I think that Gov. Scott Walker showed the way out of this mess:
1. Cut the budget.
2. Take the money away from the leeches.
If I’m wrong, someone correct me.
You’re not wrong - the solution is very simple - but the route out is fraught with difficulties. Just recall all the trouble that Scott Walker had in implementing those policies. Now imagine that over all 50 States, and for year after year after year (because this is not going to be fixed quickly). Think that’s possible? I don’t. For all the reasons that cleverer folk than me have elucidated on this thread.
If by leeches you also include the military and pensions, you’re right.
How many on this forum will be willing to slash the military budget to crawl out of this hole?
We need to slash *everything*.
And if we say to ourselves “We can’t cut the military! That’s a threat to national security!”, then we need to figure out which is better....voluntary reductions now on our terms, or involuntary reductions in the future on, possibly, an enemy’s terms.
Your words show the solution that would have worked 20 years ago.
But with all the new handouts and the sheer magnitude of the debt, it is now at the limit of repayment or even beyond it.
I will advance my idea again of how the USA can fix the staggering debt problem:
DECLARE NATIONAL CHAPTER 11 BANKRUPTCY AND APPOINT AN ALL-POWERFUL JUDGE TO DISCHARGE IT!
1. Pass a law (simple majority in Congress) to declare national bankruptcy.
2. The Bankruptcy Judge and his Trustees make all the decisions and kill all the sacred cows. Small Biz Administration, farm price supports, County Agents, Dept. of Education, National Public Radio, National Endowment for the Arts, unneeded military bases, numerous commissions, subsidies, grants, etc. would come under the knife or be eliminated. A million leftist GS14s would have to go flip burgers for a living using their liberal arts degrees.
3. Cut entitlements. Advance the age for collecting Social Security and Medicare. Re-examine every person on SSI Disability and make them prove they are disabled. Make it a priority to send sick illegal aliens back to their country of origin for medical care (off Medicaid). Cut Congressional pensions to ZERO since they got us into this mess. Cut Presidential pensions to zero. Cut civil service pensions to what the lowest GS4 gets.
4. Eliminate contracts. No government unions will be recognized.
5. Lay off 80-90% of all federal workers. Contract out every function that can be privatized.
6. Sell assets. GM/Chrysler stock, mortgages held by Fannie & Freddie, BLM land, some national forests, federal buildiings, mineral rights including offshore. All proceeds must be used to PAY DOWN THE NATIONAL DEBT.
Note that the USA will NOT renege on our debt. We have plenty of assets to pay down most of the national debt. Thus our credit rating will once again be the best in the world.
A side benefit is that the transfer to private ownership of vast tracts in the West will lead to a development/mining/drilling boom.
How’s that for a start?