What would happen to the budget if regular Americans went through it and did the cutting?

Here’s some stuff I would cut:

F-35 – estimates of life cycle cost are anywhere from $396B to $1.4T
$1.5 M to preserve PC graffiti (from Indian occupation of Alcatraz 40 years ago)
$42B to bail out high speed rail in California (for a total of $68+B for 520 miles of rail service)
$5.6M annually for “pressing cultural preservation needs overseas” (State Dept) – remember Benghazi? Maybe a few thousand there would have saved 4 lives…
$475B – how much oil has vanished that was supposed to go to Afghanistan Army….
$10M USAID program to train Filipinos to work in Asian call centers for U.S. businesses
$27M to train Moroccans to make pottery
$4.5B in improper food stamp distribution
$700K for a NY theatre to make a musical about climate change
$1M annually developing a “Mars Menu” – in case humans ever fly to Mars…
$300K to teach Americans about caviar
$91M in estimated lost tax revenue because the NFL, NHL, and PGA are self-classified as nonprofits
$150K annually to fund an unused airport in Oklahoma (in addition to over $180K in grants for improvement)
$325K for “Robosquirrel) to see how squirrels react to rattlesnakes
$3.3M to bail out a tourist boat in Alaska
$2M annually to pay for expired grant accounts
It now costs 2.4 cents to make a penny – a $70M loss annually
$1.5B for FREE cell phones – the cost has increased twenty-fold since 2008
$24M for high volume routers for rural WV – many of which can’t be used
$516K for a High School Prom video game (NSF)
$268M (Tax Loophole) Black Liquor (a by-product in the paper mill process) now qualifies for BCAP
Towns in California are selling Federal Community Development Grants to other towns – Beverly Hills sold $206K in grant money for $145K in general revenue to Santa Fe Springs
$15M Russian weapons institutes recruiting new scientists with U.S. funds – (Department of Energy)

$325K for “Robosquirrel) to see how squirrels react to rattlesnakes

What.....are you a pinko.........Rocky and all other honorable squirrels have rights too.......

I wonder why Obama said he would veto the authorization to manage the cuts? Did I understand that correctly?

nochain wrote:
$475B – how much oil has vanished that was supposed to go to Afghanistan Army….

Completely apart from the insanity that a half trillion dollars worth of oil has "vanished", how in the name of all that's holy could the Afghanistan Army ever even use a half a trillion dollars worth of oil? That is the most insane, most ludicrous thing I have ever heard of in my life. Please tell me our politicians didn't actually do that.

That would be like two wolves and a sheep taking a vote to decide what was for dinner.

All the Progressives and all others receiving tax payer money would vote for far more bennies and for cutting anything that does not give them more tax payer money. They would vote to slash spending in any area they don't see as directly transferring money from tax payers to themselves.

In other words, not much different than we have today.

It would become chaotic with everyone cutting others programs with their own programs being held sacred.

othershoe1030 wrote: A couple of years ago on CNN I think, they were doing a program about the budget and asked a group of people from the studio audience to see if they could come up with 4 Billion in cuts or whatever. In about 1/2 hour they had it all done to everyone's agreement!

Of course the advantage they had was having no constituents and not having to worry about being re-elected! They also didn't have anyone in the meeting room explaining what the effects of their cuts would be on the various groups involved.

What a spot on observation you've made.
I can see that tv program without even having to watch it. Wolf Blitzer and the audience were all patting themselves on the back for the part I've put in blue. Because Wolf and the audience completely overlooked the part I've put in red. lol

That's the message we get from virtually all media, be it right-wing, left-wing or in the middle. It's all the fault of the politicians and the people are all geniuses who always know what's best. And what a crock of shit that message is. lol

So I think we are all being taken for a ride down the drain by the geniuses on Wall Street who have learned to game the system and are playing the country like a fiddle. No other business or industry gets treated the way Wall Street does. They screw everything up and then we pay them for doing it.

Who is crazy? The American public must be totally nuts to put up with this sort of thing. So now they are bigger than ever and have more power than ever and keep reminding us how we can't live without them.

In the meantime we keep looking around for more programs to cut. Of course none of the cuts will effect Wall Street.

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/14884-lords-of-disorder-billions-for-wall-street-sacrifice-for-everyone-else