The defense budget is already low and taken the brunt of the cuts.
If you want to project strength, don't you need the ability to FSU when necessary?
Don't get me wrong, our military is still top notch. But will it stay that way without significant investment? Will we stay ahead of China? Can we fight on two fronts? All of that is a maybe at current spending levels.
1. pick our fights wisely.
2. use diplomacy to show our friends why, post trump and with America first rising, it is wise for them to be more engaged.
3. reduce congressional weapons systems versus military ones.
4. emphasize keeping the people of the military for long careers.
but a key is revenue enhancements. gotta tax.
I think in concept we agree on a lot more of this than we disagree. I will say a lot of what is below can be bi-partisan, and not restricted to old school GOP or conservative. I'm not sure which of these are traditionally conservative, unless your argument is that liberals don't care about debt, deficits, or peace through strength. I wouldn't put #9 in either camp to be honest.
I think the only ones with which I take some issue are 5 and 7. On 5, our tax code is needlessly complicated, and the potential for a foot fault is quite easy. Biden's proposal on adding all of the extra agents was pitched saying it would not tax earners below $400k, which turned out to be false.
I think in this perfect world we're creating with a semi-balanced budget, real adjustments to entitlements, de-emphasizing nation building, and peace through strength, we can focus on a more simplified tax code that won't require such a large budget and need for audits. For now though, I'd be totally fine just funding the IRS to upgrade all their antiquated systems and help lines.
That thought on smaller government ties closely to point 7. I think there's more of a middle ground than what we currently have regarding the size of our government. I agree technology and other advancements have totally changed things, but if your position is that we can't meaningfully shrink the size of our government today while focusing on efficiencies we just have a fundamental disagreement. The volume of waste, fraud, and inefficiency in our government currently is legion. There are significant examples everywhere of government waste. And frankly when an organization reaches this size, inefficiencies, waste, and fraud are inevitably a by-product.
Anyway, like I said, we probably have more agreements than disagreements, and I appreciate your thoughtful reply. Have a good evening.
that while it's real and the numbers look impressive, it's an illusion. Imagine WF&A amounts to 1% of spending, and I suspect that's high. In a $2 trillion budget, the maximum savings would be $20 billion. Since perfection is impossible, say you net $10 billion. A help, yes. A solution, no.
Note that Social Security is a very low overhead passthrough. Not much available there.
Medicare is a different story. The problem is that the complexity of modern medicine creates a lot of opportunity for poor cost control.
DoD is huge and a significant chunk of that budget's value is in the eye of the beholder. Guessing what will be valuable in future conflicts is very tricky as is being demonstrated in Ukraine.
The "problem" is easy the solutions are difficult. I know this a gross oversimplification but at the core health care costs consist of health insurance payments, payments to providers (hospitals and doctors) and payments to drug manufacturers.
That means to control health care costs you have a few options.
1. Limit how much health insurance companies can charge.
2. Limit the amount providers can charge.
3. Limit how much Pharma can charge.
4. Limit how many times a person can make use of services.
AsI said this is not my area of expertise but at its core that is the problem. No one wants to tell companies what they can charge and no one wants to tell people that cant go to the doctor as much as they want. I know there are a host of solutions but at the end of the day I think they are all debates about how to best solve one leg of this equation.
2. is already in the system.
5. is already in the system; paying for some excess stuff myself despite medicare.
3. is huge. let medicare negotiate pricing. limit advertising for hugely overpriced drugs. increase so-pays for optional stuff.
add 5., better policing for wf&a. simplify the billing system. my daughter does medical coding.
I will say that for point number one, "arms" were critical for the citizenry to defend the country and themselves. While at the time they were muzzle loaders, swords, and daggers, if we are to be able to form a militia to overthrow oppressors (internal or external), then those arms are surely insufficient. DO NOT take this as making a case for people owning automatic weapons. Instead, this is just an observation on the original intent extended to modern times.
As to point number 5, I think it is feasible to hold thoughts of reducing the IRS and balancing the budget concurrently. The answer isn't in better enforcement of the existing, Byzantine tax code, but instead in an overhaul of the tax code dramatically reduce complexity and to not attempt to pick winners and losers ("progressive taxation").
My point about muzzle loaders was, in fact, about total reliance on Originalism. At the same time, the main reason militias were needed was to deal with potential slave revolts. That problem is solved.
On the IRS, embrace the power of "and." Better enforcement AND an improved tax code sound good to me.
entirely accurate. While it potentially may have been A reason, it certainly wasn't the only, or main reason. There's plenty of research that points to other reasons.
Slave owners lived with constant awareness of the danger they were in.
But, yes, the folks we're talking about were a bunch of revolutionaries.