US budget deficit down more than 31% in first 6 months of FY2014

[AggregateDemand]

Ha ha, poor people are disgusting, aren't they?  So greedy!

We should take all that 'fat' and pile it onto the starving military budget, amirite?

We're not talking about the poor. We're talking about government administrators. If liberals would stop conflating the demands of poverty-stricken citizens with wayward demands of DC bureaucrats, the world would be a much better place.

I didn't say military was the solution. I said military is a constitutional super-entitlement that was de-funded after Vietnam. We could probably bump funding back to 5% of GDP to expand R&D, engineering, and medical personnel.

Our biggest problem is the interstate system. Interstate lane miles have been stagnant for 20 years. Expansion cost has fallen on the states. Roughly 70% of bridges and tunnels have been in service for over 30 years. Saddest of all, the interstate system can't even handle mass evacuations or mass troop/guard deployment, which was the original purpose of interstate construction. Funding should be at least 2% GDP.

DOI is another problem. BLM has a paltry $1B budget. NPS has a $12B maintenance backlog (400% annual budget), and they are so broke that they dump construction costs on the concessionaires, which leads to a sort of defacto private-ownership of public national park facilities.

[Tender Branson]

If spending isn't down, who cares?

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[MurrayBannerman]

And if we can finally reform Social Security and Medicare, just maybe we'll see a balanced budget sometime soon.

Oh, no. 2/3 of our budget is sacred to at least someone. Sacred things could never have inefficiencies in them.

[SWE]

And if we can finally reform Social Security and Medicare, just maybe we'll see a balanced budget sometime soon.

Ew why would you want that?

[MurrayBannerman]

And if we can finally reform Social Security and Medicare, just maybe we'll see a balanced budget sometime soon.

Ew why would you want that?

Because they're inefficient and massive.

[AggregateDemand]

And if we can finally reform Social Security and Medicare, just maybe we'll see a balanced budget sometime soon.

Ew why would you want that?

Because they're inefficient and massive.

and paid for disproportionately by the people Democrats swear they protect

[King]

Actually, Republicans are people who keep saying they're going to get on that diet and lose all that weight but never do.

[Mordecai]

... and if only taxes were LOWER, then there would be more economic activity and therefore they're generate higher revenues from a lower base... I mean duh.

Again... the fact that this deficit reduction is coming off the back of greater economic activity and NOT gutting spending any further is a good news story. But the ideologues will never be happy.

It has nothing to do with ideology.

If you eat 3,000 calories per day, you're going to have to burn calories to maintain healthy weight. You can lift weights to increase work output and gain muscle mass. You can run and do cardio training to increase work output and endurance. You can walk around in circles, which burns insufficient calories, and only makes you good at walking in circles.

Republicans are the people who say "If we're not going to change our workout regimen, we might as well cut government caloric intake to 2,000 calories per day, and stop walking circles". Democrats are the people who say "I can't believe Republicans think there is something better than walking in circles".

Doesn't that have everything to do with ideology though? That whole "starve the beast" mentality of manufacturing a crisis that you can claim to have a solution to?

[AggregateDemand]

Doesn't that have everything to do with ideology though? That whole "starve the beast" mentality of manufacturing a crisis that you can claim to have a solution to?

It's basic budgetary/economic science and relatively uncontroversial normative evaluations of utility or public good. The US federal government spends $3,300 per capita on healthcare. With healthcare funding, the government managed to cover about 1/3 of the population. Almost none of the 1/3 are workers. In Australia, you spend roughly $3,800 per capita (public and private, PPP$). Your Medicare system covers everyone, particularly people who work, and Australians have access to subsidized, cost-controlled private insurance through Medibank (public option). Australia also has subsidized prescription drugs for all. 

Consider the sloth of our government healthcare bureaucrats, then ask yourself if withdrawing funding is starving the beast. They are so sedentary, it's difficult to tell if they are still alive. For what they are being fed, a competent national government could deliver healthcare for everyone, yet DC can't make it happen without raising taxes and fees on the American people. American progressives are just dicking around. It's how they operate. It's what they do. They invent new ways to take money without lifting a finger on behalf of the people. When they get caught, they point to the heartless conservatives. It works every time.

What American would believe that our system needs more funding? Only those who are voting to give away other people's money.

Avoid budget propaganda in the future, too. See the debt between 2004-2008? The Bush administration ran deficits without increase debt/GDP ratio. If deficits are acting as a growth multiplier, tax cuts are not increasing the national debt. When you see that kind of politically-motivated analysis, you can throw out all of their forecasts.

[ag]

Doesn't that have everything to do with ideology though? That whole "starve the beast" mentality of manufacturing a crisis that you can claim to have a solution to?

It's basic budgetary/economic science and relatively uncontroversial normative evaluations of utility or public good. The US federal government spends $3,300 per capita on healthcare. With healthcare funding, the government managed to cover about 1/3 of the population. Almost none of the 1/3 are workers. In Australia, you spend roughly $3,800 per capita (public and private, PPP$). Your Medicare system covers everyone, particularly people who work, and Australians have access to subsidized, cost-controlled private insurance through Medibank (public option). Australia also has subsidized prescription drugs for all. 

Consider the sloth of our government healthcare bureaucrats, then ask yourself if withdrawing funding is starving the beast. They are so sedentary, it's difficult to tell if they are still alive. For what they are being fed, a competent national government could deliver healthcare for everyone, yet DC can't make it happen without raising taxes and fees on the American people. American progressives are just dicking around. It's how they operate. It's what they do. They invent new ways to take money without lifting a finger on behalf of the people. When they get caught, they point to the heartless conservatives. It works every time.

What American would believe that our system needs more funding? Only those who are voting to give away other people's money.

Avoid budget propaganda in the future, too. See the debt between 2004-2008? The Bush administration ran deficits without increase debt/GDP ratio. If deficits are acting as a growth multiplier, tax cuts are not increasing the national debt. When you see that kind of politically-motivated analysis, you can throw out all of their forecasts.

Ok. So, you just came out for both the single-payer universal public coverage AND the mandatory purchase of private insurance (with recusers penalized through the tax system). Because both are integral (and, most would argue, indispensible) features of the Australian healthcare system. I will keep that in mind.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

And if we can finally reform Social Security and Medicare, just maybe we'll see a balanced budget sometime soon.

Ew why would you want that?

Because starting in 2016, they're projected to blow our deficits through the roof.

And if another recession should happen(this June will be 5 years of growth, and it's reasonable to expect the business cycle to run out every 4-8 years), do we really want to be so constrained by large deficits are large debts?

Why are you assuming that large deficits and large debts pose constraints to the US economy? There's no evidence to suggest that we've suffered any consequences due to our large debt load. The interest rate on bond notes is much lower than our economic growth rates, even assuming another downturn and our federal government's deficit is certainly lower than our economic growth at this point.

Social security is not inefficient. It's a pension system: what goes in, goes out. You could claim it's imbalanced or that people are able to retire too young but these are fundamentally not efficiency claims.

Medicare is a different beast but I get the sense that austerity and privatization is what you mean by reform, not the induced harmonization and standardization of care that would cut costs thereby increasing efficiency.

If you want to hurt the lives of millions because you adhere to an inane dogma, don't try to claim it's for reasons of accountancy. We could just as easily reform the tax code or cut our military spending or create a carbon tax and achieve the same budgetary results advocated by dweebs like Paul Ryan.

[AggregateDemand]

Ok. So, you just came out for both the single-payer universal public coverage AND the mandatory purchase of private insurance (with recusers penalized through the tax system). Because both are integral (and, most would argue, indispensible) features of the Australian healthcare system. I will keep that in mind.

You can put me down as saying that we already pay for most of those services, but we get none of them.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Ok. So, you just came out for both the single-payer universal public coverage AND the mandatory purchase of private insurance (with recusers penalized through the tax system). Because both are integral (and, most would argue, indispensible) features of the Australian healthcare system. I will keep that in mind.

You can put me down as saying that we already pay for most of those services, but we get none of them.

Who is "we"? What does this even mean?

[ag]

Ok. So, you just came out for both the single-payer universal public coverage AND the mandatory purchase of private insurance (with recusers penalized through the tax system). Because both are integral (and, most would argue, indispensible) features of the Australian healthcare system. I will keep that in mind.

You can put me down as saying that we already pay for most of those services, but we get none of them.

And you believe it is because Australian bureaucrats are more efficient than their American colleagues? Want to buy Brooklyn Bridge from me?

[Mordecai]

Doesn't that have everything to do with ideology though? That whole "starve the beast" mentality of manufacturing a crisis that you can claim to have a solution to?

It's basic budgetary/economic science and relatively uncontroversial normative evaluations of utility or public good. The US federal government spends $3,300 per capita on healthcare. With healthcare funding, the government managed to cover about 1/3 of the population. Almost none of the 1/3 are workers. In Australia, you spend roughly $3,800 per capita (public and private, PPP$). Your Medicare system covers everyone, particularly people who work, and Australians have access to subsidized, cost-controlled private insurance through Medibank (public option). Australia also has subsidized prescription drugs for all. 

Consider the sloth of our government healthcare bureaucrats, then ask yourself if withdrawing funding is starving the beast. They are so sedentary, it's difficult to tell if they are still alive. For what they are being fed, a competent national government could deliver healthcare for everyone, yet DC can't make it happen without raising taxes and fees on the American people. American progressives are just dicking around. It's how they operate. It's what they do. They invent new ways to take money without lifting a finger on behalf of the people. When they get caught, they point to the heartless conservatives. It works every time.

What American would believe that our system needs more funding? Only those who are voting to give away other people's money.

Avoid budget propaganda in the future, too. See the debt between 2004-2008? The Bush administration ran deficits without increase debt/GDP ratio. If deficits are acting as a growth multiplier, tax cuts are not increasing the national debt. When you see that kind of politically-motivated analysis, you can throw out all of their forecasts.

So the answer is "Yes, it does have everything to do with ideology". Starve the beast, create a budget crisis to blame on the next guy, then use it as an excuse to dismantle social welfare while opposing attempts to reform health insurance. Gotcha.

[AggregateDemand]

So the answer is "Yes, it does have everything to do with ideology". Starve the beast, create a budget crisis to blame on the next guy, then use it as an excuse to dismantle social welfare while opposing attempts to reform health insurance. Gotcha.

Sure. Ideology is making patients file for bankruptcy. Ideology is outsourcing jobs.

It's just dollars and sense. We can't pay $1T to cover 1/3 of the population. It's non-negotiable. One party says it out loud. The other party tries to cut $500B from Medicare and install oversight panels via ACA.

[MATTROSE94]

This news about the deficit goes directly against many arguments on the right that say that Obama is a big spending socialist.

[krazen1211]

If spending isn't down, who cares?

Well, spending is slightly down, thanks to the glorious House Republican caucus. The US Constitution works its magic.