Readers Respond: What's the Best Way to Reduce the National Debt?

What do you think will provide relief for the U.S. National Debt? Share Your Views

Simple and Balanced Solution

I. Reduce the debt by $8 trillion over 10 years. $750 billion in defense cuts: cut waste in private contracting; reduce investments in new military projects to more sustainable levels; reduce active military personnel by about 8%; demolish 200 bases to save over $55 billion a year; prioritize investments for drones, efficient weapon systems, and cyber-defense systems. $1.25 trillion in entitlement savings: Raise payroll cap to 90% of income; reinstate COLA; reinstate estate taxes; raise premiums for beneficiaries who make over $250,000; progressive indexing. Cut $1.5 trillion from discretionary spending except from NASA and Department of Education. Find ways to remove waste, trim costs, etc. Save $2.8 trillion by repealing Bush tax cuts but retaining about $700 billion for the middle class. Institute Buffet Rule and save $500 billion. Reform tax code: decrease about 70% of all tax expenditures unless they are PROVEN to promote a significant amount of growth. Close loopholes corp welfar

—Guest Freshieee

to help

i think we should just stop spending so much on war and get our soldiers home.

—Guest green leaf

donate 2 nat. debt

wealthy must donate 2 the national debt or they are slave owners,you made yourself rich off our hard work & calised hands.if you do this you will not die and go to hell or you will not be mistreated back,do not play both sides of the fence and stop being friendly like to the private government,money engravers and printers and other business owners that use people as slaves. would you like too work your ass off for nothing but grief like the rest of us, because we will pay you back and leave you living the gutter like you people always do to us. how would you feel to work very hard every day just to have trouble paying your bills and to live in misery. the way you set yourself up to live the easy life off our hard work is crude,insane,horrible and unhumane. you business owners are a horrible breed of species.so donate too the nations national debt,yes do the correct thing for once in your business owning lives. if you have more then 7 billion dollars in the bank including assets

—Guest keith

advisor

wealthy people need 2 donate 2 the national debt, we the people made them rich

—Guest keith m.

Reduce the Nation Debt

Simple. Stop the growth of government while letting the private economny grow, and the debt will fix itself.

—Guest Curtis

The inevitable?

The question is not maybe can it be fixed as much as will they let it fixed? And when I say "they", I'm talking the global elite billionaires and the international bankers. Breaking the U.S. and other economies can put them more in control. Then bring about a new currency and a one world government. But they aren't quite there yet. We all have to suffer more, so that we will welcome it. It will be offered as the only solution. I think they've almost got there, but I don't think we've seen all the suffering yet that they have in store for us.

—Guest Barney

RMP

Only have public school till 8th grade, Welfare only in emergency, No Gov grants, Food stamps in emergency, Social security can be contributed to personal 401 k type plan, Eliminate employer based med plans, Eliminate gov health care plans, Get rid of NASA, Can the federal reserve, Can the Energy Department. All Gov. agencys open to citizen reviews. Gov pay and benifits Drastically reduced, Same for state govs where applicable. They pissed our money away now they want our kids and grandkids to pay for their mistakes. Unbelievable. I forgot about the court system. Operate at 8th grade level as for everyone to understand. Make the underlying tenant of the law be the "Golden Rule". Eliminate about three levels of the system. Lots of waste and corruption there. Maybe just get rid of it and start over. Flat tax everyone pays. Those are just a few of the things that need to be done. Here's some more Eliminate patents, Car insurance optional, No registration. Plates and insp are enough.

—rmpppa123

Crooked

Print 15 trillion and pay off the debt. Simple. The Fed prints money when they deem fit any way.

—Guest Jim

eliminate prevailing wage rate requireme

Eliminate prevailing wage rate requirements the feds use, forcing contractors on government jobs to pay union wage rates instead of local market rates. Doing this would open up competitive bidding and save the Government about 30%.

—Guest John

Simple fix

Our congress needs to change, Presidents are just hand puppets of Congress. A debt solution is not to increase taxes, cut budgets on most definite needs,instead we need to increase the value of our dollar. Build Projects we need on credit low interest, give people jobs,create tax break for companies Buying and Manufacturing USA made products keeping the dollar here. Lets see if the people in Congress, Republicans, high salary officials, paid with our tax money can survive on a 40k a year salary the cut in their salary alone will give us the the dent we need in this economy. the problem is "they" dont see it everything that happens behind closed doors takes dirty hands to know how to fix a problem.

—Guest Guadi

wrong

For people who think more taxes will help the debt crisis, you are wrong. Placing unwanted taxes on large corporations and people will not solve any problems in a country that is still struggling to revive its economy.

—Guest mystery guest

A country divided cannot stand...

1) Replace all federal tax with a 20% flat income tax on all income above $20,000 and a $365 min tax. 20% cap gains tax, 20% import tax, and 20% corporate tax rate so there is no where to hide. Only deductions are labor, energy, and raw materials (cost of goods) no loopholes. 2) Set budget targets to pay off 0.5 trillion of debt each year (30 years to being debt free). Failure to reach target automatically raises the min tax and the tax rate so EVERYONE feels the pain. Exceeding the goal lowers the tax rate and the min tax. Suddenly everyone wants a smaller more efficient government! 3) Require states to directly hire people seeking day work after passing a screening process. Their ability testing and work performance would be placed in a database for future employers to reference when hiring... there would be 0% unemployment and no welfare system with 70% overhead costs. 4) Term limits - a part-time citizen government is inherantly interested in the citizen!

—Guest Ike

Get more work from other nation

Your business is outsourced from other nation, the US government can work to get(ask for) the infrastructure development/Oil exploration contract the that other nations government. This will help the US companies to get more money and same will be paid to US interms of tax.

—Guest Bharat

CAN THE U.S. PAY OFF ITS ENTIRE DEBT?

Yes. The U.S. 'can' pay off its entire foreign debt. And, it can be done in less than 10 years time, 'IF', the president would be willing to take the unprecedented bold initiative of both quietly and diplomatically reaching out to each of our foreign creditors, and inform them of this country's desire to 'renegotiate' the terms of our present debt structure with them in a manner which while initially 'reducing' a portion of the total amount of debt we presently owe them. would not only assure 'full' debt payment within 10 years time, but would 'also' guarantee their countries the continued 'right' to both 'favored nation status' within the U.S. and the continued right to 'export' its products to this country at its 'present' level of functionality. Since these countries 'exports' to this country make up a huge part of their economy, its 'unlikely' that they would 'not' be willing to renegotiate the debt if it meant losing fav. nat. status and the ability 2 export its goods to the U.S

—fjenk11

The wealthy don't need tax loopholes

The loopholes provided for the wealthy are simply wrong. We are loosing the middle class. And the GOP doesn't care. Why should the middle class always pay? The GOP worship and protect the rich. It is really scary to witness how our government is destroying our country. The GOP would rather take away from education, and the oldest citizens. Congress act like little, spoiled children. What a shame we elected them.

—Guest Judi