Liberal free for all coming to an end

[GRH]

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/06/...spend-and-how/

I heard Rush Limbaugh babbling about how there's no debt crisis because we have enough money to pay the interest on the debt. But he was not disputing (he even quoted) the fact that Timothy Geithner has said that not raising the debt ceiling will result in a 44% reduction in spending.

The link above details how the federal budget is allocated. If you were to entirely cut every dollar that goes to Discretionary/Other, Education, and Social Safety Net programs...You'd have only cut spending by 26%. So if we're going to bear a 44% reduction in spending...Where are you going to cut the other 18%? Well, the pie chart doesn't leave a lot of other attractive options. You'd have to cut benefits to today's Social Security or Medicare recipients...Or the hallowed department of defense. This is why it's disingenious for people to act like we have enough tax receipts to cover our obligations.

[randolph]

Originally Posted by GRH

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/06/...spend-and-how/

I heard Rush Limbaugh babbling about how there's no debt crisis because we have enough money to pay the interest on the debt. But he was not disputing (he even quoted) the fact that Timothy Geithner has said that not raising the debt ceiling will result in a 44% reduction in spending.

The link above details how the federal budget is allocated. If you were to entirely cut every dollar that goes to Discretionary/Other, Education, and Social Safety Net programs...You'd have only cut spending by 26%. So if we're going to bear a 44% reduction in spending...Where are you going to cut the other 18%? Well, the pie chart doesn't leave a lot of other attractive options. You'd have to cut benefits to today's Social Security or Medicare recipients...Or the hallowed department of defense. This is why it's disingenious for people to act like we have enough tax receipts to cover our obligations.

I suspect he meant 44% cut in discretionary spending, which includes lots of military spending (over half of discretionary spending is military). The party is over and the hangover is not going away.

[GRH]

http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/mts.pdf

I'm not sure where the 44% was originally quoted from. It could be that Geithner was using annualized data. But I just tallied up tax receipts versus outlays for the period between January 2011 to May 2011. Based on the data for these months, if we were living SOLELY on tax receipts, spending would have to be reduced by 36%. An no, that is NOT limited just to discretionary spending...That's total federal expenditures.

So my point stands, albeit perhaps not so pessimistically as the original 44% assumption that Rush was quoting (and it is entirely possible that this number could be arrived at depending on how you treat the data). If we axe EVERY dollar of discretionary, education, and social safety net programs...How are we going to make up the difference without defaulting on our pension/Social Security/Medicare/defense obligations?

I'd like to see one of these "we can pay the interest on the debt with tax receipts" advocates address this issue.

[randolph]

Originally Posted by GRH

http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/mts.pdf

I'm not sure where the 44% was originally quoted from. It could be that Geithner was using annualized data. But I just tallied up tax receipts versus outlays for the period between January 2011 to May 2011. Based on the data for these months, if we were living SOLELY on tax receipts, spending would have to be reduced by 36%. An no, that is NOT limited just to discretionary spending...That's total federal expenditures.

So my point stands, albeit perhaps not so pessimistically as the original 44% assumption that Rush was quoting (and it is entirely possible that this number could be arrived at depending on how you treat the data). If we axe EVERY dollar of discretionary, education, and social safety net programs...How are we going to make up the difference without defaulting on our pension/Social Security/Medicare/defense obligations?

I'd like to see one of these "we can pay the interest on the debt with tax receipts" advocates address this issue.

The Teanderthals don't care to seriously look at actual data, Flush Limbob provides all the information they want to continue their delusions.