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Bridget Wheeler GO 2305 The United States is currently trillions of dollars in debt, and spends nearly I-trillion a year over budget. How would you cut spending? December 1, 2013 How would you help to bring the National debt down? Each year the government spends countless amounts of money on things that could ultimately be put toward the debt we owe. The estimated amount of debt as of now is about $17,237,634,587,000. Some ways that you could reduce government spending is mandate a policy that would take $10 yearly for every person in a house hold. Another would be to cut out all the useless spending.
You could eliminate all pensions and benefits for Senators, Congress people, and Presidents after they leave office. Make all government benefit programs time-capped. Cut pay and benefits for military & Pentagon personnel that never serve outside the country or near a combat zone. To help raise money to put towards debt, you would obviously need a lot of money. One way that you could efficiently raise that money is to mandate a law that requires you to pay $10, including the annual income tax, for every person under your roof to the government to be put towards the national debt.
According to the 010 census, the average household was 2. 58 people. (reference here) Just think, with an average of 2. 58 people per household, that is almost $30 per household with an estimated amount of $210,000,000,000 a year. By doing this, you could ultimately Secondly, another way to reduce debt is to completely cut out all the useless spending. In a year, the government spends $2. 6 million dollars to help “Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the Job. ” (reference) Why waste money on prostitutes? Why does the American government care enough to help them? We could be putting that $2. Lion towards out national debt. It’s not much but anything and everything will help. The government spends $146 million a year to upgrade federal employees to business class on airplanes. (reference) Business class is considered the highest level of flying, why should they get special treatment without having to pay for it? Why should the government have to pay for it when average flyers have to fly in coach because they cannot afford business class or first class? Every four years, Congress holds a party that costs $100 million of the taxpayers money for Politician’s and their special interest friends.
This money is put towards candidate films, entertainment, transportation costs, and volunteer gifts. Both Democratic and Republican parties have these “hallelujah parties,” costing at $200 million every four years. With all the costs of Just these three examples, that’s about $348. 6 million dollars that could be implemented towards that national debt. Thirdly, the government could cut all pensions and benefits for Senators, Congress people, and Presidents after they leave office. For Presidents, benefits include an annual pension for life, staff and office allowances, Secret Service protection, and ravel expenses.
The lifetime pension is set at $199,700 annually starting when the President officially leaves office on Inauguration Day. For a member of Congress, the annual pension rate is $35,952; they get Social Security taxes withheld from their pay, and have an option of the Thrift Savings Plan, which is similar to the 401(k) plans. With the money that is being paid towards these people, you could ultimately be putting it towards much better things. Fourthly, the government could make all the government benefit programs time- capped. Medicaid is good example. Medicaid is for low income people in which it revived healthcare services to.
A lot of people take this for granted. But the government is paying a lot for these services. There should be a 5 year limit at the most for Medicaid and after those five years are up, you are on your own to get insurance. Another could be unemployment. When you lose your Job, you can apply for unemployment which will provide you with a similar source of income to who qualifies for it. This program is already limited but it needs to be limited down even further. But cutting down unemployment by half, the government can use that money to also put towards our National debt.
Lastly, the government can cut pay and benefits for military & Pentagon personnel that never serve outside the country or near a combat zone. Military that serves outside the country or near a combat zone gets paid the same amount as Military that sits at the Pentagon all day and never serves outside the country or near a combat zone. The ones that serve our country in a hotshot deserve the better pay with better benefits, those that don’t need to be paid less with fewer benefits. (reference) In conclusion, there are many different ways to help cut down government spending and bring the National debt down.