Topic: The Federal Budget
started by: jimhanson
Posted by jimhanson on Feb. 13 2006,2:12 pm
Here's a "Federal Budget by the Numbers" overview from the Heritage Foundation. Lots of tables, charts, graphs, examples. Out of control Federal spending, "Earmarks", Pork.Lots of things to debate--something here for both Liberals and Conservatives.
< http://www.heritage.org/Researc....D=93690 >
Here's a partial summary of waste
| Quote |
| Nowhere To Cut? · The federal government made at least $37 billion in overpayments in 2005. Current estimates are between $40billion and $100 billion in annual overpayments. · Federal auditors are currently examining all federal programs. Thus far, 38% of all examined programs have failed to show any positive impact on the populations they serve. Yet lawmakers appropriated $154 billion to these programs in FY 2004. · Members of Congress have spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars supplying their offices with popcorn machines, plasma televisions, DVD equipment, ionic air fresheners, camcorders, and signature machines. · Lawmakers diverted $13 million from Hurricane Katrina relief spending to build a museum celebrating the Army Corps of Engineers—the agency partially responsible for the failed levees that flooded New Orleans. · The federal government cannot account for $24.5 billion spent in 2003. · The Defense Department wasted $100 million on unused flight tickets and never bothered to collect refunds even though the tickets were refundable. · Over one recent 18-month period, Air Force and Navy personnel used government-funded credit cards to charge at least $102,400 for admission to entertainment events, $48,250 for gambling, $69,300 for cruises, and $73,950 for exotic dance clubs and prostitutes. · Congress recently gave Alaska Airlines $500,000 to paint a Chinook salmon on a Boeing 737. · Examples of wasteful duplication include: 342 economic development programs; 130 programs serving the disabled; 130 programs serving at-risk youth; 90 early childhood development programs; 75 programs funding international education, cultural, and training exchange activities; and 72 safe water programs. · Washington spends $60 billion annually on corporate welfare, versus $43 billion on homeland security. · The Congressional Budget Office published a “Budget Options” book identifying $140 billion in potential spending cuts. · The federal government spends $27 billion annually on special interest pork projects such as grants to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or funds to combat teenage “goth” culture in Blue Springs, Missouri. · Washington spends tens of billions of dollars on failed and outdated programs such as the Rural Utilities Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Economic Development Association. · The federal government made at least $37 billion in overpayments in 2005. Current estimates are between $40 billion and $100 billion in annual overpayments. · Massive farm subsidies also go to several members of Congress and celebrity “hobby farmers” such as David Rockefeller, Ted Turner, Scottie Pippen, and former Enron CEO Ken Lay. · Congressional investigators were able to receive $55,000 in federal student loan funding for a fictional college they created to test the Department of Education. · The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s $3.3 billion in overpayments in 2001 accounted for over 10% of the department’s total budget. · The Advanced Technology Program spends $150 million annually subsidizing private businesses, and 40% of this goes to Fortune 500 companies. · The Conservation Reserve program pays farmers $2 billion annually to not farm their land. · The Department of Agriculture spends $12 billion to $30 billion annually on farm subsidies, the vast majority of which go to agribusinesses and farmers averaging $135,000 in annual income. · The Army Corps of Engineers has been accused of illegally manipulating data to justify expensive but unnecessary public works projects. · Food stamp overpayments cost $600 million annually. · School lunch program abuse costs $120 million annually. · Veterans’ program overpayments cost $800 million annually. · Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) overpayments cost $9 billion annually. |
Posted by Ned Kelly on Feb. 13 2006,2:55 pm
| Quote (jimhanson @ Feb. 13 2006,2:12pm) |
| Here's a "Federal Budget by the Numbers" overview from the Heritage Foundation. Lots of tables, charts, graphs, examples. Out of control Federal spending, "Earmarks", Pork. Lots of things to debate--something here for both Liberals and Conservatives. |
The Chamber says you are too negative.......
.....ned
Posted by jimhanson on Feb. 13 2006,3:05 pm
Yeah, we can't have any DISSENTION or DEBATE in the community--we should all be clones--like the County Board Gang of Four! 
Posted by Glad I Left on Feb. 13 2006,3:40 pm
Does anyone else out there think we should have a balanced budget amendment?Running our country shouldn't be much different then running your own household. You make money when you work. You pay your bills at the end of the month. You budget for expenses you know are coming.
There are times when you may need to use credit, tornado blows roof off house. You still have to budget the next few months to pay off that use of credit.
How can this country simply keep working on a deficit.
| Quote |
| · The federal government cannot account for $24.5 billion spent in 2003. |
This shouldn't surprise anyone. One of the biggest problems with the federal gov't is the lack of a spending control system.
The GAO only investigates wasteful spending when it is notified of the possibility. They do not actively check spending habits of any gov't institution unless instructed to do so. We all know DC works, no one out there is going to report some other dept's spending. It's all a bunch scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.
We should implement a private sector accounting firm with no ties to anyone in DC and have them report accordingly. It would be expensive but the money they save by not letting some A-hole get a popcorn maker so he can eat while watching movies on his new plasma TV while breathing Ionic air would more than pay for it eventually!
Oh yeah, the 4 terds in command in Cobb county would certainly vote against that if were inplemented in Freeborn county. Couldn't get the new courthouse that way!
Posted by Expatriate on Feb. 13 2006,4:07 pm
ECONOMIC ARMAGEDDON fiscal philosophy of the Bush Administration.. this strategy is Grover Norquists brainchild..
don't worry another tax cut for the wealthy will fix everything...
Posted by jimhanson on Feb. 13 2006,4:27 pm
I'm for a balanced budget amendment.Here's what happened in 1997 and 2003. From CNN < http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/02/13/budget.amendment.ap/ >
| Quote |
| The White House has said Bush supports a balanced budget amendment but that it should include exceptions for war, national emergency and economic recession. Istook's amendment has an exception for declared war or national emergency but not for recessions. The top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, Rep. John Spratt of South Carolina, issued a statement Thursday questioning the usefulness of the amendment. "A constitutional amendment does nothing to resolve the re-emergence of deficits because it lays down no plan of action and will not take effect for six years at the earliest," he said. The last time a balanced budget amendment came up for a vote, in 1997, it came one vote short in the Senate. It passed the House in 1995. Sen. Larry Craig, an Idaho Republican, has introduced a balanced budget amendment in the Senate. |
| Quote |
| WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, March 4) -- The GOP effort to add a balanced budget constitutional amendment has failed in the Senate on a 66-34 vote. The bill fell one vote shy of the two-thirds majority an amendment to the Constitution requires. All 55 GOP senators and 11 of the 45 Democrats voted for it. Its hopes for passage were dashed last Wednesday when Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) announced that he would vote against it. |
Let's do it. Legislators have consistently shown that they can't reign in spending. While we're at it, let's not let them push the problem out to future generations--see below. From the same Federal Budget by the numbers report mentioned previously in this thread.
Posted by Ned Kelly on Feb. 13 2006,5:12 pm
Seems to me I have seen this graph before with different dates. I think it was during the last years of the Reagan revolution........................... 
What goes around, really does come around...... 
...... .....ned
Posted by Expatriate on Feb. 13 2006,6:53 pm
| Quote (Ned Kelly @ Feb. 13 2006,5:12pm) |
| Seems to me I have seen this graph before with different dates. I think it was during the last years of the Reagan revolution........................... What goes around, really does come around...... ...... .....ned |
déjà vu
Posted by jimhanson on Feb. 14 2006,10:10 am
Like so much libbie rhetoric--a good "sound bite", but short on facts. Not at all "like the last years of the Reagan Revolution".Total entitlements as a percentage of the Federal Budget are about the same in 2010--30 years after he took office--as they were when he took office.
Defense is smaller. Medicare is larger. Social Security is a smaller percentage.
Look at the actual expenditures on the graph--1980 to 1988. Look at the follow-on years, if you are so inclined.
Only the interest costs resemble the projections from that era.
Posted by Ned Kelly on Feb. 14 2006,1:09 pm
| Quote (jimhanson @ Feb. 14 2006,10:10am) |
| Not at all "like the last years of the Reagan Revolution". Only the interest costs resemble the projections from that era. |
The projected interest scared me so bad I didn't even look at the rest of the projections. They are small compared to the spike in interest costs. Which is why I said it looks like the projections from the latter Reagan years... Large deficits cause us to pay more interest as a nation....
..So if you would, kind sir, explain to me why interest costs are projected so high? What is the main reason? Could it be the massive budget deficits this administration is running up?
.......ned
Posted by jimhanson on Feb. 14 2006,4:31 pm
| Quote |
| So if you would, kind sir, explain to me why interest costs are projected so high? What is the main reason? Could it be the massive budget deficits this administration is running up? |
The answer is found the the text that preceeded the graph. I don't know how to capture a page of Adobe PDF text, so I had to copy in down in longhand, and retype it--but I'd do it just for you!
Here's the link to the site again.< http://www.heritage.org/Researc....D=93690 >| Quote |
| Total cost of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is projected to leap from 8.4% of GDP in 2005 to 18.9% by 2050. Federal program spending is projected to reach 27.6% of GDP by 2050, while net interest spending will consume an ADDITIONAL 9% to 46% of GDP (depending on whether massive deficit spending increases interest rates). Unless Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are reformed, lawmakers face 3 options: A. Raise taxes until taxes are 60% ($11,000 per household) higher than today. or B. Eliminate every federal program EXCEPT Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid by 2045. or C. Do nothing, and watch Federal debt expand so much that even a minimal interest rate response would induce a spiral of rising debt and interest rates. |
It is NOT about deficits incurred NOW, it's about the upcoming deficits looming because of unfunded social programs. As published in the Social Security thread, we could have fixed these problems years ago, but by putting our heads in the sand and refusing to acknowledge them, the interest rates on the Federal shortfall on these programs will become more and more severe.
BTW--if anybody out there would care to share their computer knowledge with a Conservative--please PM me and tell me:
A. How do you capture a page or text from Adobe pdf?
B. WHY does Adobe exist?
Posted by Expatriate on Feb. 15 2006,12:29 pm
WasteWatcher...for January< http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=news_wastewatcher >
Posted by Scurvy Dog on Feb. 15 2006,12:37 pm
| Quote (jimhanson @ Feb. 14 2006,4:31pm) |
| BTW--if anybody out there would care to share their computer knowledge with a Conservative--please PM me and tell me: A. How do you capture a page or text from Adobe pdf? B. WHY does Adobe exist? |
Always glad to help a fellow conservative.
I simply highlight the text using the text tool (letter T in the toolbar), copy and paste. I am using Adobe Acrobat. I am not sure if this works using Distiller. It is possible for the author to "protect" PDF documents to prevent copying or printing. That may be the case in some of the PDFs you view online.
To answer your second question, I'm not sure WHY Adobe exists, but their existence is justified in their awesome publishing capabilities. I use Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign every day.
Posted by Expatriate on Feb. 19 2006,8:59 pm
The Administration’s budget would increase the deficit over both the short run and the long run. Fiscal reasonability and fairness in shared sacrifice responsibility for the debt is lacking, this is a reverse Robin Hood plan.. The Bush Administration is proposing sharp cuts in many domestic programs, alongside an array of costly new tax breaks. The tax cuts would favor the most well-off, while the program cuts would primarily affect low- and middle-income Americans.
Posted by Botto 82 on Feb. 20 2006,12:18 am
| Quote (Scurvy Dog @ Feb. 15 2006,12:37pm) |
| To answer your second question, I'm not sure WHY Adobe exists, but their existence is justified in their awesome publishing capabilities. I use Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign every day. |
PageMaker sucks. QuarkXpress is better. All designed for Macs first, PC versions as an afterthought.
Posted by Botto 82 on Feb. 20 2006,12:23 am
| Quote (Expatriate @ Feb. 19 2006,8:59pm) |
| The Administration’s budget would increase the deficit over both the short run and the long run. Fiscal reasonability and fairness in shared sacrifice responsibility for the debt is lacking, this is a reverse Robin Hood plan.. The Bush Administration is proposing sharp cuts in many domestic programs, alongside an array of costly new tax breaks. The tax cuts would favor the most well-off, while the program cuts would primarily affect low- and middle-income Americans. |
Fattening the rich is okay. Poor people are at fault for their own fiscal circumstances.
Bring on the soylent green!
Posted by jimhanson on Feb. 20 2006,4:54 pm
We've been over this before--the fallacy of "tax cuts are only for the rich". I got out the employee Federal and State income tax witholding tables.The fact is, that a family of 4 doesn't even have tax deducted from their paycheck until they reach $22,800--and that doesn't even take into account "Earned Income" ("Negative Income Tax") credit.
Compare that with the liberal State of Minnesota, where that same family starts paying taxes at $18,720. In fact, Minnesota takes MORE MONEY THAN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN TAXES UNTIL THE EARNER MAKES $28,080 for that family of 4.
It appears that Minnesota could use some of that "tax cut for the rich" to help its poorest taxpayers--but then, that wouldn't fit the libbie rhetoric!
Posted by Expatriate on Feb. 20 2006,9:16 pm
you talk about peanuts, the feed them cake attitude of the Bush Administration...the tax breaks for big business coupled with
capital gains and dividend tax cuts make it clear that high-income households & corporations have and will BENEFIT THE MOST......
Bush dosn't hate the working class, he just loves the wealthy...
[quote]
"This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elites; I call you my base."
~George W. Bush, New York, October 20, 2000
Posted by jimhanson on Feb. 21 2006,9:31 am
Tell us about the tax breaks for "Big Business" proposed and enacted under Bush?Dividend tax cuts? Do you think it is right that Corporations pay taxes on earnings, then when they give it to their shareholders, it is taxed AGAIN? One of the precepts of our (admittedly flawed and convoluted) tax code is that you should only be taxed ONCE on income. Dividends and death taxes tax you TWICE. WHY is that a good thing?
Don't give us the "THE "WEALTHY" SHOULD PAY MORE" argument. The biggest investors in the market are the institutional investors--that's Universities, Pension Funds, Union Funds, etc. That's a BROAD CROSS SECTION of the economy--including every working stiff with a pension, 401, or mutual fund. And you think these people should PUT MORE MONEY DOWN THE GOVERNMENT RAT HOLE?
Of course, this is from the same party that thinks it is a GOOD thing to put money in Social Security, that will give you 2% return on investment--IF you live long enough to collect it--IF they don't change the rules on it (as they have over 40 times), IF there is any money left in the bankrupt system. The only certainty--if you die early, your heirs will get NOTHING except a $256 burial allowance, and a small monthly stipend until the kids turn 18. All your money will have gone to pay government administrative expenses.
Posted by Expatriate on Feb. 21 2006,10:21 pm
Those in the working class with stock held in retirement accounts, such as 401(k)s and IRAs differ, capital gains and dividend income accruing inside these retirement accounts is not subject to taxation, and thus would not receive a tax benefit from the reduction in the tax rates on capital gains and dividend income...Only 17 percent of households in the bottom 60 percent of the income spectrum own stock in taxable accounts. In contrast, 73 percent of the households in the top 10 percent of the income spectrum own stock in taxable accounts. Among those at the very top of the income spectrum - the top one percent - 84 percent own stock in taxable accounts.
Further, among those households that own taxable stock, the average holding is much larger for those at the top of the income spectrum than for those with more modest means. For households in the bottom 60 percent of the population that have any taxable stock, the average value of the holding is about $52,000 (in 2001 dollars). The average value is nearly $2 million for those in the top one percent of households.
Because taxable stock holdings are both smaller and less common for the bottom 60 percent of households, this group owns only 9 percent of all taxable stock. The top 10 percent owns 70 percent of all taxable stock. The top one percent owns 29 percent of all taxable stock.
Over half - 54 percent - of all capital gains and dividend income flows to the 0.2 percent of households with annual incomes over $1 million. More than three-quarters - 78 percent - of this income goes to those households with income over $200,000, which account for about 3 percent of all households.
In contrast, only 11 percent of capital gains and dividend income goes to the 86 percent of households with incomes of less than $100,000. Only 4 percent of this income flows to the 64 percent of households that have income of less than $50,000...
"This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elites; I call you my base."
~George W. Bush, New York, October 20, 2000
Posted by jimhanson on Feb. 22 2006,2:35 pm
| Quote |
| Over half - 54 percent - of all capital gains and dividend income flows to the 0.2 percent of households with annual incomes over $1 million. More than three-quarters - 78 percent - of this income goes to those households with income over $200,000, which account for about 3 percent of all households. |
You sell your house that has appreciated in value. You can take only 1 house appreciation in a lifetime--but today, people change houses often. The housing market has been doing very well. You pay capital gains on your house--welcome to the "top 3%" you described above.
You die--and your farm or business is sold to divide up amongst the heirs. Welcome to the "rich".
"Capital Gains" sounds like "Daddy Warbux" (I know, dating myself again, half the people on the Forum won't know who he is)--but in reality, it is just appreciated value for something you own. You PAID for that investment with AFTER TAX money--why should you pay for it AGAIN when you sell it?
Just do the "Fair Tax"--no loopholes, no figuring, rewards savings, and the actual cost of government is apparent with every purchase.
Ooops--politicos can't let THAT happen!
Posted by Berserker on Feb. 22 2006,3:59 pm
I'll tell you this, if I continued to write checks even though I was running a deficit as large as the Federal Government’s my bank would close my account and I would be unable to borrow money for a long time or at least without a very high interest rate.
Posted by Ned Kelly on Feb. 22 2006,6:35 pm
| Quote (jimhanson @ Feb. 22 2006,2:35pm) |
| You die--and your farm or business is sold to divide up amongst the heirs. Welcome to the "rich". |
Tax laws exempt the first 3 million dollars if you are married and each give 1 and 1/2 million each to your heirs. Bush wants to change that so there is no estate taxes.....zip... How many of you out there will be affected?.. How many of you have 3 million to give your kids? How many of you would benefit if the estate tax as it is now written was dropped?
.......ned
Posted by jimhanson on Feb. 23 2006,9:18 am
News Flash! Democrats discover there is a deficit in time of war! WW I, WW II, Korea, Vietnam. It only took them 40-90 years of study to make this discovery!
That's OK, though, those were Democrat Presidencies!
For the record, I don't know any conservatives that are happy with big government, or deficits. It's amazing how the parties have changed on the issue. During the 60s, 70s, and 80s, Republicans were deriding deficit spending, and Dems were saying "it doesn't matter". Today, the parties are reversed on the issue. Perhaps it has something to do with disgraced Keynsian economic theory--perhaps the success of the Greenspan economies had something to do with it.
Posted by GEOKARJO on Feb. 23 2006,10:58 am
We need to take a lesson from the past..........wars fought intermittently between France and England; ... on the part of the nobility to gain wealth and increased prestige.
Posted by Expatriate on Feb. 23 2006,12:14 pm
It seems our debt was manageable until the trickle-down economics of the Reagan/Bush era.. thank you Republicans...| Quote |
| If you look at the debt starting with Truman’s term (and remove Roosevelt’s WWII debt) the difference between the two parties contributions to our national debt level change considerably. Since 1946 the Democratic Presidents increased the national debt an average of only 3.7% per year when they were in office. The Republican Presidents stay at an average increase of 9.3% per year. Over the last 59 years Republican Presidents have out borrowed Democratic Presidents by almost a three to one ratio. That is, for every dollar a Democratic President has raised the national debt in the past 59 years Republican Presidents have raised the debt by $2.87. |
the numbers and chart here are out dated and don't include the extra trillion dollars Shrub & Company have piled on the backs of the American Working Class....
Posted by Botto 82 on Feb. 27 2006,12:22 am
How dare you defile the Deified Reagan? For shame...
Posted by Ned Kelly on Feb. 27 2006,4:40 am
| Quote (Botto 82 @ Feb. 27 2006,12:22am) |
| How dare you defile the Diefied Reagan? For shame... |
.......ned
Posted by riffraff on Mar. 01 2006,8:31 pm
Posted by riffraff on Mar. 01 2006,8:33 pm