Cutting government: state salaries
The average state bureaucrat salary is $54,309. If you took double the educational rate of $43,664, which is $87,328 and cut all those salaries by 25%, you'd lower that 87k salary down to $65,496, still comfortably above the average. I don't know how much money this would save, but if the state refuses to lay off state bureaucrats, the least they could do would be to cut the salaries to make them feel the same pinch the rest of us are feeling.
Another thought: every dollar for a state employee past the average salary in the state ought to be considered a 'bonus' and if they receive more than that, it's conditional on budget surpluses. No surplus, no bonus.
Labels: budget, policy, taxes, theory
Economics Histrionics
The
UK Telegraph, more accurately Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, writes about the end of economic time here. And while I think, definitely, that this crisis has the opportunity to be the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and I suppose that economically it already is, it will take government mismanagement to create a crisis worse than the Great Depression. Only government can cause massive changes in value and wealth. But, government has a possible solution: slash spending and encourage wealth-development and job creation:
1. Eliminate the capital gains taxes
2. Allow for oil and energy exploration
3. Fast-track approvals for nuclear power plants and oil refineries
4. Slash all needless government programs like NASA, FCC, privatize their services, and extend property rights into the areas formerly controlled by the state. That means, tangibly, to extend property rights into space, or permanently sell the airwaves.
5. Raise the Social Security retirement age to 75, add in part of the legislation to have it slowly raise to 80 in 15 years.
6. Means-test Social Security
7. End the federal highway fund, and put the burden back on the states where it belongs
8. Institute a graduated flat tax to save the costs of compliance
9. Sell the national parks
10. Rescind many/most EPA regulations
11. Means-test public education (i.e. if your family earns over 200k a year, then you don't get free government education)
12. Sell off/privatize most state universities
13. Pass Senator Coburn's health care bill to make health care cheaper and more efficient
14. Cut any program that doesn't clearly add value to the country
Simple enough.
Labels: budget, Economics, policy, politics
Busting Budgetary Bailouts: An Alternative
If the federal government is going to blow through $700 billion in order to bail out these reckless banks, then why not offset that expense with the sale of other government assets? The federal government has a series of things it could do to raise capital to justify these expenses, and if this is as important as they claim it is, then it ought to justify getting rid of wasteful spending.
The CATO Institute has a nice convenient list of what government could sell to raise $81 billion right away, and shed about $5 billion in annual commitments. There's even
a handy guide from CATO about how to trim $300 billion from the federal budget with relatively little pain.
Labels: budget, Economics, government, policy, politics
Government: Where's the money really going?
Again, government math doesn't add up. A $300 billion dollar bailout of 400,000 homes at risk of foreclosure works out to an average of $750,000 per foreclosure. It just doesn't add up, so where's the extra going? Is it spent on secret defense projects, is it being funneled to prop up other social services? This is the main story of the day on Drudge, and yet the media seems to ignore the most basic question: where's the money really going?
Labels: bailout, budget, fiat money, USG
The High Cost of Empire
The war has been quite a poignant collegiate issue, not the least of which because it hearkens back to the era of Vietnam war protests that have been wrongly romanticized. However a real issue has been the cost of these endeavors, and as one who supported both operations when they started, and still do to a degree, I think it's still worth noting that the administration originally said an estimate of $50-60 billion was excessive, and is now receiving a $165 billion appropriation for one year of both operations. Where have these costs come from, and where is it going? It just defies sense, if you paid 250,000 men $100,000 each for a year, you'd get a $25 billion pricetag. Yet wikipedia tells us there are 154,000 troops in Iraq, and 23,000 in Afghanistan. That works out to 177,000 total troops deployed. The Defense department has a normal budget of $439 billion dollar budget on top of all this. So, taking $165 billion divided by 177,000, you get a per troop allotment of $932,203.39 per troop. How can it possibly be costing this country a million dollars per troop abroad, and those brave soldiers are obviously not getting paid a million dollars per man. Where is this money going? Does the label 'unpatriotic' scare away other people from asking this most basic of questions? Why have we given the government a blank check to spend money on war, and continue these outrageous overseas actions. Let's assume that Saddam had WMD, and was the worst guy around, worthy of being toppled… he's gone! The left does seem unpatriotic when they selectively argue for withdrawal from Iraq but ignore the 70,000 troops in Germany or those in Japan, Korea or anywhere else we feel the need to unnecessarily project power. Those who supported the war, such as myself, ought to acknowledge that it appears we have been used and duped by a President more intent on global empire than on keeping America's interests safe. This mirage of world government secured through our military power should be dialed down, toned down, and brought back to the level where it serves us best: when our foreign commitments only serve our clear and compelling national interests. Our commitment to Iraq must end, someday, and when good Americans such as Ron Paul mention this, they ought not be demonized by the anti-intellectual crowd like Sean Hannity. We ought to resist the urge to control the lives of people a world away. The war is over, we're in an occupation, and long-term occupations almost never go well for the foreigner. Let's find a way to exit with honor and stop this senseless hemorrhaging of lives and resources that this operation is causing. Those who propose staying ought to give us clear metrics on what they seek to achieve by staying, without simply saying "stability."
Labels: afghanistan, budget, iraq, mccain, ron paul, war
