VentureBeat

The economy consists of hundreds of millions of decisions being made every second. To think that one man can "fix" it is folly on a grand scale.

What he needs to do is to let those who've got it coming to fail.

Spend money on repowering america according to Al Gore.

Go after the deficit until it's neutral.

That would make him the greatest president in 100 years.

Between a rock and a hard place.

We run businesses on this website. In business, in hard times the question is not whether we either cut back or leverage up, it is 'which programs do we cut back on and which do we expand on a borrowed dollar'? Is USA Inc different?:

2009 Proposal .................................................................................... (billions USD)
National defense.................................................................................... 675 Subtotal
Human resources ............................................................................... 1,941 Subtotal =
Education, training, employment, and social services.............................. 88
Health .................................................................................................... 299
Medicare................................................................................................. 413
Income security ..................................................................................... 401
Social security ....................................................................................... 649
Veterans benefits and services ............................................................... 91
Physical resources.................................................................................. 149 Subtotal =
Energy ....................................................................................................... 3
Natural resources and environment .........................................................35
Commerce and housing credit ...................................................................4
Transportation ......................................................................................... 84
Community and regional development ................................................... 23
Other functions....................................................................................... 158 Subtotal =
International affairs.................................................................................. 38
General science, space and technology................................................... 29
Agriculture ............................................................................................... 19
Administration of justice........................................................................... 51
General government ................................................................................ 21

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/ - Historical Tables - Table 3.1

riazrizvi - Nope, a US budget should reviewed carefully like any other budget. I think we need to focus on what we need to have rather than what's nice to have and raise taxes to start filling the gap. Specifically,

Entitlements (Medicare & Social Security) - Immediately put together a bipartisan commission to come up with a recommendation within 6 months and vote up or down like the base closings.

"Human resources" - not sure what that covers but may use some trimming.

Defense - cross out any items pushed by congress (if the navy doesn't want another carrier, don't buy one just because of "jobs"- build a new bridge instead).

Before the accounting practice of balancing the budget is the bigger question of whether to borrow more money and increase the budget or instead preserve/shrink it. (Raising taxes is like cutting wages in 'USA Inc' so I class it as shrinkage/cuts as opposed to stimulating, which is leveraged expansion i.e. selling Treasuries).

I think you are implying we should not stimulate by borrowing more, instead we should just cut back?

(Human resources includes the items below it before 'Physical Resources')

Hi riazrizvi - You were clear and I agree. We need to do what Sen. Obama
promised which is to go through carefully line by line and cut with a
scalpel. I'd recommend he keeps only what we need to have and cut
everything else including "nice to have" items until we get our ship back in
order financially. Regards.

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