The Republican Thread

[Y2HH]

Thank you.

 

Y2HH, I don't care if your company's management took the generally lazy, less-effective route instead of using this as an opportunity to cut inefficiencies and redundancies in the best possible way. Sure, when you make atb cuts, department heads are going to look to cut the waste out, so you may do some good. But you can also cut too much from departments, turning them non-functional or reducing their profitability. Or maybe Department X has 50% that can be cut (old methods, old technology, shrinking markets, etc.) while Department Y only really has 10% (newer tech, needs R&D money) they can cut without undermining their capabilities.

 

Again, you choose to see the color red where it simply doesn't exist.

 

You can take any method of cuts and implement it...but DO IT. I repeat, you don't have to actually do 20% across the board...but it's a start, which they're not even doing (starting). Fine...cut REALLY wasteful departments by 50% and cut departments that are running perfectly and within budget by 0%...wow, that was HARD!@#$@!

 

Point I'm making, and you are somehow missing, is that after 50 years of almost NO cuts at all, but continual growth and spending increases, there is NO WAY THAT A 100% EFFICIENT DEPARTMENT EVEN EXISTS. They can EASILY find things to fix...and these savings don't necessarily have to come from "cuts", but from more efficient methods of doing a job. Example, instead of printing out and snail mailing 5000000 documents to the state of IL, email them, fax them, etc. Point is, money is saved via a more efficient manner.

[StrangeSox]

Ok, I wasn't arguing against reasonable, analytical cuts or increasing efficiencies. I was arguing against ATB cuts as lazy and less effective than targeted cuts, to the point of being harmful and damaging to overall operational capabilities.

[Jenksismyhero]

Across the board, all-department cuts of X% are ineffective and will make things worse, not better. You would be cutting 20% of some programs that actually help the economy and should be left alone... and cutting 20% of some agencies that should be cut 50% or eliminated all together. Its nonsensical, and the only reason its done in either the private sector of government is desperation and/or laziness.

 

I dunno how cutting money from the budget in this fashion isn't a positive on some level. Is it the best way to do it? No. But we're dealing with the government here. Every dollar is necessary will always be the argument. I'd agree with a plan that can look department by department and put a percentage based on that. Wanna talk about a campaign promise that has NEVER been done - "i'll go through the budget, line by line, and make cuts." It's probably too impractical to do that. One side will find X line important, but the other won't.

 

We all know this is just posturing. But it'll (hopefully) start a national discussion. It's not perfect, but it's a start.

 

 

[NorthSideSox72]

I dunno how cutting money from the budget in this fashion isn't a positive on some level. Is it the best way to do it? No. But we're dealing with the government here. Every dollar is necessary will always be the argument. I'd agree with a plan that can look department by department and put a percentage based on that. Wanna talk about a campaign promise that has NEVER been done - "i'll go through the budget, line by line, and make cuts." It's probably too impractical to do that. One side will find X line important, but the other won't.

 

We all know this is just posturing. But it'll (hopefully) start a national discussion. It's not perfect, but it's a start.

Very little has ever been done that way, in my voting lifetime. The one President who actually did do a little bit though? Obama, the "socialist".

 

What is needed is a holistic review of all government agencies and programs, handled by private consulting practices that do NOT have business stake in those agencies, to determine where to find the efficiencies or cut departments as needed... and then do what they recommend.

 

[StrangeSox]

I dunno how cutting money from the budget in this fashion isn't a positive on some level. Is it the best way to do it? No. But we're dealing with the government here. Every dollar is necessary will always be the argument. I'd agree with a plan that can look department by department and put a percentage based on that. Wanna talk about a campaign promise that has NEVER been done - "i'll go through the budget, line by line, and make cuts." It's probably too impractical to do that. One side will find X line important, but the other won't.

 

We all know this is just posturing. But it'll (hopefully) start a national discussion. It's not perfect, but it's a start.

 

this is a fair point. When you target specific programs, people can rally to oppose those specific cuts and come up with concrete examples of what bad things will happen if cuts are made. When you make blanket, untargeted cuts at the political level (and let the employee-level people handle it), it's harder to oppose anything in specific.

[Jenksismyhero]

Very little has ever been done that way, in my voting lifetime. The one President who actually did do a little bit though? Obama, the "socialist".

 

What is needed is a holistic review of all government agencies and programs, handled by private consulting practices that do NOT have business stake in those agencies, to determine where to find the efficiencies or cut departments as needed... and then do what they recommend.

 

He did?

 

And the review by a private company would never happen. Neither party would give up that control/opportunity to ridicule the other side.

[StrangeSox]

He did?

 

And the review by a private company would never happen. Neither party would give up that control/opportunity to ridicule the other side.

 

I don't know why they should, either. We don't elect politicians to blindly follow 3rd party think-tank recommendations. And I don't know how you'd ever get something agreed to--Republicans would always want something like CATO or Heritage, Democrats would always want (insert liberal version, drawing a blank)

[NorthSideSox72]

I don't know why they should, either. We don't elect politicians to blindly follow 3rd party think-tank recommendations. And I don't know how you'd ever get something agreed to--Republicans would always want something like CATO or Heritage, Democrats would always want (insert liberal version, drawing a blank)

The disagreement is exactly why an outside party should do this - and one from business, not government. And they can be asked to provide a range of solutions for each problem, leaving Congress with some wriggle room.

 

This will never happen of course, but IMO its the best course of action.

 

[Balta1701]

Raising the IL taxes by 70% during a recession isn't a good idea either, but they did that...while telling us they're actually INCREASING spending.

You know what might have helped? Increased federal aid to the states.

 

Oh, wait...

[Balta1701]

The disagreement is exactly why an outside party should do this - and one from business, not government. And they can be asked to provide a range of solutions for each problem, leaving Congress with some wriggle room.

 

This will never happen of course, but IMO its the best course of action.

The problem is...we kind of actually saw that last year, with the joke that was the deficit commission.

 

What we got was, however, not a workable plan for deficit reduction. It had the magic joke of "Limiting health care costs to 1% a year" built into it, just like this concept we're discussing pretends to do.

 

What we got instead was a plan for how to cut the top tier tax rate from 35 to 21% while making up for it with tax increases on everyone else. Why did we get that? Because the people who wrote the plan were people who would benefit enormously from that change in tax policy, so they wrote a plan that would make them a fortune and have everyone else pay for it.

 

The idea of an outside party sounds nice...but there's a reason why this game is hard...not only do you have to find a way to satisfy the interests of the people in Congress, but you also have to have people who don't automatically put forwards a plan that would help their own pocketbooks at the expense of everyone else.

[Balta1701]

He did?

Yeah, they cut about $17 billion in year over year savings by doing so. Here's the press release version.

[Jenksismyhero]

Yeah, they cut about $17 billion in year over year savings by doing so. Here's the press release version.

 

Yeah I see a couple hundred million in "line by line" savings and the rest just government BS. 40 billion reduction in contract bids? Any way to actually verify that?

[Balta1701]

Yeah I see a couple hundred million in "line by line" savings and the rest just government BS. 40 billion reduction in contract bids? Any way to actually verify that?

No more than there is to verify that a 20% across the board budget cut actually happened.

[Jenksismyhero]

No more than there is to verify that a 20% across the board budget cut actually happened.

 

How is this related at all? The % across the board cut is a proposal, not an actual line by line cut that Obama clearly did not do, despite what you provided.

[Balta1701]

How is this related at all? The % across the board cut is a proposal, not an actual line by line cut that Obama clearly did not do, despite what you provided.

If you guys get to pretend fantasy cuts are possible, why can't I?

[Jenksismyhero]

If you guys get to pretend fantasy cuts are possible, why can't I?

 

Because one is a PROPOSAL and the other is supposedly something that's already happened.

 

Are you seriously arguing this? Why?

[NorthSideSox72]

The problem is...we kind of actually saw that last year, with the joke that was the deficit commission.

 

What we got was, however, not a workable plan for deficit reduction. It had the magic joke of "Limiting health care costs to 1% a year" built into it, just like this concept we're discussing pretends to do.

 

What we got instead was a plan for how to cut the top tier tax rate from 35 to 21% while making up for it with tax increases on everyone else. Why did we get that? Because the people who wrote the plan were people who would benefit enormously from that change in tax policy, so they wrote a plan that would make them a fortune and have everyone else pay for it.

 

The idea of an outside party sounds nice...but there's a reason why this game is hard...not only do you have to find a way to satisfy the interests of the people in Congress, but you also have to have people who don't automatically put forwards a plan that would help their own pocketbooks at the expense of everyone else.

 

 

Yeah, they cut about $17 billion in year over year savings by doing so. Here's the press release version.

 

I was clearly stating that it hadn't been done in any large scale, but that ObamaCo did that relatively small thing. Not sure how that was unclear.

 

[Balta1701]

I was clearly stating that it hadn't been done in any large scale, but that ObamaCo did that relatively small thing. Not sure how that was unclear.

In that large post, I was trying to say that "Bringing in an outside group to try to audit the government or to deal with the deficit" is something we actually just tried, with the joke that was the deficit commission, and it wound up caring a lot more about upper class tax cuts than the deficit.

[NorthSideSox72]

In that large post, I was trying to say that "Bringing in an outside group to try to audit the government or to deal with the deficit" is something we actually just tried, with the joke that was the deficit commission, and it wound up caring a lot more about upper class tax cuts than the deficit.

Wrong people, wrong mission. They were not doing what I am describing, exactly.

 

[Balta1701]

Wrong people, wrong mission. They were not doing what I am describing, exactly.

I know their mission was technically different...but frankly, it shouldn't have been. If you're going to propose a "Deficit commission", that's exactly what it ought to do.

[Y2HH]

I know their mission was technically different...but frankly, it shouldn't have been. If you're going to propose a "Deficit commission", that's exactly what it ought to do.

 

I think everyone agrees here...but the politicians put these people in the commission...meaning they failed, once again, to do the job we continue to elect them to fail doing. Meaning the people are failing. And in the end, it will all fail...we will probably get to live to see it, too, considering even the people on a message board cannot agree on cutting waste...and if you don't think there is waste, well...there is no other way for me to word this...that means you're an I.D. 10 T.

Edited January 21, 2011 by Y2HH

[kapkomet]

In a period of falling revenues for a business, they have to right size the business to survive. In a period of falling revenues for our government, they have to spend more, WAY more, then they have to right size the country to survive.

 

How is this even logical? Oh, that's right, "stimulus". But you can't stimulate what you don't have control over... which is the problem right now.

 

We just got our business cut by 25% over the next three to five years. Guess what? We have to cut our costs by the same amount to even have a prayer of keeping our doors open. Yet, the government is always insulated from these types of movements. It will ultimately kill our way of life because at some point, you've got to pay it back.

 

[lostfan]

I dunno how cutting money from the budget in this fashion isn't a positive on some level. Is it the best way to do it? No. But we're dealing with the government here. Every dollar is necessary will always be the argument. I'd agree with a plan that can look department by department and put a percentage based on that. Wanna talk about a campaign promise that has NEVER been done - "i'll go through the budget, line by line, and make cuts." It's probably too impractical to do that. One side will find X line important, but the other won't.

 

We all know this is just posturing. But it'll (hopefully) start a national discussion. It's not perfect, but it's a start.

This is because it's an empty campaign promise, something that is really easy to say but you find out is virtually impossible when you actually get elected and see what the spending actually is. Anyone who actually falls for this and finds themselves all pissed off... well, it's their fault they feel like that. Then they will say something hilariously stupid like "I'm going to balance the budget without raising taxes and I won't touch the 3/4 of the budget that is Social Security, Medicare, or defense, I'm going to go line by line through the budget and cut all the waste. Then you find out that was either a bald-faced lie they expected people to believe (likely), or they really did think that there was a trillion and a half worth of waste in the federal budget (very few people running for national office are actually this stupid).

Edited January 22, 2011 by lostfan

[Balta1701]

You realize that by this point in 2007, everyone other than Fred Thompson had basically declared that they were running in the Presidential primaries? This year, no one has actively announced they're a candidate yet.

 

Anyway, Tim Pawlenty is going to save the world.

 

[KipWellsFan]

"Today! Is our independence Day!!!!"