Get rid of the subsidies for "green" energy and ethanol. Fire the entire Dept of Education, remove lifetime benefits for congress, eliminate Obamacare, look at the hundreds of programs that suck $5M here and $10M there and kill the non-essential. Incentivise anyone that does get federal funding to run at a deficit, rather than making sure they use it all to get the same or more next year. Stop letting programs go on indefinitely. Drastically reduce the IRS and other wasteful agencies. Evaluate and reduce Defense spending. Reduce salaries/benefits for Congress and staff. Shut down useless/redundant federal buildings, sell what we can for income or cut the cost of rent/utilities/etc. Stop wasting "mandatory" funding to run congressional hearings and federal lawsuits over stupid shit, and whatever other costs you want to add here.
That's all stuff off the top of my head. ... to paraphrase the old saying, you have to eat the elephant one bite at a time.
I've itemized your specific responses below.
1. "Get rid of the subsidies for "green" energy and ethanol"...Trump already got rid of the green energy tax credits. As for ethanol, I'll do you one better, how about we get rid of the entire Department of Agriculture (USDA)?...Thats $234 Billion per year. I think that's fair since we are getting rid of the education department.
2. "Fire the entire Dept. of Education"...I already accounted for this in my post above.
3. "Remove lifetime benefits for congress"...A rounding error, little to no effect on the deficit.
4. "Eliminate Obamacare"...That would cause almost 50 million people to loose their healthcare, but then again, drastic times call for drastic measures. However, the ACA does pay for itself though tax increases and fees. Are you suggesting that we cut these tax increases and fees tied to it? If so, this would not reduce the deficit by anything.
5. "Drastically reduce the IRS"...Current IRS funding is $11.2 Billion. How much would you cut? Remember that cutting too much actually leads to lower compliance rates and would thus have a counter productive effect and increase the deficit.
6. "Evaluate and reduce Defense spending"...You are the only person on this thread that has thus far suggested this, thank you. I'm glad I'm not the only one. During Obama's tenure military sequestration cuts were approx. $450 billion over 8 years. So $56 billion per year. Roughly $80 billion per year adj for inflation. So lets say $80 billion.
7. "Reduce salaries/benefits for Congress and staff"...A rounding error, little to no effect on the deficit.
8. "Shut down useless/redundant federal buildings, sell what we can for income or cut the cost of rent/utilities/etc."...Approx. $1 billion in savings per year.
9. "Funding to run congressional hearings and federal lawsuits over stupid shit."...A rounding error, little effect on the federal deficit.
So a $1.74 Trillion deficit from my post above - $0.234 - $0.080 - $0.01 = $1.41 Trillion deficit still left. But that doesnt account for any IRS cuts, or if we keep ACA fees/taxes but cut expenses.
Any other ideas?
