We talk about what is happening in Europe and say the we are going down that path. We decide we need to get our deficit under control, and begin cutting our debt. We agree that we need to cut government spending and raise taxes to do this. But WHAT exactly do we cut, and WHICH taxes do we increase? This article gives us a good idea. It is worth the time to figure out.
Many people believe we will have to do this, the only question is if we do it before or after our nation get to the point that our European friends are in.
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I tried to make realistic changes to the budget that would reduce the debt, but there does not seem to be very many politically possible ways of doing so. The most effective means of doing so are the most politically impractical. That disconnect of the public and policy makers to the reality of the economic situation is frankly disturbing.
ReplyDeleteMike Ford
MWF 2pm
I found this very interesting. Cutting the debt is a lot harder then just one decision. Everything is impacted such a significant amount with just one change. What could help reduce the debt may not be what people want to here, there for the politicians won't be elected and nothing will get done. These are one of those times where we're just going to have to learn to "suck it up", even if we don't like it. I'd much rather not run into the same issues as Europe.
ReplyDeleteHattie Cheek
TR 8AM
N'keya Peters (Tue, Thur 8am-9:20am)
ReplyDeleteI think its very easy to cut these taxes and project all this money that would be saved but the impacts it would have on individuals might be disastrous.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteKimberly Boyd MWF 2:00-2:50
ReplyDeleteI thought this was very interesting when we went over in class. There are so many things that could be cut or taxed, but which ones are appropriate? There are some that may cause a substantial shift in the debt, like caping Medicare growth, for example, but what effect will this have on the U.S. citizens? This seems like an issue that will be debated for quiet awhile, and no matter what the outcome may be, someone is not going to be happy with it. There doesn't seem to be one solution to the debt, and the impacts the cuts may have, depending on which ones are chosen, may cause more harm than good to our society. I'm not sure how I personally would solve the debt problem, I think it is something that will always be debating and argued about without one solution that everyone agrees on.
Ashley Gennett T/Th 8-9:20
ReplyDeleteI think this article brings the real problems of the debt to understanding with a simple visual. No matter what we try to do to cut the debt, we are going to have to sacrifice a lot. It's not as easy as cutting back one thing, and I think that realistically this idea is scary to many.
Michael Lam MWF 2-2:50
ReplyDeleteIt is scary to think that if the government does not take action now, America could have the same problems as the ones facing some European nations. It is easy to say that government needs to either cut spending or raise taxes, but some of the options in the article would receive a lot of negative responses. I believe the reason that many of these options have been taken is because of how it would effect some officials from getting elected or re-elected. For example to Cap Medicare Growth starting in 2013 would save the most in the long run, $563 billion, but how would the public respond? But since there is no gain without sacrifice, we just have to have faith that the people we elect into office will make the right decision before it is too late, hopefully.
Americans deficit is huge and its contributing to the enormous debt. I think spending definately needs to be cut and taxes need to be raised slightly. First off, the social security age should be raised to age 70. I also think it would be a good idea to cap medicare growth. Some military speding could be cut, however it is important to keep America's military strong. There is going to be public contoversy with each one of these issues but something needs to be done or America might be going bankrupt.
ReplyDeleteJessica Catanese
Max Ufberg
ReplyDeleteMWF
2:00-2:50
I thought this article was really interesting, in that it showed just how difficult the national budget is. It makes me better grasp the difficulty in managing the budget, and the nation's debt. It doesn't seem, based on this online tool, that there is a realistic solution to eliminate the debt the country has. This is, of course, primarily because the nature of the politics involved won't allow for a politician to run on a campaign that promises all of these changes. The politician simply won't win. Thus, this tool helps to illustrate the difficulty politicians must have in reducing the national debt.
This tool really brings to light the complexity that is involved in attempting to fix the national budget. First and foremost, I think an important change to make is to increase the Social Security retirement age to 70. Though the effects won’t be felt greatly in 2015, the impact it has on the budget by 2030 is a large chunk of our debt. As others have mentioned before me, it is more than likely because of politics that our debt is not being fixed. For example, no one wants to be the one to say “I don’t want you to receive your Social Security funds at age 68”, when it has sort of been promised up to that point in time. Another huge change would be to cap Medicare growth starting in 2013; however, since it directly affects hospitals and doctors, it is not likely that people will want to address this. But I feel that no one really takes the time to explain to the public why this might be helpful to them and their children/grandchildren in the long-run. I played around with the budget cuts, but admittedly I chose things that I was unfamiliar with because I would like to think I wouldn’t be affected by these things but the reality of the fact is that I do not know. Now that this much debt is created and projected, there will never be a politician who can fix it and still be liked by majority of people. In order for this to be “fixed”, someone is going to have to take the role as “the bad guy”. Decisions need to be made based on economics, not on politics.
ReplyDeleteThis really shows that even though we all want to do something about the national debt, its a lot harder than it looks. Even realistic changes to the budget doesn't account for the enormous debt our country is now in. I think the national spending definitely needs to be cut, but only in moderation. Some of the expensive programs the government is currently running are extremely important and they contribute to our expected way of life. There is so much that can be done but it's going to take a lot of time and dedication to start seeing a positive effect.
ReplyDeleteAlexis Haas
TR 8-9:20
Our national debt is not as large as compared to our capacity and growth in the future. Although, realistically it would be hard to cut down on debt in short period of time as the United States have been hit by a big recession in 2008. I think politicians and economists have can only do so much to help reduce the debt, but the main focus is to stimulus the economy. Many of the government spending is important for our economy and growth so, the immediate cut down on those spending would reduce the growth in the future. Overall, it is not so hard to cut the debt, but it would cost the growth in the long run.
ReplyDeleteMuktak Tripathi
MWF, 2:00-2:50 P.M.
I think this article brings up the good point that in order to decrease the debt were going to have to make sacrifices that many people don't want to make. This worries me and makes me wonder if the debt will ever actually decrease because I can't see many politicians running on many of the platforms that decrease the most debt. In theory it seems like a simple solution but when you actually pick it apart piece by piece we can see that the issue we are dealing with will be a very hard one to combat. We must remember thought that sacrifices we make now will help us in the long run so they are beneficial and necessary after all even if they don't appear so now.
ReplyDeleteMeg Schmidt
MWF 2-250
Taisje Claiborne
ReplyDeleteIn class I remember the exercise we did concerning cutting our debt. It seemed as if ALOT of things would have to be cut in order to make a great impact on the deficit. Will cutting these programs cause other problems?
Daniel Moore MWF 2:00pm-2:50pm
ReplyDeleteThe New York Times recent article on the budget crisis was very interesting to me. It is no surprise that the U.S. deficit has been large and increasing for many years, leading to a large accumulation of debt. Although accruing debt is never a good thing for a nation, it is often times a necessary investment in order to strengthen a countries future. For example, a college student may take loans to pay for education. Although 4 years of debt has piled up, the investment should pay off in the future. I believe that the U.S. has good growth potential compared to Europe and Japan as well as having much better financial assets. It is unrealistic for a politician to drastically cut back on spending in many areas shown on the article. Therefore the U.S. should be financially cautious as we head into the future, but concentrate more on the economic growth of businesses and services within the nation.
I remember going over this article and exercise in class and there were some budget cuts made that would not really matter it seemed, but after making no brainer decisions there were many more cuts needed. In reality if we, as a nation would cut more important things like militia—then wouldn’t that cause more problems? It just seems like a dead end, because yes you can make cuts some unimportant and others important but as a result the nation will run into more problems…
ReplyDeleteThe example we did in class were realistic cuts, yet it only solved the short term problems of the debt, not the long term. Ultimately, the nation’s debt problem is not going away and it is not going to be a quick fix.
Jenna Smith TR 8