Sandy Clark, CGCS said: Like I have said for years and Carly said very clearly in the debates. No more tax revenue is needed. Go to 0 based budgeting, identify every dollar and be able to move it where it is best utilized. Review every agency, dump a few and force every manage to manage, just as we have to do. Don't know if we will ever find out but I would bet you could cut every phase of the budget and every agency by 30% and realize we still have sufficient dollars to run everything. We have excused total mismanagement for so long that we just accept government working that way. We have the most under employed population we have ever had yet we are bringing in record tax receipts and it still isn't enough? Just think if we encouraged economic growth instead of hampering it at every turn. If that under or unemployed population was working, the government would have all the money they need to do everything but first lets get back to honestly managing and cutting fat and waste before we tax any individual or company another cent!
There are some things the government might do to hamper growth, but most of it is to protect the citizens, we could all debate what is more important but we all won't agree on it. Look at the coal fired plant issue. We know exhaust can cause health issues, but states that rely on that are not going to push for more regulations because they are not prepared to diversify. Of course my contention is, this is where new innovations should be encouraged to provide even cleaner emissions out of power plants, and if we come up with those ideas we can export them to the real bad apples like China and India. Isn't that what we have done before? Look at the tech industry, we came up with all that stuff. I digressed, my thought on economic growth is up to the companies, if they want to make more money they will grow themselves. I think what prevents some companies from growing is a weak middle class with less disposable income.
I can agree the government needs to be more efficient with its money, but part of that problem is caused by making sure there is not waste, fraud and/or corruption. We have all seen the stories of mismanagement in and out of the government sector, but the government sector in an effort to protect peoples tax money has probably double the checks and balances that a private business might have.
Now when it comes to spending tax revenue, the problem their I see is we can't all agree on what our priorities are and what we should be spending money on. I will use Gitmo as an example, that is a huge waste of money to keep those people locked up in Cuba, yet the Republicans do not want to see them prosecuted and put into our prisons, (despite our ability to prosecute the blind sheik who first bombed the World Trade Center, and the Boston Marathon bomber to name 2, also I know I used a Republican issue, I know there are plenty of Democrats spending money wastefully as well.). If we were able to close Gitmo how many millions could we save? We discuss funding the military, we all want a strong military but at what point are we spending to much when we outspend the next what is it 10 countries combined? Many of them our allies? Yet congress (Ohio delegation) kept the tank lines open, despite the Army not wanting them, or the A-10's being phased out, (although that one puzzles me as I think it is the best ground support weapon out there) because the military doesn't want to keep them going, yet Senators from both sides in my state fought to keep them (since we have a base that is home to some). I would like to see more of that money spent on veterans care. I would like to see more money spent on infrastructure, it doesn't bother me as much because it is such a small percentage that welfare and Medicaid is supported with our tax dollars, sometimes people need a helping hand, now I do think they need to find a way out, but you know who benefits from those people on food stamps? Businesses like Wal-Mart and other big grocery chains. Where I don't want to see money spent is on subsidies for big corporations and huge tax breaks or tax codes that benefit these large companies. Yea, taxes are high if you can't find deductions or get tax breaks, so lets just lower the rate and cut the deductions. Many people would disagree with a few of my suggestions, that is where we would find problems trying to curb government spending, because we couldn't agree on our priorities.
Mel