The U.S. National debt. Ideas how to help bring it down...

[colourwheel]

Currently The U.S. National Debt. is over $17,318,765,316,717.40. The Republican party wishes to cut government, taxes, and deregulate corporations. The Democratic party wishes have more regulations on corporations and tax more.

 

Forget political ideology for the time being and try to think of ways to lower the national debt over time that would benefit the nation as a whole without hurting the people of the nation...

 

Recently I was looking at how much money has been spent over the last few years in political contributions and donations to every party and came up with one solution to the debt.

 

in 2012, 1.16181369 billion U.S. dollars was donated in total to the presidential race. From super PACs to just the common person donating $10 to $20 to any campaign. Just imagine if the government took at least half of every donations made to any political campaign local or national and put it to help pay off the National debt. That would at least be around $500 million right there in the year 2012...

 

Anyone one else have any constructive ideas?

Edited January 3, 2014 by colourwheel

[Teemee]

The issue is spending. When you're already taking almost 50% of all the rich people's income while trying to avoid affecting the common person's jobs, and you're already taking between 15% and 35% of the common person's taxes, the issue is not a lack of revenue. The issue is spending. The Democrats want to be able to decrease the debt without cutting any spending. The reason is because that spending pays them back several times. They get contributions, power, and wealth, and political favor from those they give our money too. It's like this, we've reached a point that we are spending so much that we are literally threatening to reach a point in the very near future where we spend more than we can actulaly pay back, even with borrowing. What they do to compensate is they print more money and basically use against our current wealth in comparison to other nations so that it devalues our dollar, but we pay our bills on time.

 

The point here is that regardless of what you may believe the issue is, in the end, the root of the problem is the spending. Everything else we do other than baseline, direct cuts to spending, not cuts to future spending, not cuts to current proposals of increased spending, but cuts in our actual currrent spending, anything else we do is just a putting off until later, pushing it down the line for later. That's all it is. It's like if you got new credit card to pay off another credit to push off the inevitable cuts in your spending for later, to push the inevitable consolidation of your debt for later.

 

In short, the problem will continue so long as spending such massive amounts is beneficial to either of the two major political parties. Besides, spending like this fits with everything socialist thing the left stands for. Every left-wing nation from the extremes of Communism to the more socialized Democracies-Autocracies of South America, to the less, but still increasingly socialized Democracies of the free world requires this kind of massive spending, and it's what maintains their power and wealth. They will never stop doing it, and their nations will never stop needing a bailout until that fateful day comes that the other nations cannot afford that bailout, and the world is left to crash economically, fully, and without any kind of cushion because there is simply no one that can bailout the other. On that day, the whole world will reel from the crash. That recession in 2008, even the Great Depression will pale in comparison to that day.

Edited January 3, 2014 by Teemee

[colourwheel]

@Teemee

 

The Deficit has been cut each year since Obama took office. Currently the Deficit is almost half of what it use to be since Bush was in office, yet the nation debt keeps growing...

 

Please feel free to add ideas on how to help bring down the nation debt without hurting the people of the nation....

Edited January 4, 2014 by colourwheel

[JimboUK]

You can't solve it without hurting people, all you can do is try and minimise the pain. You can inflate some away which is already what's happening, that though hit's those on low and fixed incomes hard. You can be a little more protectionist, put import tariffs on goods made in China by American companies, that sort of thing, it gives some incentive to bring jobs home. The biggest problem though is spending, it can't carry on as it is and the longer it's left the worse the final outcome will be. Your military spending is ridiculous, that needs to be cut drastically and those allies who don't pull their weight when it comes to defence need to be told to up their game. Healthcare and pensions are another area where large savings could be made, this may not seem fair but it would be preferable to running out of money and not being able to afford any healthcare or pension payments. The U.S needs to make about $4 trillion in cuts over the next decade, that can't be done without a bit of pain and it won't be done at all while the political class continue to serve vested interests rather than the nation. Shrink the state, cut taxes and regulation on business, support the productive part of the economy, don't milk the productive part to subsidise the unproductive. And stop using taxation to punish success, the U.S didn't become an economic powerhouse by following the European model of socialist jealousy, it got there through hard work and by rewarding success.

[Flintlockecole]

Nationalizing the Federal Reserve would be a good first step then taxing the living hell out of anything made in China (or other nations with large sweatshop operations) by American companies.

 

There is no real easy way of getting rid of the debt unless a revolt takes place then declaring the debt null and void and even then that'll still hurt.

[M48A5]

One way to cut the outlay of money is to stop giving the citizens hard earned money away to the countries that hate us. It makes no difference how much money we pour into the hole, they are still going to hate the US and what we stand for.

It's about time we stopped this idiocy.

[Vagrant0]

1). Decrease wages and bonuses for all top-tier government officials (except the courts) to be equal to the median wage of their state or based on performance (performance determined by voters during existing elections where the office is not in contention (base wage is still set at the median wage in that state, but may be increased or decreased based on voter feedback)).

a). Requires better regulation of voting process.

 

2). Make it illegal for any public official accept any payment or gifts from any for-profit organization or person.

 

3). Make an open and accountable way for companies with excess capital to "grease" the wheels of government, but with the proceeds going directly towards civil projects, infrastructure which is under the government domain, or decreasing debt.

 

4). Institute taxes and fees to any American Company which outsources production, or services to other countries which would make this practice less profitable and encourage these companies to bring jobs back domestically, or have to move their entire business elsewhere.

 

5). A drastic reduction of aid sent to other countries except in the cases of:

a). countries we have been at war with within the last decade.

b). countries where our aid is being reciprocated in exchange for trade or policies which benefit us.

 

6). A reduction of subsidies for industries over a given size or economic footprint, in relation to their impact; such that these industries would no longer over-produce just so that they can get more money from the government, while smaller companies can still compete.

 

7). Killing NAFTA (or any other preferred trade status), and setting reasonable taxes on trade being imported or exported.

 

8 ). Creating open paths to citizenship, enforcing labor laws, and instituting a strict policy on anyone hiring or renting to illegal immigrants. Increase taxes or implement new ones for money being wired or transmitted to banks (western union and similar as well) outside the USA.

 

9). Create a new committee of proven scientists and engineers to oversee and direct national development and infrastructure to be in line with the demands of the 21st century irrespective of political agenda. We may have the most advanced military on the planet, but from a civil technologies and engineering standpoint we might as well be back in the 1950's. A 21st century prosperity isn't based around raw resources, but rather how much power you can generate and how efficiently you can utilize it.

 

 

None of this would ever happen, and it may not be the best answer, but even some of these would serve as a step in the right direction.

[HeyYou]

Stop ALL international aid. That includes military aid. (right around 50 billion a year, in total.) We shouldn't be giving away money that we borrow from China.

 

Bring ALL of our troops home. Shut down at least 50% of our foreign military bases. (and ALL of them in Iraq, Afghanistan, Et. Al.)

 

Secure our borders. Actually ENFORCE our immigration laws.

 

No more lifetime benefits, including pensions, and health insurance, for congress.

 

A serious re-evaluation of current military projects, to include new weapons systems. Anything that is more than 15% over budget gets the axe.

 

Of course, none of this could happen without some serious campaign finance reform.

 

Overturn Citizens United. Corporations are NOT people.

 

Limit campaign contributions to 5000.00 per individual. That's it. No corporate money whatsoever.

 

Limit political campaigns to within three months of the voting. In todays world of instant information, there is no need for anything longer.

 

Term limits in congress......

 

And, as Vagrant stated, none of this will ever happen. The power-elite will never give up the power they have gathered. The only folks that can possibly change any of this, are the very same folks that benefit the most from NOT changing it.

 

Basically, we are pretty much screwed. We will continue down our path of fiscal disaster, and our eoncomy will collapse. Will make the great depression, and the crash of 2008 look like a walk in the park.

[rizon72]

Simply put, you are going to have to start taking in more than you spend. We are going to HAVE to cut spending AND raise taxes. But we are also going to have to make it so business want to be in the USA. If you have a strong business sector of the economy, it will add to your tax base. We also need to wean people off of government dependence.

 

According to whitehouse.gov, the US going to be spending some $600 to $750 billion more than it takes in. And even by 2023 the government will STILL be spending more than it takes in. That has got to be stopped. Sadly no one wants to cut spending, and those who do are attacked by those in power. Heck, even reducing the increase in spending became a political battle with one side saying it was the end of the world.

 

A big problem is the government is not held accountable for what it spends. It is a wasteful spender that cannot admit it made a mistake. It will throw more money at a problem hoping that will fix it, and if it doesn't, toss more money at it.

[colourwheel]

I can understand more taxes and cut "wasteful" spending but I don't think shrinking the government is the answer...

 

Here is the thing... Every 8 seconds a new citizen is born in the U.S. Every 12 seconds only "one" person dies. Every 40 seconds the nation has a migrant then at the same time you have to add a net gain of one person every 17 seconds.... The point is the nation as a whole isn't shrinking.

 

Even if you look at any business you don't see many business thrive that keep cutting their company.

 

A huge problem I see is our country isn't investing in anything to help it grow other than in it's military. Even stating this we seem to always find the government cutting benefits and pensions for our veterans and cutting programs that help those in need when their isn't any work available for them...