>The federal government budget is not a household budget. There's no such thing as having money or not having money.
Entire countries default fairly often, the USA is no exception if such a fate befalls us. We've already had our security ratings dropped once before.
>More to the point, if you shut down 100% of everything that looks like spending it wouldn't save anything important.
So you're saying reducing expenditures won't reduce expenditures. Also, war is peace and freedom is slavery; I implore you to consider WTF you're actually saying.
>The federal government is an insurance agency and all the money goes to Medicare/Social Security payments and military wages. You could shut down the miltary I guess.
As cited[1] by another commenter, Social Security + Medicare account for 36% of the budget with the military accounting for 14%. Together they're 50% of the budget.
Meanwhile, we are $35.46 trillion dollars in debt.[2]
These crazy numbers must be balanced sooner or later, and the costs to do so will be cheaper the sooner we do it. Every single part of the government needs to be cut and likely in most cases eliminated outright, that includes Social Security and Medicare and the military.
Spending even more money (that we don't have) in the hopes that we get more money and more efficient government as we've been repeatedly doing for fucking decades is a fool's errand.
The bottom line if we are borrowing money to make ends meet is: We. Do. Not. Have. Money.
Tear the government down until that red ink is no more. It's stupid that even this basic piece of financial logic is considered crazy and controversial.
There is a reason I didn't link your comment, though I'm not sure if you realize we are in agreement: Slashing Social Security and Medicare (along with Health) would go a long way towards balancing the sheets.
But of course, even those three combined are still 49% (less than half) of government expenditures. Even adding the military still only accounts for 63%.
Just FY2024 alone we were $1.83 trillion dollars short.[1] Cuts must happen from everywhere in government in order to bring sense back into the balance sheets. Also importantly, cuts must happen in order to make tax increases actually palatable to the electorate.
Cuts alone won't balance the cash flow, the revenue (taxes, et al.) must also increase and for that to happen taxes must be hiked and for that to be palatable the government must first lead by example in fiscal discipline by cutting expenditures wholesale.
DOGE is an unprecedented first step because their job is to bring the presumed-frivolous-by-some nature of government expenditures to light and prove them frivolous period. Actual cuts must come from the House who are tasked with the power of the purse and the Executive who are tasked with executing the budget, DOGE doesn't have any authority itself.
For once Republicans are declaring they really will pursue Small Government, I want to see that happen because we've never so much as tried. I'm sick and tired of Big Government and want to see another world, even if cuts will be fucking painful.
> Entire countries default fairly often, the USA is no exception if such a fate befalls us. We've already had our security ratings dropped once before.
The funny thing about this is how little happens to them when they do. Like Argentina's supposed to be the worst case scenario? The country best known for eating a lot of beef? You don't see them being sold to Brazil or anything.
> These crazy numbers must be balanced sooner or later, and the costs to do so will be cheaper the sooner we do it. Every single part of the government needs to be cut and likely in most cases eliminated outright, that includes Social Security and Medicare and the military.
Even if you want to be a heartless economic optimizer, your goal should be aiming to make the economy bigger. Making old people starve isn't going to do that. Neither is letting Russia conquer Alaska.
Austerity like this is European thinking - and its result is those are poor countries, whereas we're #1 because we don't do that.
> Meanwhile, we are $35.46 trillion dollars in debt.[2]
It's basically the current cost to us to borrow money. It's up a little, which does need to be dealt with, but it isn't historically high.
The way we should deal with it is a VAT or DBCFT. (And that's a Republican proposal from 2016.)
> The bottom line if we are borrowing money to make ends meet is: We. Do. Not. Have. Money.
We aren't borrowing money because we have to - we do it because it lets us sell bonds to other countries, which makes them subjects of the US financial empire; they have to use our banks. It's that global reserve currency thing.
(Technically, inflation is caused by the Fed, if you believe Milton Friedman. But printing money requires the Fed to raise interest rates to match. So either they raise interest rates and cause unemployment, or they don't raise them and cause inflation.)
Entire countries default fairly often, the USA is no exception if such a fate befalls us. We've already had our security ratings dropped once before.
>More to the point, if you shut down 100% of everything that looks like spending it wouldn't save anything important.
So you're saying reducing expenditures won't reduce expenditures. Also, war is peace and freedom is slavery; I implore you to consider WTF you're actually saying.
>The federal government is an insurance agency and all the money goes to Medicare/Social Security payments and military wages. You could shut down the miltary I guess.
As cited[1] by another commenter, Social Security + Medicare account for 36% of the budget with the military accounting for 14%. Together they're 50% of the budget.
Meanwhile, we are $35.46 trillion dollars in debt.[2]
These crazy numbers must be balanced sooner or later, and the costs to do so will be cheaper the sooner we do it. Every single part of the government needs to be cut and likely in most cases eliminated outright, that includes Social Security and Medicare and the military.
Spending even more money (that we don't have) in the hopes that we get more money and more efficient government as we've been repeatedly doing for fucking decades is a fool's errand.
The bottom line if we are borrowing money to make ends meet is: We. Do. Not. Have. Money.
Tear the government down until that red ink is no more. It's stupid that even this basic piece of financial logic is considered crazy and controversial.
[1]: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
[2]: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/natio...