Isn't he also the guy who believes "Intelligent Design" is an actual scientific theory?

Still, most polls I've seen of those who qualify as "millionaires" believe their taxes should go up. Government revenue is at an extremely low rate, historically speaking. The only taxes that should be lowered are for small businesses who are struggling to stay alive, much less grow.

There never was a surplus. It's a myth. It is a surplus based on standard accounting tricks the government uses. Look at the amount of united states debt outstanding per year. It never went down. Not once. Including the late 90s. Look it up. Oh heck, I'll do it for you.

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt.htm

Look at the numbers. You'll see they never go down. Ever.

Federal government spent over a trillion dollars on 82 means tested welfare programs. That's larger than even the defense budget. Welfare spending up 32% since 2008.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/18/report-welfare-governments-single-largest-budget-item-in-fy-2011-at-approx-1-03-trillion/

The solution is not even to cut spending (though I would love to see welfare eliminated by making any handouts civil debt against the recipients estate.) The solution is economic growth. We have been growing less each year the last several years. Most of the GDP growth has been in government spending.

Realistically you can't just shut it all down at once because sadly too many communities depend on military bases, government offices,etc, but you can slowly ramp it back. It's a balance that has to happen. Clearly making it larger is not working.

The United States won't ever get economic growth until it gets its monetary policy in order (you cannot having investment without savings, and you won't get savings with such low interest rates, and high inflation.), and it won't get its monetary policy in order until it gets its fiscal policy in order (interest rates can't rise, because then the Fed Government cannot afford the debt).

So, if the US wants to go back into prosperity, it first needs to eliminate the Federal deficit, over night. It then needs to work with its borrowers to restructure the debts, and it then needs to severely reduce the unfunded liability (though, there's less time pressure here, but some reductions need t come today).

After all that,  the Fed can allow interest rates to rise, the printing presses will stop, and the dollar will start reclaiming its value. Americans can start saving again, investing, and producing. Jobs will start flowing back into the country, and the trade deficit would also start to diminish.

... but, none of this will happen. At the current path, the ONLY result is hyperinflation, and a totalitarian Government.

Err are we living in the same country ?

I don't think most americans know what the word savings means...

This is the country of mortgage refinance and credits cards and the whole domestic economy is based on consumers  buying stuff through credit.......

How many adults on this site have 0 debts ? ( I do but I wasn't born in the US even if I live there so I was raised with different values).

As for economic growth you have to be realistic, baring a new technologic breakthrough like we had with computers in the 80s-90s the western world can not experience sustained growth of more than 4-5% in the next decade....

Growth is going at best to reach 4% and most likely stay closer to 3%...

The only reason we can't cut spending enough is *will*--it has nothing at all to do with being unable to do it.

(And, of course, that is music to the 'hand always out for 'free' money' left's ears, because we are cowards and won't cut the entitlements that need to be cut. Period. You simply *cannot* tax the "rich" enough to make up the shortfall. Period. It's magical thinking. Take *all* of their money and you're still looking at *trillions* in liabilities. Wake up and smell the coffee, folks, the ride is over.)

I'm not arguing that we should not cut spending. I'm saying you can't just do it overnight. Would I like to see it happen? Sure. However the sad reality is government has injected itself into the economy in too many ways. Suppose we stopped consuming oil overnight. The same thing happens with stopping spending over night.

My point about growth was that if there was no will to stop spending we could grow into it. The 2008 deficit was $151 billion. We were almost there. But then TARP and a trillion dollar deficit. Oops. Bush's last budget was $3.1 trillion over 2.7 the year before. The first year of Obama with the stimulus it was $3.7 trillion. (Whatever happened to the days of 1.9 trillion which was clinton's last. Bush promised to cut spending and lied. I supported him for that reason and got pissed off a few years later.)

It is true, though. If government spending is going to be some percentage of GDP (which is way up under Obama) then grow GDP to lower the amount of spending relatively. It's that simple. We can have growth if government got out of the way. ($40 billion in new regulations Obama's first year??) The medical device industry, America's last great bastion of innovation (we are still number one) is going to be hit with a 2.5% tax on sales with Obamacare starting next year. (or is it 2014?) They were the only group to not cow-tow to the policy so they got punished.

Ail mentioned that we won't have a new technology like we did with computers in the 80s and 90s. I say: why not? Sure we can! And we will. As soon as we encourage more entrepreneurship instead of punishing success in this country.

What we need to do is disincentivize plunder. Impose penalties for companies that ship jobs overseas (by penalizing them salary/wages + benefits + 20% of every worker they outsource in that fiscal year, so that not only do they not save on outsourcing, they pay more than they would have otherwise), restrict commodities speculation, shut down the corporate income tax in lieu of a VAT (except for the Outsourcing penalty), and raise the penalties for off-shore tax evasion.

What. You're deliberately making the economy less efficient, and hence lowering the world standard of living, just to save American jobs?

I'm not against free trade as such, but we can't just have companies ruining livelihoods in their quest to make a buck either.

Perhaps we could force companies to pay for the retraining of workers they have fired due to outsourcing, to enable them to get a new career?

Those people made the wrong choice of career. The supply/demand balance shifted so that their demands for $40k salary are now far overpriced compared to the $10k demand in another country.

The two ways I would solve outsourcing are: 1) full workers' rights and social security in developing countries, to raise their cost of employment to something appropriate, 2) remove import duties, uneven world taxation and other factors that make the cost of living so much higher in the US for the same basket of goods, thereby increasing foreign wage demands. That way a US worker can compete with a Chinese one on an even basis. If there is any retraining to be done it should be via government-provided free university tution or vocational courses for anyone who is unemployed.