Here's a chart that I'm going to assume is approximately true:
In fiscal year 2014, the federal government will spend around $3.8 trillion. These trillions of dollars make up a considerable chunk - around 22 percent - of the US. economy, as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP). That means that federal government spending makes up a sizable share of all...
www.nationalpriorities.org
For total federal spending, Social Security/Unemployment/Labor is the highest; Medicare & Health the second highest; Military the third highest. We need cuts there. My druthers:
1. Means test SS payments. Raise retirement age.
2. 10% of Medicare beneficiaries account for 60% of total expenditures. Address this somehow (I don't know how).
Spending on Medicare accounted for 14 percent of total federal spending in 2014. Federal spending for fiscal year 2014 totaled $3.5 trillion, with net spending on Medicare (that is, Medicare spending minus income from premiums and other offsetting receipts) comprising 14 percent of the total...
www.kff.org
3. Cut military spending by 20% for 10 years. Shrink, but do not eliminate, our worldwide footprint.
4. Re revenues:
Increase the estate and gift tax. In 2022, it accounted for $33 billion in revenue. Let's triple that to get to $100 billion per year.
Start taxing all college sports (per Google AI: in 2022, college athletics generated around $13.6 billion in revenue, which is more than Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League combined).
Tax all university endowments not spent on lowering tuition ($800+billion stashed away here).
5. Pass a constitutional amendment that limits debts or deficits in some way. Our constitutional structure is broken in this way, whereby there is little to no accountability or incentives for politicians to limit spending. We need to fix that.
I doubt any of this happens and the U.S. will continue to slide into the abyss, with fried chicken prices continuing to skyrocket, while our national debates focus on the definition of a woman, the evils of "whiteness," the "heroism" of the J6ers, and whether our Presidential candidates like to be peed upon or smell hair.
