Obama's commission proposes cutting social security

[Thanas]

...among other things.

Link

The co-chairmen of President Barack Obama's deficit commission on Wednesday released draft recommendations for reducing the nation's debt by $4 trillion over the next decade through enacting "tough" spending caps on domestic and military spending, overhauling the nation's tax code and reducing the annual cost-of-living increases to Social Security recipients.

Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican Alan Simpson presented their proposals to the 16 other members of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. The commission is set to make its final recommendations to Obama at the beginning of next month.

The draft, borne of months of negotiations, reveals the tough decisions Congress and the White House will have to consider as they seek a consensus on what to do about the deficit.

The five-pronged plan calls for discretionary spending caps that will provide for $200 billion in savings over the next five years, reforming tax policy to streamline the nation's tax code and bring back revenue, addressing the so-called securing long-term health care savings, implementing mandatory changes to farm subsidies and civic retirement plans and restructuring Social Security to guarantee its future existence.

The projected changes seek to shrink the deficit to 2.2 percent of the GDP by 2015 — a more significant cut even than the one proposed by Obama, and aims to first "stabilize" and then eventually reduce the deficit seriously in order to curb the burgeoning debt crisis.

The report creates a "firewall" between defense and non-defense spending, which would be renegotiated by Congress in 2015, as well as a 60-vote threshold for Senate points of order to enforce caps.

The commission highlights $100 billion in defense spending cuts, bolstered by $28 billion dollars in overhead reduction proposed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Among other significant recommendations is a call for more transparency in disaster and "emergency" spending, which could cause headaches for Congress, as Democrats over the last session passed many bills by designating them as "emergency" measures to avoid having to comply with the pay-as-you-go rules enacted earlier this session.

The draft, which lays out the "guiding principles and values" of the committee's efforts, calls the bipartisan group's mission to reduce the debt "a patriotic duty" as well as an "investment" in America's growth by focusing spending on infrastructure and education initiatives.

The commission calls for a delay in the enactment of its recommendations until the 2012 fiscal year, so as to not "disrupt a fragile economic recovery."

Why is there a firewall in the first place between defence and non-defence spending? Are there two different budgets?

[Jaevric]

The report creates a "firewall" between defense and non-defense spending, which would be renegotiated by Congress in 2015, as well as a 60-vote threshold for Senate points of order to enforce caps.

Why is there a firewall in the first place between defence and non-defence spending? Are there two different budgets?

As far as I'm aware there is not currently a firewall between defense and non-defense spending; it seems the commission is suggesting that such a firewall be created. I'm not sure why, unless they're suggesting making it impossible to place non-defense and defense spending on the same bill in order to prevent members of Congress from playing games with attaching unrelated expenditures to military spending bills and claiming the opposition "doesn't support the troops!"

[SirNitram]

My my. What a sorry excuse for a 'plan'. It fails on it's face. Link to summary

Here's some retard proposals in there:

Clinton Era highest bracket: 39%. Bush Tax Cuts of that bracket: 35%. 'Deficit' Comission's proposal: 23% because slashing the richest's taxes to even lower than Bush will solve our deficit!

Let's CAP the REVENUE! THAT WILL HELP! Literally, they want a cap on revenue to 21% of the GDP.

That's just two. Now we should demand they just reimburse the govenrment for all the goddamn crack they were on, that'll help a bit.

[Thanas]

Now who's betting the Democrats, led by the fearless compromizer, will bend over and just say "Thank you, may I have another?"

You know it is funny, because the "professional left", to use another euphemism by that administration, said the first thing they will be going for are social security cuts. At that time, I did not believe a Democrat could ever champion such a thing. Well, good pick there Obama.

[J]

My my. What a sorry excuse for a 'plan'. It fails on it's face. Link to summary

Here's some retard proposals in there:

Clinton Era highest bracket: 39%. Bush Tax Cuts of that bracket: 35%. 'Deficit' Comission's proposal: 23% because slashing the richest's taxes to even lower than Bush will solve our deficit!

Perhaps it would help to look at the actual report instead of the Bloomberg summary. The key part is on page 24, all capital gains & dividends are now treated as ordinary income. It effectively raises the tax rate of the those in the top bracket, many of whom currently enjoy a very low tax rate since the majority of their income is derived from capital gains.

Let's CAP the REVENUE! THAT WILL HELP! Literally, they want a cap on revenue to 21% of the GDP.

It's of little importance anyway, the about the only time the US has ever extracted 21% of its GDP in tax revenues was in 2000. Besides, if Canada can run a budget surplus on revenues of well under 20% of its GDP, the US can do so as well if it gets its head screwed on straight.

I haven't read through and digested the rest of the report yet, but I suspect it's not as stupid as it may appear at first glance.

[Andrew J.]

Yeah, the NY Times article on the subject makes it very clear that the net effect of the tax code changes would be to raise, rather than lower, taxes.

[Alphawolf55]

Now who's betting the Democrats, led by the fearless compromizer, will bend over and just say "Thank you, may I have another?"

You know it is funny, because the "professional left", to use another euphemism by that administration, said the first thing they will be going for are social security cuts. At that time, I did not believe a Democrat could ever champion such a thing. Well, good pick there Obama.

Yeah how dare the Democrats raise the retirement age, talk about raising the tax and make sure the program exist for our neediest rather then just give it to anyone even if they don't need it!

[SirNitram]

Yeah, the NY Times article on the subject makes it very clear that the net effect of the tax code changes would be to raise, rather than lower, taxes.

Ah, I see. I'm debating a point which the other side is not aware of, probably because I didn't make it clear:

Which particular majority would EVER close all tax loopholes? Lower your assumptions back to reality.

[Pelranius]

This report seems to have included enough things to piss off both sides. It recommends highly drastic cuts for defense spending, in addition to messing with Social Security.

[Starglider]

It's of little importance anyway, the about the only time the US has ever extracted 21% of its GDP in tax revenues was in 2000.

Just to be clear, that's the US Federal Government, total US tax revenues are rather higher;



still fairly low by global standards.

[MKSheppard]

They proposed this also for defense:

Defense spending cuts:

Double the number of defense contractor positions scheduled for elimination from 10 percent of current staff augmentees to 20 percent.

Reduce procurement by 15 percent, or $20 billion.

Eliminate the V-22 Osprey program.

Cancel the Marine Corps' Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program.

Halve the number of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in favor of F-16s and F/A-18Es.

Cancel the Marine Corps F-35 program.

Cancel the Navy's Future Maritime Prepositioning Force.

Cancel the new Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), the Ground Combat Vehicle, and the Joint Tactical Radio.

Reduce military forces in Europe and Asia by one-third.

Send all military children based in the U.S. to local schools.

I can live with those.

[Thanas]

Reduce procurement by 15 percent, or $20 billion.

Is that in addition to the other cuts? Because if not, it looks like they mostly cancel stuff that was not going to enter service anytime soon without touching the real force structure.

I'd probably have pushed back CVX save the one building and accept the loss of one or two carriers permanently, along with escorts. That might save up some airwings to be fully staffed at the same time.

[Broomstick]

I think a lot of what was suggested in that report was intended to shake things up, and they seemed to have made an effort to piss off both sides of the political spectrum.

Just a couple comments:

- from the OP, there isn't currently a firewall between defense and non-defense spending. It has been a very long tradition to attach non-defense items to defense appropriations as a means of passing locally wanted items that either the rest of the country could not care less about, or might actually oppose. That's all the pork and earmarks you hear about. Basically, in order to pass a needed defense bill a slew of local-interest and special-interest items were attached in exchange for a "yes" vote. I'm sure I needn't explain how this can easily get out of hand. It's a legacy of the very early days of the Union when the state were much more autonomous and such trading was necessary to get almost anything done. Probably best to fix this, as the country has changed enormously in the meanwhile.

- If Shep can live with the proposed defense cuts he lists I view that as an argument we should make them immediately. Unfortunately (in this instance) Shep is not in Congress...

- Cutting military stuff that is not yet in service is far more doable and more realistic than cutting into the active force. A good chunk of military spending is for such mundane things as payroll and health coverage, not only would cutting that face a firestorm of opposition it would probably not be a good thing. Likewise, given the current economy and lack of jobs, cutting deeply into the force would raise issues like, if you discharge people, how are they going to make a living in the current job market? You have to weigh the benefits of keeping people employed vs. dumping them out into the street, and that equation is different in bad economic times versus good ones. Note with the government contractors issue they're only recommending cutting about a quarter million out of 2.4 million or so... while you want to cut waste, simply dumping a million or two contractors into unemployment (or even just diminished employment) isn't necessarily the best move under the present circumstances. Defense is a major industry in the US, slashing it too quickly will not be beneficial to the nation overall.

[Master of Cards]

They proposed this also for defense:

Send all military children based in the U.S. to local schools.

I can live with those.

I can't, I've lived on a Marine base as a kid, the local schools were horrible but the on base school was quite good. I couldn't see it happening anytime.

[Mr Bean]

They proposed this also for defense:

Defense spending cuts:


Send all military children based in the U.S. to local schools.

I can live with those.

Seconded Master of Cards. The amount of savings this would generate is tiny. The quality of life impact would be massive. In some cases like Bragg or Norfolk sending kids to schools off base would mean sending them on hour long bus trip rides back and forth to the nearest primary/secondary schools. Other more remote bases are even worse. Other bases suffer from the fact the nearby schools are shit and/or in a crime ridden hell hole (IE Washington DC bases)

Again the savings are tiny, the impact is massive.

[Serafina]

The savings MIGHT look significant at first - but in the end, you still have for those childrens education. You just shifted the cost from the military to the public schools. While there might be some cost reduction, it won't be anywhere near as big as if you just look at the "education cost for military children" and cut it out.

[Darth Yan]

what would the other program cuts do to the budget?

[SirNitram]

what would the other program cuts do to the budget?

The social security changes.. Would do nothing. Not at all. The nation's budget would go along with or without those, because that is a whole seperate arena. Raising the caps on payroll taxes would mean it lasts even longer, and we'd not see those effects for over a decade. The changes wouldn't make a real difference in the future fate; the situation is more than 'ooo, cut benefits, go on!', and if it were, it'd have been solved long ago.

But here's the short and fast: This will not work. You can get a majority to agree to some things(The Military's budget too, if you were foolish enough to beleive what the newcomers to Washington said), but too much hinges on the fanciful idea of redoing the tax code with no loopholes.

Still, this thing is just two old men blathering, unless they somehow get a bunch of the other comission members to vote to agree to this sorry thing.

[MKSheppard]

Is that in addition to the other cuts? Because if not, it looks like they mostly cancel stuff that was not going to enter service anytime soon without touching the real force structure.

Actually, these proposed cuts mean the end of the USMC as we know it.

No V-22 or EFV, no way for the Marines to do their Iwo Jima II

And with no F-35B VTOL....it removes the last rationale for a huge grossly oversized amphibious fleet to support the USMC.

Maybe now with the cancerous tumor that is the US Marine Corps trimmed back to a few companies of marines guarding the nuclear weapons on warships, the US Navy can once again build CGNs.

[Darth Yan]

what is it with you and high tech weaponry Shep? why would we need cgns?

[Thanas]

Is that in addition to the other cuts? Because if not, it looks like they mostly cancel stuff that was not going to enter service anytime soon without touching the real force structure.

Actually, these proposed cuts mean the end of the USMC as we know it.

No V-22 or EFV, no way for the Marines to do their Iwo Jima II

And with no F-35B VTOL....it removes the last rationale for a huge grossly oversized amphibious fleet to support the USMC.

Maybe now with the cancerous tumor that is the US Marine Corps trimmed back to a few companies of marines guarding the nuclear weapons on warships, the US Navy can once again build CGNs.

Yeah, but how much money of the current expenses is it goign to save? Because so far, none of these programs are in active service, but no cutback to the current size of the forces is announced. Which means that the main expenses are not going to change at all, unless I am not getting something here.

[ray245]

It seems that the point of pushing across those so called cuts is to send a message back to the voters that if they want the government to reduce spending, these are the types of cuts they would be expecting.

[Broken]

I must admit I have not been keeping up with the in's and out's of the debt commission so I feel somewhat out of my league discussing such things. However, it is perhaps illustrative of the mindset of the debt commission's that when on page 22 of the co-chairman's proposal that the first goal of the tax reform section is "lower rates". Only the seventh and last goal is "reduce the deficit". I'm not sure how cutting taxes is supposed to reduce the deficit unless this is more of the same supply-side/trickle-down economics that has served us so well.

[TimothyC]

what is it with you and high tech weaponry Shep? why would we need cgns?

Because a CGN offers a greater set of capabilities than you get with a CG. Higher sustained speed, no need to refuel in foreign ports, longer operations and higher operational tempos, and the excess electricity to operate DEW and Railguns.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Don't forget that means we can do with procuring less of whatever the Supply-class' successor is (when we have to replace the Sacramentos) without significant loss in capability.