I’m tired of Republicans. In this article there is a comment by Colorado Republican Ken Buck. “I don’t know anyone who believes we’re going to balance the budget in 10 years.” I could do it. I know for a fact that I could do it. I’d likely even end up with a surplus. Let’s look at the numbers.
According to the Department of Treasury (1) the total revenue for the federal government was $3,021,000,000 for fiscal year 2014 (Oct. 2013 – Sept. 2014). The total outlays (expenditures) was $3,504,000,000, leaving $483,000,000 in debt. Those are obviously very large numbers. My solution would fix that problem. First, I’d start at $0 instead of starting with an existing budget. I’d then determine what was absolutely necessary. Defense, courts, interest, and *interstates* (no grants for local development). Obviously, there is a lot of waste in these areas, but by going back to basics we could end up with a budget surplus, pay off the debt, and nearly eliminate federal taxes. By doing so states can be left to take care of everything else (10th Amendment). If the federal government isn’t taking our money then the states can decide which programs they want to pay for and which they don’t. This brings the burden (and accountability) to a more local area. It also forces the people who benefit from the program to pay for the program instead of taking money from Missouri to pay for high speed rail in California.
The idea that you can’t balance the budget in 10 years is ludicrous. The problem is that they don’t want to eliminate unnecessary programs in order to balance the budget. The first place to look is the group of “non-essential” people who don’t go to work during a government shutdown.
(1) http://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/fsreports/rpt/mthTreasStmt/mts0914.pdf
h/t Fox News