growth rates going to come from? We can't do better than 2% a year in the modern safety net countries anymore. It might not be possible at all.
It's not the safety net.
Its the lack of a free market economic model.
It's certainly not that.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 30, 2014, 11:11:39 AM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 30, 2014, 11:08:13 AM
That would only be true if one thinks that the government will be more effective in investing the surplus funds. Otherwise it would be a better idea to distribute the money back for the general population to invest and rely on higher path growth rates to finance the pension obligation.
This doesn't account for the distributional and moral hazard aspects.
Sure it does.
If your trend growth is a few tenths higher, then with compounding that brings in a huge amount of money. That money can be used to insure for distributional variances.
MH can be dealt with by a forced saving mandate with conditions, which is the same thing as a government running a surplus, except the money is managed in the private sector.
Kind of funny - me taking the position the private sector is the more efficient investor of capital and you taking the opposing view. ;)
Distribution and moral hazard are not related to efficiency. :nerd:
If you want to argue for alternatives to public pensions, that's fine. But in the absence of those alternatives public pensions still need to be funded, and a sovereign wealth fund is a good way of solving the problem of a demographic bulge.
Mirror universe?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on July 01, 2014, 10:27:22 AM
If you want to argue for alternatives to public pensions, that's fine. But in the absence of those alternatives public pensions still need to be funded, and a sovereign wealth fund is a good way of solving the problem of a demographic bulge.
I would concede that as a general principle.
But I do think there is cause to worry if every major country were to establish big SWFs for their national pension obligations. That would be a huge amount of money. If invested optimally, with a significant allocation to equity, it wouldn't take long before the ownership of every major public company on earth would be majority public entity owned. That I think should be concerning for anyone committed to the idea of private ownership of capital as a foundational principle.
Quote from: Ideologue on June 30, 2014, 06:36:49 PM
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on June 30, 2014, 01:37:00 PM
Where are these growth rates going to come from? We can't do better than 2% a year in the modern safety net countries anymore. It might not be possible at all.
It's not the safety net.
I think you're right. It's the debt. Public and private.
Debt overhang (predominately private) is a huge, huge issue.
I still think the bigger reason is wage stagnation, which is part of the reason debt overhang became such a huge issue. Although reasonable minds evidently can differ, I blame it on automation (as well as simple rationalizing/efficiency gains), which keeps reducing the need for human employment without adding to aggregate demand or even adding significantly to wealth. No one's "figured out" the aggregate demand problem yet (many people have figured it out).
But I'll tell you (by which I mainly mean Joan) what, if a proper Keynesian stimulus were to lift us back into full employment and raised growth rates, I'd admit I was wrong.
People have made tons of money off of automation.
The question is whether the economic growth automation/rationalization undeniably creates provides enough jobs (or value) to offset the costs in terms of employment and aggregate demand. I feel that that question has not been answered, though I think the evidence suggests it being answered in the negative.
If not automation, whence stagnant wages for the past 30 years? The value of labor has declined, but why? Retrenchment of capital; women (re)entering the workforce after the Golden Age of the Middle Class, as social order lagged behind, spelling the end of single-income households; immigrants; effective immigrants in the form of global industrialization--are those factors sufficient to explain it? Perhaps.
You also said automation has not increased wealth.
I didn't say that. It obviously has. (With tremendous gains from the late 19th century up through 1980 or so, to boot.)
Quote from: Ideologue on July 02, 2014, 07:46:52 PM
I blame it on automation (as well as simple rationalizing/efficiency gains), which keeps reducing the need for human employment without adding to aggregate demand or even adding significantly to wealth.
Which is not the same thing as stating it failed to create wealth whatsoever, though I should've clarified that statement by limiting it to the period of late-late-late-stage capitalism, ~1980 onward.
I'm sure there's an actual economic modeling function that seeks to depict mathematically what I mean: that through a combination of sophistication and ubiquity, the marginal product of labor input is reduced (and hence demand for that labor, since it's primarily wages that drive demand for mass consumption of goods and services, and so on in a messy vicious cycle).
Since displaced workers do not create wealth--and lower-paid workers generate less aggregate demand, the driver of the growth of wealth--I reckon it is very likely to be as significant factor in low growth rates in advanced countries as direct labor competition, although I on reflection debt overhang is probably the most serious present cause.
I think as the years go by technological unemployment will--although some do not--so seriously cripple growth that we may even enter a stage of permanent negative growth (we will absolutely enter a stage of collapsing wages, if we have not already). This will be driven even further by sub-replacement population growth, which will be compounded by prospective parents having even fewer children than now and pouring every possible resource into their educational development in order to enter the remaining labor market.
Now get from anything you wrote to "no significant increase in wealth."
Nobody else has posted a budget! :angry:
Fine, you baby. I also got to 60%
I raised all income taxes, gutted benefits for olds, killed Obamacare (at least the individual mandate part), and went to an all-nuke military.
I could've gotten the government running on a for-profit basis if "end student loans" was an option but it wasn't. So I killed Pell grants because poor people have no business using taxpayer money for signalling purposes. Instead, I gave them more welfare and half a trillion dollars worth of jobs.
I created a moon colony just for you, buddy. :hug:
P.S. I'm kidding about Pell grants, but it did get me to 60% and it was the only higher ed-related expense I was allowed to touch by the machine.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on July 02, 2014, 10:53:15 PM
Nobody else has posted a budget! :angry:
Here is my budget:
20% flat tax for everybody, reduce the government employment by 70%, eliminate corporate welfare, anti-monopoly laws defining monopoly as controlling over 25% of any market.
Fuck, this is not a budget.
You keep your hands off my Pell grants. :mad:
Quote from: Siege on July 04, 2014, 04:50:16 PM
reduce the government employment by 70%
Including the military?
Quoteeliminate corporate welfare
What do you mean by this?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on July 04, 2014, 05:05:13 PM
Quote from: Siege on July 04, 2014, 04:50:16 PM
reduce the government employment by 70%
Including the military?
Quoteeliminate corporate welfare
What do you mean by this?
Do liberals consider the military to be government employees when they think or talk about how good government expansion is???
When they expand the government, do they expand or reduce the military?
Do they behave like we are their peers or their enemies?
If your policy positions are going to be determined by opposition to whatever liberals favor, then you can't be opposed to "corporate welfare." :contract:
I want to expand the NSA. It is nice to finally have a segment of the Federal Government that really listens to the people.
I laughed.
Quote from: Valmy on July 04, 2014, 08:03:27 PM
I want to expand the NSA. It is nice to finally have a segment of the Federal Government that really listens to the people.
If people truly knew what goes on inside the Federal government, the type of people who work there and how the entire government process works, there would be substantially less things for the average US citizen to worry about.
Quote from: Ideologue on July 02, 2014, 07:46:52 PM
But I'll tell you (by which I mainly mean Joan) what, if a proper Keynesian stimulus were to lift us back into full employment and raised growth rates, I'd admit I was wrong.
Growth rates have recovered and unemployment rates have declined very steadily.
The recovery has been OK considering we had the worst crash since the 30s and taking into account the premature panic into fiscal consolidation a few years back.
To the extent there is an argument to be made about long-term weakened growth prospects, some variant on the Gordon/Cowan/Summers/Krugman stagnation hypothesis is more persuasive IMO than the opposite hypothesis that the problem is *too much* innovation.
Quote from: Ideologue on July 02, 2014, 08:01:40 PM
If not automation, whence stagnant wages for the past 30 years? The value of labor has declined, but why? Retrenchment of capital; women (re)entering the workforce after the Golden Age of the Middle Class, as social order lagged behind, spelling the end of single-income households; immigrants; effective immigrants in the form of global industrialization--are those factors sufficient to explain it? Perhaps.
Plus globalization, the rise of Asian developing economy industry, weakened unions, changes in tax code, changes in competition policy, vast relative expansion of financial services sector . . .
Not exactly lacking in pathways for potential alternate causation here.
Surely you're not suggesting that a change or lack thereof in society might have more than one singular cause? :o