I’ll say that yes, we talk about wasteful spending in all the other departments. THERE ARE programs in the Defense Department that are old and outdated and are useless now. They should not be “excluded” from Defense cuts. It really annoys me that people like Inhofe want to keep everything in the Defense Department, whether or not it works.

As for tax increases, let’s not do them in the middle of an economic recession.

Surprise surprise.

No where is there the option of eliminating the Department of Education or the Department of Commerce or the Department of Energy, for starters. No where is there the option of closing US military bases by consolidating operations. I missed the part where government departments are eliminated by contracting the work, where necessary. How about making government employees pay for a significant portion of their benefits.

Now then, how about phasing out and privatizing Medicare and SS.

The bottom line is that the NYT gives you a batch of politically acceptable or unacceptable options, none of which will touch the deficit. The problem is systemic. The only way to fix it is to fix the system by downsizing it significantly.

I agree with mbecker908 that this is complete crap on a stick. However this is based on the current debt commission, so for giggles I picked my favorites:

BigGator5′s Answer

You can clearly get a balance budget by cutting all the choices given you. I like to do more like mbecker908 says, but it’s a start.

Balancing the budget is one thing, but I’d also want do something about the overall debt. I don’t like their choices on taxes, however I went the Flat Tax route.

Again, this is just a game. Take it with a grain of salt.

But I think it is a worthy exercise at RS and elsewhere to discuss and argue about what might be off the table and why.

But I tell you one thing. Nothing is to be negotiated with the Democrats. They desire nothing that Americans want. They desire their own power and dominion. We do not meet them in the middle. We do not give here in order to take there. We won. America spoke.

So when we decide amongst conservatives what is the best plan for America, then that’s the way we roll.

Cool link, even if the logic is flawed.

It is a line-item budget paradigm, which is unrealistically simplistic but I suppose useful as a conversation-starter. It is nearly impossible to get home with 100% cuts – at least from a feasibility standpoint IMO.

More to the point, I agree with mbecker’s sentiment above. There are plenty sacred cows that could easily be taken down to save some REAL cash. An across-the-board cut (like one highlighted on the page) is certainly useful and easily sustained, but some WHOLE departments and several others could be cut by HALF — and I am convinced we would ALL be the better for it.

See also: dramatically reforming “public servant” unions

Further, Defense spending could and should be more efficient AND quicker in gestation. From my un-educated position I think you could do the same or possibly more, with notably less cash. I elected some research cuts here to get home, but I think that area in particular is overly simplistic in its view….I guess deservedly so in this context. This is one area that is desperately in need of a Zero-Base reform strategy.

BA Cyclone’s elections