Originally posted by no1marauder
They can raise them on the unproductive rich if they feel the need to raise more revenue. But the deficit isn't our biggest problem and besides we'll never get that under control unless we put America to work again.
One big and very easy measure that would go a long way toward reducing the deficit would be to cut the military budget in half, since I'd say at least half of the military budget is really just corporate welfare wrapped in the flag like a pig in a blanket.
Of course this cannot be done without consequences. A large part of what has made the U.S. the world leader in technological innovation over the course of the last half a century has nothing to do with the "free market" and everything to do with the perpetual "stimulus" U.S. technology developers and manufacturers get from military contracts. It's fashionable to whine about how unfair it is that U.S. companies like Boeing have to compete against foreign companies like Airbus that get direct government subsidies, but just because we like to truss up our own government subsidies as "private contracts" with the military and whatnot does not mean we don't infuse our private sector with massive subsidies. We do. But our way of doing it is inefficient because of the indirectness of it and also because a lot of the "private contracts" are for the development of utterly useless weapons of war and destruction.
So, when I say slash the military budget in half, I hasten to add that a fair chunk of the money saved (not necessarily all of it) should subsequently be redirected toward more constructive things -- such as your proposed job creation program and modernizing the nation's crumbling infrastructure.
Obviously pulling out of the gratuitous -- and UNPAID FOR -- wars the previous president conned the nation into would be another massive money saver (saying nothing of the humongous morality and credibility deficit the previous Republican regime left us with).
Yes, Obama needs to get his ass out of neutral and start doing something. I'm tired of the country being held hostage by the infantile temper tantrums of those whining bitches Boehner and McConnell, who clearly are not only in bed with the richest 1% but contorted into impossible pretzel knots with them (although they both look like they haven't been laid in a coon's age).