Everyone can agree with the statement that government spending needs to be curtailed in the abstract. That's not useful if you're not willing to say specifically what you think should be cut.
Medicare is about 12% of the budget. Do you think it should be cut, do you think the government should spend less on that?
Social Security is the largest part of the budget. Do you think it should be cut? What about the fact that its income comes entirely from payroll taxes - not general income taxes - and it still has a huge surplus?
After medicare, social security, and debt interest, the next largest category is defense spending. Do you think that should be cut? If so, how would you do that responsibly?
I'd love to see the defense budget cut, but I think it's tricky, because most of that money goes to pay for the salaries of people. The money that doesn't go to U.S. government employees (pentagon, armed services, etc.) go to contractors who employ lots of people. Cut the budget dramatically and millions of people lose their jobs, which could devastate the economy. Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't do it - just that it isn't quite so simple as just cutting the budget and being done with it. There are consequences.
Alternately, we could actually collect taxes from the companies that use the majority of our nation's resources, underpay their workers, and are the cause of much of the need for spending for Medicare & social security due to killing pensions and opposing universal health care.
Honestly, the military would probably be the easiest place to cut it from. Now, I haven't been in the military, but I have multiple friends thats either where in, or are currently still in, and every single one of them that ever progressed past e5 have flat out told me if you just cut down on the waste in the military, not even completely eliminate it but just cut it down, you could cut the budget by 20% and literally nothing else would have to change.
Obviously this is all completely anecdotal, and I in no way know the answer as to how to solve the problem, but hearing it from so many people across 3 different branches tells me that it has to be bad.
Realistically, as long as we wish for things to continue to even function, I don't really see anywhere else that it's even viable to continue to cut spending, let alone a good idea. Homeless population that is continually growing, growing portion of people already food insecure, only a paycheck or two away from being without, an aging, ever more crumbling infrastructure system. Anywhere else you turn to try to cut something, you're either looking at mass Homeless/hunger, riots, or just flat out the whole house of cards inevitably coming down. Like, everything after the big 4 that you listed with Medicare, social security, debt interest, and the military, are all tiny percentages in the budget. Cuts on anything after those 4 would have to be such a massive portion of their spending to make a noticeable difference deficit wise they would fall apart. It's a shit sandwich no matter what way we look at it.
Everyone can agree with the statement that government spending needs to be curtailed in the abstract. That's not useful if you're not willing to say specifically what you think should be cut.
Medicare is about 12% of the budget. Do you think it should be cut, do you think the government should spend less on that?
Social Security is the largest part of the budget. Do you think it should be cut? What about the fact that its income comes entirely from payroll taxes - not general income taxes - and it still has a huge surplus?
After medicare, social security, and debt interest, the next largest category is defense spending. Do you think that should be cut? If so, how would you do that responsibly?
I'd love to see the defense budget cut, but I think it's tricky, because most of that money goes to pay for the salaries of people. The money that doesn't go to U.S. government employees (pentagon, armed services, etc.) go to contractors who employ lots of people. Cut the budget dramatically and millions of people lose their jobs, which could devastate the economy. Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't do it - just that it isn't quite so simple as just cutting the budget and being done with it. There are consequences.
Alternately, we could actually collect taxes from the companies that use the majority of our nation's resources, underpay their workers, and are the cause of much of the need for spending for Medicare & social security due to killing pensions and opposing universal health care.
Honestly, the military would probably be the easiest place to cut it from. Now, I haven't been in the military, but I have multiple friends thats either where in, or are currently still in, and every single one of them that ever progressed past e5 have flat out told me if you just cut down on the waste in the military, not even completely eliminate it but just cut it down, you could cut the budget by 20% and literally nothing else would have to change.
Obviously this is all completely anecdotal, and I in no way know the answer as to how to solve the problem, but hearing it from so many people across 3 different branches tells me that it has to be bad.
Realistically, as long as we wish for things to continue to even function, I don't really see anywhere else that it's even viable to continue to cut spending, let alone a good idea. Homeless population that is continually growing, growing portion of people already food insecure, only a paycheck or two away from being without, an aging, ever more crumbling infrastructure system. Anywhere else you turn to try to cut something, you're either looking at mass Homeless/hunger, riots, or just flat out the whole house of cards inevitably coming down. Like, everything after the big 4 that you listed with Medicare, social security, debt interest, and the military, are all tiny percentages in the budget. Cuts on anything after those 4 would have to be such a massive portion of their spending to make a noticeable difference deficit wise they would fall apart. It's a shit sandwich no matter what way we look at it.