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Rand Paul's budget: Cut SocSec by 40%, cut $650 bln from military, flat tax of 17%

yllus

yllus

Elite Member & Lifer
Here is the full text of Senator Rand Paul's budget. It's entertaining and, you know, not really as crazy as people are making it out to look like. Take a gander and put aside for a moment thoughts about how feasible the budget is: Are these cuts the right thing to do?

Washington Post - Rand Paul’s cynical budget

[Paul's] plan would, among other things, cut the average Social Security recipient’s benefits by nearly 40 percent, reduce defense spending by nearly $100 billion below a level the Pentagon calls “devastating,” and end the current Medicare program in two years — even for current recipients, according to the Senate Budget Committee staff.

It would eliminate the education, energy, housing and commerce departments, decimate homeland security, eviscerate programs for the poor, and give the wealthy a bonanza by reducing tax rates to 17 percent and eliminating taxes on capital gains and dividends.
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Don't have time to read right now, but in general I don't think we can make major structural changes right now, bad as we need them, due to our horrible economic situation. Huge numbers of Americans depend on government, and major cuts would reduce their contributions to our economy immediately while any benefits would kick in more slowly. That would certainly kick us back into a double dip recession.

Regarding Social Security, it pays crap now, horrible return on your money. Cut it 40% and we'll bring back the poor houses. I'd say it's going to have to be means tested and the salary cap removed, treating it just like any other tax and spend program. In the future I'd love to see Social Security replaced with a non-governmental program where that payroll deduction money is shunted into private accounts invested in approved, relatively safe mutual funds.
 
werepossum said:
In the future I'd love to see Social Security replaced with a non-governmental program where that payroll deduction money is shunted into private accounts invested in approved, relatively safe mutual funds.
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For this to be viable Glass-Steagall like regulation would have to be brought back in such a way that it's nigh impossible to repeal. Brooksley Born's ideas for regulating derivatives would have to be enacted with extreme prejudice.

Otherwise you'd be giving Social Security money to people who'd find a way to gamble with it.

The financial sector has the largest if not the largest special interest group that donates to political candidates.
 
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So one minute he's endorsing Romney, then he's advocating this? It doesn't add up.

EDIT: OP, You realize that was from Feb, don't you?
 
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Only $100bn from military?

We need a cut of 3x that. Shelve the F-35/F-22, shelve the Zumwalt and stick with Arleigh Burkes. Pull out of Afghanistan.
 
yllus said:
Here is the full text of Senator Rand Paul's budget. It's entertaining and, you know, not really as crazy as people are making it out to look like. Take a gander and put aside for a moment thoughts about how feasible the budget is: Are these cuts the right thing to do?

Washington Post - Rand Paul’s cynical budget
Click to expand...

Why in the world should be put aside the question of feasibility and pose it instead as a moral question? If it isn't feasible, we shouldn't even be considering it.
 
blankslate said:
For this to be viable Glass-Steagall like regulation would have to be brought back in such a way that it's nigh impossible to repeal. Otherwise you'd be giving it to people who'd find a way to gamble with it.
Click to expand...
Yes, a LOT of regulation would have to be enacted and actually enforced. But Glass-Steagall needs to be reinstated anyway, unless we're willing to institute a very strictly enforced free market where the concept of "too big to fail" does not exist and we have no bail-outs at all. Or at the very least, no financial institution bail-outs; there are still valid reasons to sometimes bail out manufacturing companies like GM.

But yes, whether or not we ever restructure Social Security, we need laws like Glass-Steagall. As long as the federal government ensures deposits, it's insane to let those accounts be invested into things like derivatives and options that have little or no intrinsic value. And you're correct that should we ever restructure Social Security into private accounts (which would presumably be partially guaranteed by the federal government), such protections as Glass-Steagall would have to be bound into the law in such a way as to prevent future politicians from castrating them so that 150 million people's million dollar retirement accounts become 15,000 people's ten billion dollar retirement accounts.
 
LegendKiller said:
Only $100bn from military?

We need a cut of 3x that. Shelve the F-35/F-22, shelve the Zumwalt and stick with Arleigh Burkes. Pull out of Afghanistan.
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OP said $100 billion less than the level the pentagon says would be "devastating", not $100 billion less than current.
 
PokerGuy said:
OP said $100 billion less than the level the pentagon says would be "devastating", not $100 billion less than current.
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Exactly, I applaud that he's actually willing to cut the military unlike so many Republicans right now. But perhaps when the Pentagon uses the term "devestating", we should consider what they're saying before dropping massively below even that. We do need to make major cuts to many programs and yes Social Security, Medicare, and Military are among those. But then going and instituting a regressive tax plan that essentially gives massive handouts to the rich seems quite counter-intuitive.

In truth this budget would probably directly cause the deaths of millions of Americans through a too weak military and starvation of the poor. Not really shocking since it's Rand Paul, son of the Atlas Shrugged worshipping Ron Paul.
 
brandonb said:
I never read Washington Post. But after reading this I am wondering. Do they always write articles like this? If so, horrible horrible place.
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No, they're usually pretty good. I just can't find a better piece on this right now.

PokerGuy said:
OP said $100 billion less than the level the pentagon says would be "devastating", not $100 billion less than current.
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Yeah, my mistake. I want to correct the number in the title but I'm looking over the full document and can't find it. Anyone see the exact figure?

Edit: The "devastating" level of cuts seems to be $550 billion, so I'll put $650 billion in the thread title for now.
 
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thraashman said:
In truth this budget would probably directly cause the deaths of millions of Americans through a too weak military and starvation of the poor. Not really shocking since it's Rand Paul, son of the Atlas Shrugged worshipping Ron Paul.
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Or the deaths of senior citizens. If the article is an accurate summary, it completely ENDS Medicare in 2 years, even for those already in the system. It's absolutely insane.
 
So, in summary he wants to cut jobs during a recession (military layoffs), raise taxes on the poor (17% flat tax), and kill as many poor people as possible (eliminate Medicare as millions of people will transition to medicare under ACA). Sounds pretty typical.
 
werepossum said:
such protections as Glass-Steagall would have to be bound into the law in such a way as to prevent future politicians from castrating them so that 150 million people's million dollar retirement accounts become 15,000 people's ten billion dollar retirement accounts.
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If that could be done then opening up a discussion about changing social security in major ways could actually be constructive.

However in this political climate I honestly think I have a better chance of winning 3 $100 million dollar plus lottery tickets before that happens.
 
yllus said:
No, they're usually pretty good. I just can't find a better piece on this right now.



Yeah, my mistake. I want to correct the number in the title but I'm looking over the full document and can't find it. Anyone see the exact figure?

Edit: The "devastating" level of cuts seems to be $550 billion, so I'll put $650 billion in the thread title for now.
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It's funny how $550bn is now "devastating" yet 10 years ago $200bn LESS than that was just fine.
 
LegendKiller said:
Only $100bn from military?

We need a cut of 3x that. Shelve the F-35/F-22, shelve the Zumwalt and stick with Arleigh Burkes. Pull out of Afghanistan.
Click to expand...

I am not so sure he is proposing to cut anything looking at the link. It appears to me in 2013 he would propose a 546 billion dollar\year budget. Isnt Obama proposing about 530 billion?
 
It's amazing how people just love to shill for this big huge overbloated disgusting festering maggot infested taxation scheme which they cannot possibly justify with all its waste and all its abuse...

It all ends with a flat tax. A flat tax is 95% less burdensome from an administrative standpoint. Logically, the only ones opposed to it would be those who stand to lose, ie those who are collecting on that aforementioned 95% wasted administrative bureaucratic profligacy; ie those who are feeding at the frickin trough. Do you know what I mean?

These shills are so very plentiful, and I for one would like to know why. How has the media gotten into so many people's minds to make them actually think that this is somehow a bad idea? It is amazing, and yet more proof of how badly damaged some people's minds are... There's no argument for something as disfunctional as our tax code. None whatsoever, except if you are

a) someone who benefits from those trillions in loopholes
b) someone who has been programmed by someone who benefits from those trillions in loopholes (haha how does it feel to be a sucka? sucka!)
 
sm625 said:
It's amazing how people just love to shill for this big huge overbloated disgusting festering maggot infested taxation scheme which they cannot possibly justify with all its waste and all its abuse...

It all ends with a flat tax. A flat tax is 95% less burdensome from an administrative standpoint. Logically, the only ones opposed to it would be those who stand to lose, ie those who are collecting on that aforementioned 95% wasted administrative bureaucratic profligacy; ie those who are feeding at the frickin trough. Do you know what I mean?

These shills are so very plentiful, and I for one would like to know why. How has the media gotten into so many people's minds to make them actually think that this is somehow a bad idea? It is amazing, and yet more proof of how badly damaged some people's minds are... There's no argument for something as disfunctional as our tax code. None whatsoever, except if you are

a) someone who benefits from those trillions in loopholes
b) someone who has been programmed by someone who benefits from those trillions in loopholes (haha how does it feel to be a sucka? sucka!)
Click to expand...

You forgot c) If you're an intelligent individual who doesn't want the poor unfairly burdened while the rich get a massive break and tax revenues actually fall by a large margin.
 
sm625 said:
It's amazing how people just love to shill for this big huge overbloated disgusting festering maggot infested taxation scheme which they cannot possibly justify with all its waste and all its abuse...

It all ends with a flat tax. A flat tax is 95% less burdensome from an administrative standpoint.
Click to expand...


Either you don't understand how our income tax system is structured currently, or you don't understand what "flat tax" means. You're suggesting that if everyone pays the same tax rate then somehow the administrative burden will be reduced 95%? How? That makes absolutely no sense.

Calculating the tax rate is trivial. Software does it automatically, or the IRS publishes a handy chart every year so you can look it up yourself. It literally takes 10 seconds.

The complicated part of income tax is computing how much income someone has earned. That's where exemptions, credits, carryover allowances, etc. etc etc. come in. That's the hard part, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the tax rate.

All the "Flat Tax!!!" propaganda has absolutely nothing to do with making our system simpler. It wouldn't make it simpler in any way shape or form. At all. All it does is make poor people pay significantly more and rich people pay significantly less. That's a discussion worth having, but not hidden under the guise of simplicity.
 
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