Possible solution to overspending

[Mr Skeptic]

OK, so I just randomly thought up a possible solution to our government spending spree, and possibly also to other problems. The idea is to have our congresscritters "own" the debt they generate; that is, they and the people they represent could be made to bear some of the responsibility for it. The idea is as follows:

 

1) Tracking the Congresscritter's Debt.

The congresscritter's votes on various bills are tracked, and the spending and income of the bills are tracked and estimated. The estimated amount that they owe/bring in would be the Estimated Debt Dollars (EDD), and would just be so the congresscritter and the people have an idea of what their future holds. The Cumulative Debt Dollars (CDD) is the overall sum of the income/loss of the bills the congresscritter voted for. Both are only for bills that actually passed, and both are divided equally among the congresscritters that voted for it. This is for their seat, not the individual, so it is not reset when getting a new congresscritter.

 

2) Preventing Debt Accumulation.

There would be two ways to prevent the congresscritters from accumulating debt. The first is "selling" their vote in exchange for other congresscritter's Debt Dollars. In this case their vote for that bill won't count for/against their Debt Dollars unless they want it to, and their Debt Dollars are reduced by whatever the other congresscritters "paid" to get their vote.

The second prevention system is that should they accumulate a given amount of Cumulative Debt Dollars past a certain limit, then they lose their ability to vote for a certain period of time (or maybe give them a limited number of votes), after which their debt is forgiven or at least reduced. However they may still "sell" their vote if that would put them above the limit.

 

The purpose of all this would be to give more voice to our fiscally responsible congresscritters (and the people they represent) and less voice to our fiscally irresponsible congresscritters (and the people they represent). However this might change the dynamics of the Congress in other strange ways so I'm not really sure what the overall effect would be.

 

So what do you people think? Good idea, bad idea, needs [explain] modification?

[Pangloss]

Well those are pretty good ideas, and I support adding a lot more transparency to government.

 

But the real problem is entitlement spending. Defense, including Iraq and Afghanistan, is less than $700B/yr, and no other department spends more than about 10-11% of what Defense spends. So even if you were to completely eliminate all defense spending whatsoever you'd only cut the deficit in half.

 

That's what people on the left don't seem to get about the public's objection to Obamacare. It's an insanely complicated way of trying to make that entitlement spending more efficient and hopefully less costly -- by a few billions here and there. In theory it might help us balance the budget in a few years. That's like saying "Oh look, if I buy this Lamborgini instead of a Volkswagon, I'll be insanely over my budget, BUT I can win races and use the winnings to cover the extra debt!"

 

So the solution to overspending is to get off this ridiculous notion that massive entitlement spending is a good idea. I like your idea, but until we get rid of the teat we're not going to be able to solve the problem.

[Mr Skeptic]

Well, I'm thinking it can apply just fine to our entitlement spending too. After all, laws cost money just as spending projects do, and that can at least more or less be tracked.

[CaptainPanic]

If you make the congressmen owners of the debt, are they also owners of the profit?

I'm sure that a hedge fund can turn a country into a profit machine. Questions is whether I'd like to live there.

 

Also, governments that spend a lot are unpopular now in the USA. But just wait until they stop spending, and hear the people's opinions then!

See, the people want their government to give them a comfortable and happy life. For free. The people aren't very reasonable... but they do have the power to vote.

[The Bear's Key]

Your #1 proposal is a decent start for producing effective change. But #2 needs improvement because we need something that'll be easier for citizens to track, and where it's at, it seems open to loopholes and purposeful confusion by lawmakers.

 

Also you need to include tax cuts as well, to be treated as spending.

 

 

But the real problem is entitlement spending. Defense, including Iraq and Afghanistan, is less than $700B/yr, and no other department spends more than about 10-11% of what Defense spends. So even if you were to completely eliminate all defense spending whatsoever you'd only cut the deficit in half.

Oh, please. And it's never as black and white as politicians reveal it.

 

$3.3 Trillion Embezzled Before Bailout

 

First see the link above -- spending mostly by the Pentagon; although a smaller organization gets mention as well, but, then if you continue to read on the following two revelations....

 

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml

 

More money for the Pentagon, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports, while its own auditors admit the military cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends.

 

"According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted.

 

$2.3 trillion — that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. To understand how the Pentagon can lose track of trillions, consider the case of one military accountant who tried to find out what happened to a mere $300 million.

 

"We know it's gone. But we don't know what they spent it on," said Jim Minnery, Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

 

Plus, the CIA...

 

http://www1.american.edu/salla/Articles/BB-CIA.htm#Legal

 

In 1967, Richardson made an effort to discover the true size of the CIA’s ‘black budget’ by writing a letter to the US Government Printing Office. He requested a copy of the CIA budget “published by the Government in compliance with Article I, section 9, clause 7 of the United States Constitution.” [10] Richardson received replies from the US Treasury that essentially rebuffed his efforts and he decided to start a Federal court action against the US government. He argued that the CIA Act was “repugnant to the Constitution” since it “operates to falsify the regular Statement and Account of all public Money.”

.....

Never in the history of this country has so much money been spent without the traditional safeguard of openness and in direct defiance of constitutional provisions…. Billions are spent each year by unknown entities and this amount is spread throughout the Treasury’s reporting system to confuse the public and belittle the Constitution. [12]

 

Thus, since examining the budget would reveal the true cost of the "Black Budget", it therefore must pull money from other budgets in a top secret manner. So how do we know they don't (each year) pull a whopping amount of $$ from progressives' budgets.....yet any Dems knowing this -- only a few -- would be required by law to keep mum.

 

And it'd be just like the right-wing, maximizing the advantage, to then blame progressive laws as inefficient and wasteful, knowing that the (few) Dems who know otherwise, legally can't refute it or discuss nationally sensitive info (taxes supposedly funding progressive agendas, instead spent on black budget) plus keeping it a secret, as well, from the majority of other Republican leaders/peers they've managed to convert against progressive spending.

 

Reflect on something....more ways exist to corrupt a system (or anything) than exist to repair it. And that's the ultimate weakness of having secrecy in government. When it's transparent, everyone can look at how it works at every level.

 

Corruption always wants secrecy as its companion to power.

 

 

P.S. By the way, not everyone jumps on the opportunity to spend funds handed to them. Lots of money from Stimulous remains unspent, and most of the Tarp funds remain unspent as well.