the rumors of my death are a bit premature

[TheDaliLama]

Originally Posted by IIFFOFRDB

Why are y'all so scared of the Tea party? They are just normal everyday people that don't drink the coolaid.

Only a Liberal would think that ideas like being fiscally responsible, having a balanced budget, living within one means or being accountable..

.... are radical ideas.

It threatens all free stuff they give away to their voters.

[JD Barleycorn]

There you just touched on it... it is not about revenue (taxes) it is about spending. Why would anyone want to pay more taxes when they can't control the waste and foolishness. Some day we may allow taxes to be raised but there have to be reforms first, not second. Reforms first and demonstrations that government has learned a lesson. Listen to Harry Reid today and it is, and always will be, taxes first. Would you give your lousy brother a loan if he was still blowing his money at the casino?

I would like to give bonuses to government officials who save money and make good choices.

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

There you just touched on it... it is not about revenue (taxes) it is about spending. Why would anyone want to pay more taxes when they can't control the waste and foolishness. Some day we may allow taxes to be raised but there have to be reforms first, not second. Reforms first and demonstrations that government has make good choices.

I agree with you that politicians would seek to spend any new money raised. In fact, I'll take it a step further and suggest that they'll try to spend any incremental revenue that they can claim static-scoring analysts even think will materialize, no matter how unrealistic the projections may be. A similar thing happened in the early 1980s, when Reagan administration officials thought they had a deal on spending cuts, which of course never materialized.

The problem we have now is that the tax structure we have is perfectly tailored to spending levels of twelve years ago, which in nominal dollars were about half what they are now. (Adjusted for inflation, they're roughly 50% higher.) To narrow the deficit sufficiently, we'd have to slash spending by something like 30%. I don't think it's even remotely possible that we'll cut spending by more than a small fraction of that. So big tax increases are coming one way or another, sooner or later.

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

We need to repeal the 16th amendment, abolish the income tax, and adopt the FairTax. It is as simple as that.

If spending levels on all non-defense items were at 1950s levels, and if we spent no more than 3-4% on defense, that would work. Philosophically and in principle, a system relying to a greater extent on consumption taxes would be better. But the Fair Tax would raise no more than about 15% of GDP at best, and I think even that is a very optimistic estimate.

Yaddayadda, as depressing as your post is to read, it's hard to disagree with any of it.

[IIFFOFRDB]

Tea Party, Libertarian or True Republican. Fuck Rinos. God Danm Demotards.

[cptjohnstone]

Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

I would like to give bonuses to government officials who save money and make good choices.

have you not heard of government accounting? if you do not spend it, you lose it

[CuteOldGuy]

Oddly enough, Jimmy Carter tried to end that practice by instituting zero base budgeting. Didn't get anywhere with it.

[JD Barleycorn]

I worked supply in the military for a couple of years. I had a number of problems when I tried to save money and was told to go spend it on anything, something, just as long as I spend it. I spent it but only just and only what we needed. I guess they don't give medals for hitting your budget within 10 dollars.

[Old-T]

Sadly it isn't the military, it's the congressional budget mindset and the bean counters in OMB.

If they give you $100 and you only spend $80 because you are efficient, or there wasn't as much snow that winter so your snow removal costs were less, or the people in contracting were too slow--they see it instead as "You lied to us and padded your estimate". Next year you only get $80, even if you know th contracting problem has been fixed, or the forecast for the coming winter is lots of snow.

We say we want efficiency, but we reward spending more. This goes all the way back to Geo Washington days.

[JD Barleycorn]

The military is held hostage to the congressional process. Have you ever seen the necessary contract that the military has to generate just to buy a shirt? Most of us would look around, find the shirt we want, tell them what color we want, and then tell the company to send us a thousand shirts in four different sizes. For the military to order the same shirt (remember the lowest bidder wins) a document of about 300 pages is generated; the kind of thread, number of strands per thread, number of threads per inch, color, what kind of color, spectrum of the color, types of stitches, number of stitches, and on and on. The lowest bidder wins so you had better be very specific. My own personal experience was to buy a Fluke voltage tester like they carried in Radio Shack. I had to fill out a (see if I can remember this) 1486 non stock number requisition form. I had to fill out a couple of pages of specs including the color of the display. I sent it in and in a month they sent me back their recommendations. If my meter was on the list then I could order it. If not, I started all over again. This system was set up by Congress.

[i'va biggen]

Inventory
pong balls ping 24 each

[Old-T]

Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

The military is held hostage to the congressional process. Have you ever seen the necessary contract that the military has to generate just to buy a shirt? Most of us would look around, find the shirt we want, tell them what color we want, and then tell the company to send us a thousand shirts in four different sizes. For the military to order the same shirt (remember the lowest bidder wins) a document of about 300 pages is generated; the kind of thread, number of strands per thread, number of threads per inch, color, what kind of color, spectrum of the color, types of stitches, number of stitches, and on and on. The lowest bidder wins so you had better be very specific. My own personal experience was to buy a Fluke voltage tester like they carried in Radio Shack. I had to fill out a (see if I can remember this) 1486 non stock number requisition form. I had to fill out a couple of pages of specs including the color of the display. I sent it in and in a month they sent me back their recommendations. If my meter was on the list then I could order it. If not, I started all over again. This system was set up by Congress.

Agree. You and I are saying the exact same thing.