We can easily fix the budget deficit, if we just undo what Bush did.
I know that this concept is common knowledge to nearly everyone on Daily Kos, but here is a way that you can easily illustrate it to those teabaggers that keep spamming you about how 'Obama' is jacking up the debt to unprecedented levels.
At the New York Times website, there is a tool called Budget Puzzle: You Fix The Budget. It consists of a series of choices of what can be done as far as budget cuts and/or tax changes. You select the options that you want, and graphically see the deficit for 2015 and 2030 go up and down. Here are a few things I did:
First, only 4 things (5 boxes) a) Reduce troops in Afghanistan and Iraq to 30k by 2013 b) Return estate tax to Clinton levels c) Return capital gains tax to Clinton levels d) Return income tax rates to Clinton levels
By only erasing Bush, the projected deficit for 2015 is cut from 418 billion, down to 24 billion (sorry, but you don't get a link until the deficit is completely solved for 2030). From this, you can also see that if Iraq and Afghanistan were done, there would be a surplus in 2015. No cuts to government, the military, SS, Medicare or anything is needed.
We only have to erase Bush.
But then the future needs fixing, so I address that with more changes, and you still don't have to touch SS or Medicare. My next option is all of the above, but keep the tax cuts for those under 250k. Then do some cuts to the military, NO CHANGES TO SS AND MEDICARE, NO CUTS TO GOVERNMENT OR ITS WORKERS, raise contribution cap on SS, add Millionaire tax, and eliminate loopholes. With this I have a budget surplus of 145 billion in 2015.
Then my final one incorporates some things I think are good, which might be harder to sell to some on the far left or far right. But it solves the deficit for 2030. With this I tightened eligibility for disability, cut mortgage deductions and SS benefits on the rich, cut government contractors, added a bank tax (for those banks who like to engage in too much risk and crash our economy), and a carbon tax (which worked very well when Bush senior implemented his own 'cap and tax' system on sulfer dioxide). This gives a budget surplus of 292 billion in 2015, and a surplus of 44 billion in 2030.
Surely SS can have minor tweaks. And health care costs in general need to be cleaned up from all of the fraud and profiteering. But it doesn't even need to be on the table, until Republicans open up to start talking about sensible tax rates. The Clinton tax rates were low by historical standards, and they proved to have a successful economy, AND a balanced budget.
So what are your ideas?
