Nothing should be off limits as the spending of this country is unsustainable.

From reports today, it sounds like we could cut $62 million being paid to offset costs of illegal immigrants in so called sanctuary communities. That seems like a pretty good place to start.

Interesting take by George Will in his column today...to the effect that since governmental workers have been able to unionize, they vote for and spend their union money on those candidates who will take care of them financially, thus bloating the wages and benefits as the cycle continues. This is OK except for one reason, he says: it is the public's money that pays the wages and benefits that are artificially too high.

 

 

Amen brother ...good find

From reports today, it sounds like we could cut $62 million being paid to offset costs of illegal immigrants in so called sanctuary communities. That seems like a pretty good place to start.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/11/12/doj-gave-millions-sanctuary-communities-report-finds/

 

Interesting article, 75.

For what it's worth. Defense falls under discretionary spending. All entitlement programs fall under mandatory spending.

Can't we just print more money? :idunno:

I'm not disagreeing, but what happens to the money paid into the system by those of us who've been paying into the system for 20+ years? Do we get a refund of what we've paid in? Would we only phase it out for those under a certain age?

 

Different articles I've seen on it would phase it out over a 20 year period or so. Most proposals I've seen have a deminishing amount going into SS and an increasing amount going into private funds. There would be a mandatory deduction, roughly same percentage as now. Medicare would work similarly except the money paid in would be split between an HRA and Medicare.

 

55 + 80/20

50-55 65/35

45-50 50/50

40-45 35/65

35-40 20/80

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/11/12/doj-gave-millions-sanctuary-communities-report-finds/

 

Interesting article, 75.

 

Thanks, that's what I heard about on the radio. Doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.

Saw where the post office lost billions, could it be sold off to a private company?

8 billion plus last year alone.

Cut Medicare benefits.

 

Medicare certainly needs to be worked on and improved. There is fraud in the billions upon billions each year.

http://www.smpresource.org/Content/NavigationMenu/AboutSMPs/MedicareFraudEstimatesAMovingTarget/Medicare_Fraud_Estimates.pdf

ALL funding of public TV & Radio, the arts etc should be gone.

 

Completely disagree with this.

Defense spending should be target #1. To his credit, Gates has been helping trim costs. Just so you have a ballpark figure, I was once told by a former US Ambassador that here is how government spending is doled out:

 

Defense (DoD)- $500 billion/yr

Intelligence (CIA) - $50 billion/yr

Diplomacy (DoS) - $5 billion/ yr

 

That seems skewed to me.

They need to sic Crit Luallen on some of these federal agencies and programs.

Saw where the post office lost billions, could it be sold off to a private company?

 

Would Mon, Wed and Fri mail delivery cut costs substantially? I'd be fine with reduced delivery. What would be the negatives and would the negatives be of significance?