Uhhh ... except that the numbers in that article are demonstrably false. This is a chart showing Federal spending, based on figures from the CBO:
Medicare and Social Security consume 61% of Federal spending.
If I was really going to try and correct federal spending I would propose the following:
Phase in changes to the age people are eligible for both SS and Medicare. Currently everyone born after 1960 has a retirement age of 67. I would propose that people born after 1975 have a new retirement age of 69.
Similarly the current age Medicare kicks in is 65. I would phase in an increase in age as follows:
Born 1970+ = age 66
Born 1980+ = age 67
Born 1990+ = age 68
Those two changes alone would help forecast solvency for both programs over the long term.
In the short term, it would be difficult to make immediate cuts to either program (although finding waste spending and cheats/abuse might save 1-2% but would cost 1-2% to "find and fix").
So that leaves how we slow down spending on the other 40% ($1,472.5 Billion).
1. Make a directive that yearly increases in the budget are HALF the federal tax increase realized the year before. If tax revenue goes up 4% between 2015 and 2016, this portion of the budget can only go up 2% for example.
2. Then I would start making cuts:
Defense - Cut to $600B (Save $9.3B)
Interest - Nothing
Veteran's Benefits - No Cuts but this pieces needs looked at HARD by someone to clean up problems. And I might consider getting rid of all VA healthcare completely and just giving all veterans Medicare if that's cheaper.
Food & Agriculture - Cut to $125B (save 10.7B) - federal government is too involved with food production subsidies and price fixing
Education - Cut to $100B (save 2.3B) - again, this is a State issue. States should be increasing taxes to cover education if it's not good enough or fix their own problems.
Transportation/Infrastructure - Increase to $100B (add $15B)
Housing & Community - Cut to $50B (save $11.5B) - No idea what the **** this is other than HUD and low-income housing grants. Let the market dictate prices. Housing is cheap right now anyhow.
International Affairs - Cut to $25B (save 25.2B)- We can't afford whatever we are sending all around the world when we are borrowing $500B a year.
Energy and Environment - Cut to $40B (save 4.8B) - I think a lot of this is subsidies to alternate energy and tax credits which I would get rid of now.
Science - Raise to $30B (add 0.2B)) - really no change, just rounding up
NET RESULT = Cut federal spending immediately by $48.6B dollars. Every year moving forward federal growth would be cut for a while.
Hopefully tax revenue rises with economic growth (no new taxes, I would fix the tax code to try and remain close to where we are now - total income around $3.25 trillion).
