After examining the list of options where we
could contribute to reducing the debt, I was surprised that I only saw
Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security and defense as some of the key
options for reducing the deficit. What about "wasteful spending" ??
What about taking from welfare and food stamps ?? What about taking c...apital
from areas around the country like roads and bridges that "HARDLY ANYONE" uses or drives on ?? 3.1 million to
repaint a bridge that hardly anyone uses in a given area in the
country ?? I am sure we could put that money to better use and those
people can find an alternate route to take on the road ! Why should
we need to keep messing with social security ? I think that with a
little more thought and effort we can all get through this correctly.
See more here on this blog :

http://hannity.blogs.foxnews.c...

And the " FINAL" grand total for all the ways the government is spending ("wasting") our hard earned tax dollars:
GRAND TOTAL: $4,891,645,229

RE: Hannity's list of goofy spending
$4,891,645,229 is one quarter of one percent of the total net costs of the Operating Fund in 2009 ($1,907,000,000,000 - $1,907 billion). 4.8 / 1,907.0

The Comptroller General says in the 2009 US Financial Report (p.31), that four agencies have financial records that are so bad, they cannot yet BE audited ---let alone, pass an audit! These four agencies account for about $906 billion or 34 percent of the federal government's reported total consolidated assets as of September 30,2009, and approximately $784 billion, or 41 percent of the Operating Fund's reported net operating cost for fiscal year 2009. ('09 Operating Fund income - $1,193 biullion, and net costs - $1,907 billion.)

In the USA, in 2010, our Departments of Defense, State, NASA, and Homeland Security are unable to master accurate and honest accounting and reporting. Is this an acceptable standard? Is this the best we can do? Really?

GP99 and Hannity are fussing about $4.9 billion, a relative paltry sum at 1/4 of 1 percent of the Operating Fund expense (and an even smaller percentage if you add in trust fund spending). This 'pork' spending is also notorious for one State's necessity/priority sounding like a boondoggle to people in other Stat's. And, certainly some of it is probably crony spending and/or foolish.

However, isn't it more important to know that the $784 billion in spending, that cannot pass an audit, is honestly spent on reasonable expenses. The Department of Defense spending in 2009 was $682 billion, and the DoD cannot give us an account of its spending that can be audited. If the DoD is blowing even 2% on waste, fraud and corruption, then it's blowing $13.64 billion each year ---more than 4 times Hannity's list of horrors.

How about demanding that all agencies spending tax dollars MUST be able to pass an audit? If they cannot, then their budget is cut by 10% each year until they can. I'll bet they'd find a way to keep accurate records and produce accurate reports in a hurry, and we would be in a better position to determine what is necessary and what is wasteful spending.

FairTax is supported by $23 million in objective economic research. For that reason, I have to question any analysis that doesn't at least include consideration of FairTax. Is there a compelling reason why America Speaks has chosen to do so?

Like Ms. Hammon, I have more than a layperson's exposure to facilitation and mediation (though I must add, unlike her, I am not trained per se); but I also have a similar background in data collection and the constraints of surveys and their use in scientific analysis. For that reason alone, I laud America Speaks in their design of the process and their integrity in keeping to those constraints.

As for the details, and the seeming inability to understand their opening statement of "this will not be comprehensive", I respectfully submit that charges of bias are unnecessary. They stated their bias -- rather, stated where they found it impossible to avoid bias despite their desire to do so -- very clearly. I would further suggest that the topical areas covered were diverse and complex, and only those already well-versed in those areas will find "bias" in their attempt to bring the vast majority "up to speed" on that complexity. I have a strong sympathy for that -- call it a bias, if you wish -- being accounted an expert in Social Security during my first career as a pension actuary. That's not bragging, it's a simple statement. Would you not want someone with that expertise as your consultant on millions of dollars worth of tax consequences to your business, employees or union members?

Bias works both ways. I bit my tongue upon hearing "SocSec is a ponzi scheme!" not because I agree, but because I know it was not the time or place to educate people on a complex subject.

I participated on June 26, 2010 in the America Speaks forum on the budget. The Town Hall was an impressive enterprise, and participants were treated very well (early arrival incentive, coffee, snacks, lunch, parking). However, I left feeling a bit like a rat in a gilded maze, that made it to the payout trough.

As an early childhood educator and parent of four, I know the technique, “Do you want to wear the pink shirt or the blue shirt?” Asking a young child, “What shirt do you want to wear?” instead can lead to difficulties—pawing interminably through drawers and selecting totally inappropriate garments, and then ensuing arguments…

So, we were asked, “Do you want to raise taxes and/or cut expenses? Which ones?” We were given an enormous deficit projection of $1,200 billion for the year 2025, and given the task of making the choices that would eliminate this projected deficit. To meet the projected deficit required cutting just about everything, and adding new taxes, so like the young child, we all ended up on the record in either the blue shirt or the pink shirt.

We were not asked, “How can we make our government’s fiscal situation healthy and sustainable?”

I heard a lot of comments from people who felt railroaded by the whole process; people were concerned that their multiple choice answers, which did not include other preferred and potentially viable options, would be used to promote choices that they did not really support. I share this concern.

As a trained mediator and facilitator, I can appreciate the need to establish a structure, and frame the issues and choices. However, ANY frame of issues presents a bias, and everyone is best served when that bias is made so clear it can be taken into account and balanced.

Facts–stories–feelings–actions
In the book, Crucial Conversations, authors Patterson, Grenny, McMillan and Switzler define a process: we experience a situation, interpret it within the frame of our own experience, tell it as a story, then respond to the story with feelings that drive our actions.

When conversations are crucial, and certainly addressing the nation’s financial situation is crucial, it is important to back all the way up to the facts first. We need agreement on the facts before proceeding to look at the conflicting stories, strong feelings and compelling action choices. Sometimes just understanding the facts better changes the stories , the feelings, the options and the outcome choices.

The Town Hall planners clearly intended to begin with some ‘facts,’ but they chose to go with budget projections. US budgets are all ‘cash-based,’ which means they only look at the actual money that comes in and goes out, not the commitments that are made and that must be booked in a given year. When you can leave out all the commitments you make to your personnel (for pensions and health care, etc.), it skews the costs of programs considerably, making all operational programs look like they cost less in relation to the social insurance program outlays.

Projections REQUIRE making assumptions. Any assumption can have dramatic effects on the ‘data’ presented. If you’re even a little off in your rate, the impact can be quite exaggerated when played out 15 years.

Big assumptions were made in the 2025 projections presented to the Town Hall, and each assumption pushes the projections in a biased direction:
- Assume that the Department of Defense will continue to spend about the same, despite serious depletions in its equipment base from the ongoing wars in the Middle East. (…makes the Defense spending in 2025 look smaller than it might under alternative assumptions.)
- Assume that the tax cuts made under Bush II, which are set to expire in 2010, will NOT be allowed to expire. (…makes the deficit look considerably larger – Newsweek estimates that renewing these tax cuts will add $6,000 billion to the debt between 2012 and 2022, or an average of $600 billion each year which is half the projected $1,200 billion that participants were asked to save by the options presented)
- Assume that the cost of health care itself will grow at a rate of about 8% per year because Americans will be unable to figure out how to bring health care costs in line with those in the rest of the world. (An 8% annual increase doubles costs every 14 years, so while this dark assumption about Americans’ problem-solving ingenuity may be valid, it inflates the costs of Medicare and Medicaid considerably.)
- Assume that Medicare and Medicaid costs, for this purpose, can be projected without including the historical offsetting contributions from the general fund. (Increases the projected size of these costs).
- Assume that some unspecified tax reform would generate roughly $2,060 billion in revenues if implemented. There is no way to know what kind of reform was used to calculate this assumption, or whether alternative tax reform options would generate more or less. (…pushes people toward finding solutions in the raising taxes and cutting social insurance spending categories.)
- …/….

Overall, the assumptions appear to push people into seeing cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and increased taxes as the only viable solutions.

Disgruntled participants wondered why the following, which all contribute to our financial situation were not on the table:
- The fractional reserve monetary system, which REQUIRES a growing federal debt as the foundation of the money supply.
- The health care system, which currently costs America about twice what other developed countries pay, and gets us considerably poorer results.
- Multiple tax reform options, including a single-payer health insurance option

It is wonderful that we have funders with deep pockets willing to stimulate public discussion of important issues facing this nation, and the skilled people and technology to bring so many people into the process. It is also encouraging to have so many citizens deeply interested in researching and contributing to effective decision-making. Getting agreement on the facts BEFORE telling our stories, expressing our feelings, and moving on to making decisions about future actions would make our problem-solving process considerably more effective.

I agree with Ms. Hammon's analysis, but I'm downright thrilled by the way the participants stepped up to the plate and made their views shine through. (For a copy of the actual Preliminary Report: http://www.box.net/shared/hhzp18rinm.) Now, how will the national discussion be reported to the President and Congress?

Thanks for the ability to participate here.

"AmericaSpeaks: Our Budget, Our Economy is an effort to engage the American people in the debate over our nation’s fiscal future. Many options for the public to consider during the national discussion will be presented, from reducing spending to raising taxes."

There are other options for our "fiscal future" that look at more than the difference in the US Treasury's deposits minus withdrawals in it's account at the Fed. and the corresponding offset thru the issuance of Treasury Securities. As a sovereign, the US Govt is never spending constrained by either tax revenues or Treasury issuance, the US Govt is legally authorized to credit any bank account for purchases of goods and services that the private sector makes available for sale to them.

A narrow focus on what is essentially an accounting number (what is called the Fiscal Deficit/Surplus) is not truly exploring our country's true options for a "fiscal future".

I suggest we explore re-engineering our current arrangements of how the Treasury operates fiscal, and the inter-related way the Fed operates monetary policies that would lead to better social outcomes for ALL Americans.

A discovery process that just addresses "how do we 'balance the budget' in the intermediate term?", perhaps excludes other structural alternatives that will alllow our nation to live up to it's potential. The US Govt is not like a household that has to "balance the budget", in fact it is the opposite...the US govt thru its citizens is empowered to act on their behalf to have the Treasury spend thru legislative fiat for any goods or services that the people deem necessary, without having to issue Treasury Securities if that is the way we also want to conduct the related Monetary Policy.

I will seek here to have these types of longer term solutions explored thru your process..

Resp,

Our goal is not to advocate for any of the options, but rather to create a space where Americans can learn about a wide range of options and consider the trade-offs involved with putting our nation on a long-term, sustainable fiscal path. We will not encourage participants to support any option and will provide all participants with opportunities to add their own options to the discussion.