Legal Commentary

Be Your Own Catfood Commission

By Big Tent Democrat

Via Tom Levenson at Balloon Juice, I just proved I am a Very Serious Person by putting the federal budget in surplus by 2015. Here is the NYTimes gizmo.

How I did it - 71% in revenue increases and 29% in spending cuts. What I raised - the estate tax to Clinton era levels (raised $50 billion), added a bank tax (raised $73 billion), added a millionaire's tax (raised $50 billion), let the Bush tax cuts expire (raised $226 billion), raised the FICA ceiling (raised $50 billion). For spending cuts I adopted these proposals - reduced Social Security benefits for high earners (saved $6 billion), enacted medical malpractice reform (saved $8 billion), reduced the number of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to 30,000 by 2013 (saved $86 billion), made defense spending cuts (saving $57 billion), eliminated farm subsidies (saved $14 billion) and "earmarks" (saved $14 billion.)

I did not even use the "close tax loopholes" option which could have saved $136 billion. The reason I did not is because that more than ever is the phoniest nonsense of all. "Tax loopholes" never go away. Ever. And I still do not get how eliminating "earmarks" saves money. Anyway, so how "serious am I? I put the federal budget into $248 billion surplus by 2015. With bipartisan ideas even. Name me budget czar!

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on November 14, 2010 (boomark / email).