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Debate Score:9
Arguments:9
Total Votes:9
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 Budget Cuts!!! (9)

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brycer2012(1002) pic



Budget Cuts!!!

Yippee! More budget cuts! In what ways should the budget be cut? What programs should be taken away or lessened?

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What about budget cuts? Federal Budget, State Budget, Local Budget?

Either. Whichever you'd like to talk about....................................

Budget Cuts need to be cut in the fat federal budget. Fiscal spending is becoming outrageous.

Defense budget should be reduced by 5% within the next 5 years and trimmed by 20% in 15 years. National Aeronautics and Space Administration needs to be cut by 50% in the next 5 years and eliminated to private sector within 10-15 years.

Both wars need 100% cut funding.

CHART:

The US is a path to where within the next 10 years and more, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will account for over 70% of the federal budget and increase. These need be to reformed. Now, it is over 40%.

Side: Defense NASA Wars and Mand Reform
gcomeau(536) Disputed
1 point

Defense budget should be reduced by 5% within the next 5 years and trimmed to 20% in 15 years.

Trimmed TO 20%... or trimmed BY 20%?

To 20% might be... excessive. By 20% on the other hand might be light. Not happening unless the nation grows up though.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration needs to be cut by 50% in the next 5 years and eliminated to private sector within 10-15 years.

NASA... that thing taking up a whopping 0.5% of the federal budget?

I'm all for privatizing aspects of NASA's programs that are dealing with already fairly mature technologies that are fully transferrable to the private sector for commercial applications... we really should be having private companies capable of orbital shuttling by now for example... but the private sector flat out sucks at pure research where an immediate monetary profit potential isn't apparent. And that stuff is important. And I'm not that concerned about spending half a percent of the budget pursuing it, well worth it.

And yes, social security and medicare need reforms. Big time. Good luck ever getting them through congress and the senate though. People running for office love to talk abig game about fiscal responsibility while they're campaigning but see how many of them come out and admit that that means cutting medircare or social security spending and actually get elected. they say word one about it and their opponent will be on every media they can get themselves on telling everyone who will listen that they're trying to kill/bankrupt grandma and grandpa.

Side: Defense Medicare Social Security
1 point

Sorry, trim defense budget by 20%. The United States defense budget almost accounts for 50% of all defense budgets in the world. Who are fighting?

So, Since NASA is only .5% of the federal budget, then eliminating it will be fairly easy.

Agreed that private companies should have pursuing orbital shuttling for years instead of a bureaucratic agency because of another public monopoly.

As for research, space research doesn't have to mean exclusively for profit. Research would be reserved in non-profit organizations. For example, it already exists in the medical field. The Mayo Clinic is a non-profit organization internationally renowned for medical practice and medical research.

As for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, these are mandatory spending, which means that yes, it is extremely difficult to cut benefits because these benefits are guaranteed by the government whereas defense, NASA and everything else are discretionary spending, which means that they can be cut.

As of now, Social and etc, reform almost seems impossible.

Side: Defense Medicare Social Security
1 point

Before beginning, a fun little chart illustrating why the US runs deficits:

http://www.themonkeycage.org/budgetpoll.png

People are mostly only willing to make cuts to trivial crap we don't spend anything on anyway and which won't directly impact them. Oh sure, cut those people's funding... just gimme MINE!

If you want to make meaningful cuts however there are three areas you need to look at:

1. Defense.

2. Medicare/Medicaid.

3. Social Security.

Of the three, the most ludicrously over-funded is defense. The US currently spends nearly as much on defense as every other nation on the face of planet earth combined. And that simply isn't required. But nobody in the government wants to say it because then the entire right wing of the country will explode and start screaming about people wanting to leave the nation defenseless OMG!!!! Which is pure crap but makes great soundbites on TV.

Additionally, the defense industry is very good at making it very hard to kill their projects. They're widely geographically distributed, which means any time you start talking about cutting something they come right back with "lost jobs!!!" in multiple states and districts and senators and congesspeople from all those places go into automatic rejection mode.

And medicare and social security are even worse on the "difficuty to cut them" scale. Having to deal with "so and so voted to cut jobs in our town!!!" ads during elections is bad. Having to deal with the entire senior community out for your blood during an election is way worse. One thing seniors do very well is turn out and vote, and if you tell them you're cutting medicare or social security they're coming for your butt. And unlike plants that make parts for some defence project, seniors are in EVERY state and district. In large numbers.

Which is why the only way we're going to make serious cuts is if everyone on both sides of the aisle agrees ahead of time it needs to be done and they're NOT going to turn it into a political football and use it to attack the other side if they vote to do it. And right now, good luck getting that agreement. Obama and the democrats actually managed to get some modest medicare/medicaid cost reducing measures into the health care reform bill... which I was astounded by because I never thought they'd find enough people in the senate with the balls to vote for it with that language in there... and sure enough as soon as it came out the GOP... the guys whose entire economic philosophy is that government entitlements are wasteful and evil and OMG government run health care wiull kill us all!!!!... and who are ranting and raving every day about the deficit they created in the first place... were out on national television screaming to anyone who would listen about how the democrats were coming to kill grandma because they were cutting medicare to try and reduce the deficit. Shameless freaking hypocrites.

Side: Defense Medicare Social Security