Paying off the deficit??

Question

Why not stop welfare for illegal immigrants (indefinitely) and halt foreign aide for two years? Would that solve the deficit?

Feel free to extend the date if you wish.

Answer 1

YES, it would help a little bit!!

Answer 2

First of all, welfare for illegal immigrants should not happen regardless of the deficit.

Secondly, while these actions might be helpful as a first step, I don't think that it gets us to a balanced budget. In order to do that, I would like to see a Constitutional Amendment that calls for a balanced budget except in a time of war/emergency (Which would have to be agreed upon by 2/3 of the Congress. No caviar for inmates would not constitute an "emergency"). Why pass this mess onto our kids? If we make the mess, we should clean it up.

Unfortuantely, there does not seem to be the will to get us back into the black.

Answer 3

Welfare and all other benefits illegal aliens receive would be a good first step. Unfortunately, illegal alien benefits and foreign aid are just a drop in the bucket. Every day our National Debt increases $1.39 billion. This is added to the 9 trillion dollar National Debt.
Certainly foreign aid should be stopped to developed countries. We have given Israel more than a billion dollars.

The United States is in deep financial trouble. George Bush and the Republican Congress over the last six years have almost doubled the National Debt. There will have to be deep cuts in many areas of the government programs, including defense, and taxes will have to be raised. You can thank George Bush for the unnecessary wars and the give aways to the wealthy. The Bush wars cost over a trillion dollars.

Anyone who still believes in the "trickle down" economics of the Bush cabal should look closely at the charts shown below. It should be very clear to anyone with eyes that trickle down only works for the rich and kills the country.

Answer 4

The deficit is the difference between what the government takes in, in a year, in tax revenues and the amount the government spends in a year.
The deficit can be eliminated, every year, if Congress would limit spending to the level of tax revenues. So far, that has been an impossible task.

Now, if you are thinking about eliminating the national debt, that would be impossible for other reasons.

Answer 5

Tory propaganda has eaten that's way into your persuasive recommendations. yet you haven't have been given something to assert concerning the perks and expenses and excessive existence-variety of the MP's all paid for by using the tax payer, no be counted if low paid or in any different case! you're saying no longer something of the Champagne existence of the bankers, and the corporate large bosses, who take a seat on their leather-based seats doing no longer something different than answer telephones all day and invite their mega prosperous associates to their lavish purposes! Neither do you have a unmarried be attentive to condemnation for the prosperous who placed billions into off shore tax havens to dodge paying their sincere share of tax. And what concerning the wealthy bosses who're nicely over retirement age and function hundreds of thousands in financial business enterprise money owed, who're nonetheless claiming heating allowance, unfastened bus passes, unfastened prescriptions and unfastened television licences? And what of the folk who earn £50,000 and £60,000 a three hundred and sixty 5 days and nonetheless % to clam comprehensive newborn profit? Little ask your self then that the folk who've basically £seventy one a week to proceed to exist attempt to exploit the gadget for all that's fairly worth, whilst they see such blatant unfairness and despicable greed from those in positions of skill. Trickle down economics has on no account labored and it on no account will.

Answer 6

Are you referring to the annual deficit or the total national debt?
If you are referring to the annual deficit, you would have to stop entitlements forever, not just two years.
As far as the national debt, there is little reason to pay it off. If it is just not added to, it's % of the GDP will shrink making it less of a burden.

Answer 7

Not even close. Halting all foreign aide indefinately, period. Where in the hell in our constitution does it say that we should bribe and payoff other countries to do our bidding? We need to take care of America first and foremost. I pay taxes in this country for roads and highways, school systems, water supplies, etc. Not for these to be built in foreign lands.

Answer 8

We didn’t do any of that when Clinton was in office and he left office with budget surpluses, using the same accounting methods that Bush uses. Bush has continuing deficits. Maybe we should simply look back a few years and see what the differences were.

One that comes to mind is that Bush cut revenues by granting huge tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.

Answer 9

Powerfully convincing evidence from the 1920s, '60s and '80s shows how strongly tax cuts can enhance economic growth. This is supported by foreign experience as well, and a by-now vast literature of economic studies. There's no equivalent literature or experience supporting a payoff of the national debt.

Indeed, under Keynesian economics - the reigning orthodoxy in liberal-dominated academia - running a budget surplus to pay down the debt would slow the economy. And under the supply-side formula preferred by conservatives, higher-than-necessary taxes would have a sharply negative effect on economic growth.

Debt repayment also complicates our nation's monetary policy, which hinges on the buying and selling of federal bonds by the Federal Reserve. The Fed buys such bonds with newly printed money to increase the money supply, and sells the bonds to the public for cash to reduce the money supply. But with no national debt, there would be no federal bonds to buy and sell, and the Fed would be more restricted in its ability to control inflation and other facets of U.S. monetary policy.

The size of the current national debt is just not an economic problem. By the end of the next fiscal year, the debt will have declined to about 31 percent of our nation's gross domestic product (GDP). Federal debt equaled 80 percent of GDP in 1950 and 46 percent in 1960.

Finally, as a matter of politics, prudent-sounding calls to pay off the national debt may prove little more than a snare and a delusion. With large amounts of surplus money piling up in Washington, voracious special interests will have no trouble coming up with one "spending emergency" after another, year after year. In the face of these teary-eyed demands, those trying to preserve the surpluses to pay off the debt will be depicted as cold-hearted accountants. They will cave, and the surplus will be spent, with little remaining to reduce the debt.

Indeed, it's becoming increasing apparent that the left is embracing debt repayment as a way to hoard that extra tax money in Washington until spending is politically safe again. Clinton and Gore have adopted paying off the debt as their economic mantra precisely to short-circuit the political appeal of a major tax cut. But their rapidly escalating spending demands show that debt retirement is not really on their agenda.

When liberals held sway in Congress, lawmakers routinely promised to cut spending (usually to win passage of tax increases). But the spending continued unchecked. The promise to pay down the debt could just be Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown again.

One thing's for sure: The federal debt is not an economic problem. How ironic, then, that trying to pay it off may help create one.

Answer 10

if the debt where on a chart it would be TEN MILES HIGH ..thank your president,why should it always be cut the poor off and the disabled,the rich got us into this because of their greed,tax them at 99%,you know 1% of the population holds 99% of the wealth in this country dont you?