GOP Plan to eliminate deficits to take 100 Years

Discussion in 'Politics' started by hermit, Jul 28, 2010.

  1. Sen. John Thune (R-SD) -- the fifth highest ranking Republican in the Senate -- has a new plan for lowering deficits, and as you might expect from GOP leadership, it involves zero tax hikes. It does however, involve math and, if his appearance on Fox News last night is any indication, Thune finds math rather difficult. There's really no other way to explain his utter failure to remember the law of diminishing returns when he talked about the benefits of his deficit reduction plan.

    Appearing on Fox News, Thune and host Greta Van Susteren discussed the bill's call for the creation of a Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction, tasked with reducing the deficit 10 percent year over year.

    "It would be required to find 10% in savings -- 10% of the deficit in savings every budget cycle," Thune said.

    "So in 10 years we wouldn't have a deficit?" van Sustern asked.

    "Theoretically, yes," Thune replied. "10% Is a floor. Obviously -- you can go beyond that."

    This is what's known in think tank (and Twitter) circles as a #mathfail.

    According to Thune's plan, "the new Joint Committee must introduce legislation that eliminates or reduces spending on wasteful government programs and achieves a savings of at least 10 percent of the previous year's budget deficit." Because the deficit would decrease yearly, the actual returns on 10 percent annual savings would diminish over time, such that it would take decades to reduce the deficit to one percent of its current level. Forty-three years to be exact. For those who remember Zeno's paradox, it would actually be impossible to ever completely eliminate the deficit under the Thune plan.

    And that, of course, would only happen if the legislation produced by the committee was passed and signed into law.

    "My bill would cut and cap spending, reform the broken budget process, end the trust fund dishonesty, and create a new permanent joint Congressional committee tasked with continuously cutting the deficit without raising taxes," reads Thune's statement announcing his proposal. It would also establish a non-defense discretionary spending cap based on pre-Obama appropriations, end stimulus spending (though not stimulus tax cuts), make the federal budget a binding joint resolution and create a legislative line-item veto.

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    http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...eliminate-deficits-in-10-20-years.php?ref=fpa
     
  2. Wallet

    Wallet

    And the DNC"s plan to eliminate the deficit will take........??????? Oh, that's right they don't have one, they are to busy increasing it.

    Stupid thread.
     
  3. I credit Thune with trying to be honest and realistic unlike other republicans (and democrats)

    Mandatory spending (interest /entitlements etc )and defense in the 2010 budget costs 2.8 trillion.


    Uncle sam brought in 2.3 trillion



    Mandatory and defense alone runs a 500 billion dollar deficit.Even without the wars its a 300 billion dollar deficit

    Again I credit Thune with being honest,unlike McCain who said he would balance the budget in his first term
     
  4. Wallet

    Wallet


  5. Which administration turned the surplus into deficit again and left the country in the great recession without putting the wars, Medicare Part D and bailouts on the budget?
     
  6. republicans are hypocrits:

    WASHINGTON — House Republicans who have spent months demanding spending cuts blanched Wednesday at their first opportunity to actually make them, instead joining Democrats in treating a bill to pay for veterans programs in 2011 as politically sacrosanct in an election year.
     
  7. Lucrum

    Lucrum

    Hypocrites?
    So are democrats.

    Where does that leave us?
     
  8. God forbid that those who as teenagers fought in foreign wars and risked their lives for the U.S. receive any where near the same benefits as some fat-ass Department of Education retiree.



     
  9. as opposed to the democrats, who would have increased the surplus after 9/11? Maybe if the Dems had been more assertive on their watch, we could have avoided 9/11 and the following collapse. (that about makes as much sense as your statement...)
     
    #10     Jul 29, 2010