Can an Army of Davids Best the Mount Everest of Debt?
PJ Finance: Explore recommendations on how to address the massive U.S. deficit by everyday Americans and by economic and financial professionals. You can also submit your own solutions.
July 25, 2011 - 3:58 pm
Revenue is irrelevant as long as DC will spend it all.
Much like the image we have of Fort Knox (probably an image cemented by “Goldfinger”), the country has a huge bank of wealth that it adds to, not spends, every year. I speak of the Federal Lands in Western states. The land, if sold as surface and minerals, would raise a meaningful amount of money for the treasury.
I would be a vocal proponent of a bill that would tie the sale of Federal Lands with the proceeds being used exclusively for debt retirement. I would be happy to assist with prioritizing which lands should be sold, i.e. yes to BLM ranch lands in Wyoming and New Mexico, no to Death Valley and the Grand Canyon.
Scott this is something never mentioned, but it is despicable socialism for the government to own 50% of the land west of the Mississippi River and manage it with the favoritism endemic to government.
We can also slash the budgets of selected bureaus; it is ridiculous to advocate across-the-board cuts instead of cherry-picking. Offer buyouts, mandate attrition, cut salaries & benefits to encourage workers to quit, anything to reduce the Dept. of Energy, Dept. of Education, NEA, EPA and the 69 overlapping agencies doing social work outside of Medicaid and Welfare.
And finally, Duh! Make energy independence a military and economic priority.
One thing should be crystal clear as we move to some kind of accommodation on the Debt Ceiling issue and future budgets.
Any plan that puts forth a so called spending reduction that retains a “Base Line Budget”, in particular the 7% per annum built in growth of spending, is nothing more than at best a colossal misapplication of basic economics theory or at worst a monumental lie being spread by monumental liars.
I strongly suspect the latter.
Just an idea I am throwing out for comment.
Fannie, Freddie and the banks borrow money at very low interest rates and then charge homebuyers several points more for interest rate risk, etc.
Now that the govt is backing Fannies loans it seems to me that the taxpayers should not be paying the point spread to Fannie, which is quite a bit of money.
What is the govt bypassed Fannie, provided mortgages and used the interest rate spread to pay down the dept.