Mama Free Bird's Economics Plan

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. Withdraw most foreign aid...

First of all that plan illustrates a complete lack of knowledge of the size and scope of the federal government.  Foreign aid is a tiny sliver of the budget.  Yet eliminating all of it would generate so much bad blood it would be catastrophic to our multinational corporations.  Actually we could eliminate almost 10% of our foreign aid budget quite easily and probably make some friends along the way.  Just stop giving money to two countries... Israel and Egypt.  Of course a duplicitous coward like Rand Paul would never cut off aid to the black hole that is Israel.

. Institute 20% national consumption tax, with essentials like food, clothes and the like exempt.

How did I know an extremely regressive tax that punishes the poor and middle class would be the answer?  So no taxes on cars and houses either?  Or are the poor supposed to walk everywhere and live under bridges?  Houses and cars are the two biggest expenditures for most people.

. Pass a Balanced Budget Amendment, with the exception of war and other crises, of course.

When in your life has there not been a crisis?  Who defines "crisis."  I would say there is a "crisis" for the poor and middle class right now.  Certainly more of a "crisis" that Iraq pre-Bush.

Anyway the plan just goes down hill from there.

Get serious.

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The whole point of a fund is so that politicians can't just seize the whole thing if they want to pursue some project of their own.

Yeah... I was a bit dumbstruck by that one as well.  I mean the social security lock box is one of the few constraints in this wacky government.  It should be strengthened more so than anything else.  Frankly it would be nice to have more things like that and the Post Office.  Republicans complain about the Post Office constantly but fail to mention it is almost entirely self funded and solvent by any normal accounting standards.

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Further evidence that Accounting and Finance are joke majors.

Because violin performance majors probably have a better idea about what percentage of the federal budget goes to foreign aid?

There are ideologs in all fields.  Look at Ben Carson.  I think if you asked most life sciences majors and professionals they would tell you evolution is a fact.  Just because Ben Carson acts like a jackass doesn't mean we should shut down all medical schools.

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a) King, now you're just being a prick for its own sake. She's a controller at a major company.

I don't really take note when liberals take video cameras and stick a mic in the face of some uneducated toothless redneck living in a trailer park and coax them into saying something obtuse or racist.  But when someone with a 4 year degree says something like "eliminate most of foreign aid" I sit up and pay attention.

If your mother was working at a company that had a department that handled a lot of supplier and customer relations but counted for less than 1% of the company's budget would she honestly try and balance the books buy cutting most of that department's budget?  Your bang for the buck with that maneuver is terrible.