You can cut defense to zero, but you will still need to raise taxes by 30% to balance the budget without touching entitlements (SS, Medicare, Medicaid to states). Although socialists think that you can tax everyone ad infinitum for the good of the state without consequences, in reality, you can only raise taxes so much before people decide that it isn't worth the effort to try for the higher income brackets or to expand (or even start) businesses. Even some liberals agree with this concept.
The only way we can solve our deficit issues is to cut government by 15% and increase taxes by 15%. This should be a broad, across the board cut, rather than simply cutting defense by 50%. In my ideal world, government should be cut by a third and taxes left the same (or even cut), but that will never happen.
Here's what we spent on for government in 2012:
Military Spending: $709 Billion
Everything Else in Government that Can Be Cut: $610 billion
Total: $1.32 trillion
Entitlement Programs (Stuff that Can't be Cut):
Social Security: $773 billion
Medicare: $478 billion
Medicaid: $255 billion
TARP: $35 billion
Unemployment Benefits, Government Pensions, VA Benefits, Needy Family Aid (TANF), School Lunches (SNAP), et al: $635 billion
Total Entitlements: $2.25 trillion
Total Cost of Government (Discretionary and Non-Discretionary): $3.57 trillion ($3.7 including bond interest)
Total Taxes, including Social Security/Medicare Payroll Taxes: $2.59 trillion
Deficit: $1.127 trillion (Currently being paid out by Uncle Ben Bernacke and the Red Chinese)
whitehouse.gov
whitehouse.gov |
