Deficit Reduction

Deficit Reduction
avc.com

It was easy to do without raising taxes.

There are many many hidden costs and the massive expenses for the thousands of severely wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan that survived instead of dying because of modern medical technology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_S... This does not include many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance, cleanup, and production, which is in the Department of Energy budget, Veterans Affairs, the Treasury Department's payments in pensions to military retirees and widows and their families, interest on debt incurred in past wars, or State Department financing of foreign arms sales and militarily-related development assistance. Neither does it include defense spending that is not military in nature, such as the Department of Homeland Security, counter-terrorism spending by the FBI, and intelligence-gathering spending by NASA.

Military expense is a MONSTER that just grows and grows and grows.

ps. The costs for the Iraq and Afghanistan war are technically done outside the budget and through borrowed money. The INTEREST on them alone is over $500 Billion

http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2007-10-23-wacosts_N.h...

1) Phase out Social Security benefits if your income level hits $50k that year. - This aspect of Social Security is perhaps most baffling - why does someone who is making $250k a year on their pension and 401k distributions getting the same amount of Social Security as someone who's destitute and barely getting by? "But I paid into it, I should get something out of it!" goes the argument by rich people. Really? I pay into my car insurance every 6 months, never been in an accident, and I don't get a refund check when I'm done driving! Social Security is insurance, it's not a deferred savings plan. Social Security is really called FICA, and the "I" stands for insurance. It's insurance in case you don't have enough money to survive in old age, and the benefit payouts should reflect that. Someone making over 100k a year doesn't need another 25k a year in Social Security benefits to survive.

2) Take away the cap on contributions. Last year any dollar you made above $106k wasn't taxed at the 6.2% FICA rate. Why?

3) Make the Social Security Administration an independent entity free from Congress's whims, and more importantly, free from Congress's hands dipping into its pockets every time they need cash. Social Security should have a huge surplus right now in cash, as over the years they've always had more pay-in than pay-outs. Too bad Congress took all that money and spent it. Social Security is full of government bonds right now, essentially IOU's from Congress that "we promise to pay you back".

Combine #1 and #2 and you have a simple solution to both decrease payouts and increase pay-ins. Add #3 and you're assured that this institution (which isn't some evil socialist creation but really should be thought of as "poverty insurance") can be a self-sustaining, solvent part of our country forever.