Close.

Inflation is almost directly related to government deficit spending, because it puts “fake” dollars into the economy.

If government revenues equal expenditures, government spending has no net effect.

Everything.

The reduction in purchasing power means that if you cut nominal dollar outlays by 10 percent, you have to cut actual services by more than twice that amount.

Me, I’d start cutting with the bigger discretionary items. What about you?

But then I also harbor the silly notion that if you want revenues to exceed expenditures, it’s a good idea not to cut revenues first.

Look, if you knew what I meant, then what are you trying to do?
Still trying to get that payback for calling me a racist?

BTW, “Haw!” is usually preceded by “Hee”

“cut their budget by 2 cents on the dollar, in 5 years that would be a 10% reduction in outlays*”

…when in fact you meant to say cutting the budget by 2 percent a year for five years! (Then, hilariously, you accused someone else of being “economically illiterate.” Haw!)

You’re still wrong. Let’s count the ways.

First, if you reduce the budget by 2 percent of a baseline year budget, your annual cuts gradually grow larger as a percentage of the current budget.

Using your numbers:
Year 1: Cut the $1,000 budget by $20, that’s 2 percent.
Year 2: Cut the $980 budget by $20, that’s 2.04 percent.
Year 3: Cut the $960 budget by $20, that’s 2.08 percent.
Year 4: Cut the $940 budget by $20, that’s 2.13 percent.
Year 5: Cut the $920 budget by $20, that’s 2.17 percent.

So in year 5, the budget is now $900 instead of the $1000 you started with in year 1, so you’ve reduced outlays for year 5 by 10 percent.

Which brings us to your next error: inflation.

Let’s say inflation runs a modest 3 percent per year.
In year 1, your $980 outlay is only $951 in constant dollars.
In year 2, your $960 outlay is worth just $903.
In year 3, your $940 outlay is worth just $858.
In year 4, the $920 outlay spends like $814.
In year 5, $900 will buy just $773 worth of goods and services.

You’ve reduced outlays by 10 percent over the base year, but you’ll slash services by almost 25 percent.

Baby, meet bathtub.

Let’s say you have $1000 a year to spend on, say, Birkenstocks (for protest marches against repealing the Estate Tax).
So in year one you reduce that by 2%, or $20
In year two you reduce that by 2%, or $20
In year three you reduce that by 2%, or $20
In year four you reduce that by 2%, or $20
In year five you reduce that by 2%, or $20
Total reduction = $100, or 10%

Or, 5 years’ outlays by 2% each year, or 10%

I thought you worshipped the rich
Well, Hattie, you thought wrong.

* You see, 5 X 2 = 10. Get it?

Uh, no Frank.

If you cut all the budgets by two cents on the dollar, after five years you would reduce outlays by…two percent.

Lets try an example with just two years. My budget for Oreos (to pelt Republicans with!) is $1,000 a year. I decide to reduce my budget by two percent. How much do I save?

(.02 * $1000) (.02 * $1000) = $40

$40 is what percent of $2000?

2 percent.

I don’t need to know all that much about how government runs, but I know this: My father was a civil servant for about 20 years of my life, and I spent 4 years in the Army, and 17 years as a civil servant myself, so I have a rough idea.

It has never been clear to me whether you don t like the services that the government provides or don t think they provide them effectively.

Perhaps that’s because you’ve never asked. Even though you still haven’t asked, I’ll tell you: I am absolutely certain that the government doesn’t provide services effectively. I’m guessing there’s probably a book a year on government waste. Given the fact that revenues increase every year there’s a tax cut (reduction in the tax rate), reducing spending by 2% a year would barely be noticed.

It s the government s job to reduce the tax burden, not increase it.
Where in the Consitution is that protection? You must be reading the Heritage Foundation Abridged Edition

No, actually, it’s right here:

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.

Finally, who says the budget has to be balanced in one year? With tax cuts increasing revenues, and budget cuts slowly reducing outlays, the two numbers are sure to come together in 5 or 10 years. But this time, they will stay there, without tax increases.

* I’m inclined to believe this qualifies as an ad hominem attack:

I am sorry that you don t care about other people. I am sorry that you can call yourself an American. You may be by birth or naturalization but not by spirit.

It s the government s job to reduce the tax burden, not increase it.

Where in the Consitution is that protection? You must be reading the Heritage Foundation Abridged Edition.

And, BTW … where did you get the $300 billion figure, anyway?

The federal deficit for 2005 was $318 billion and for 2006 is expected to be $423 billion. I thought giving you the opportunity to find $300 billion, while not bringing our budget into balance, might be an easier target for you.

Every single agency, department and bureau of the entire government  Executive, Legislative and Judicial  cut their budget by 2 cents on the dollar, in 5 years that would be a 10% reduction in outlays

It has never been clear to me whether you don’t like the services that the government provides or don’t think they provide them effectively. I am just inclined to believe that your 10% figure represents your adherance to political/ economic hacks like Thomas Sowell and not your understanding of how the government works.

Should you care to know, I would be happy to show you how cuts to the agency for which I used to work are having tremendous negative consequences on the U.S. at large, but hey another 10% wouldn’t hurt, right?

For the sake of not being thought a total prick, Frank, you should confine your arguments to rational debates and desist with the puerile name calling. If you are what you say you are, it is a disservice to your stature.

That’s telling ‘em, Frank!

Frank, if we re going to keep  rebuilding Iraq (and maybe Iran before long), we gotta tax somebody. And the poor don t have any money.

Nice one, Quaker. The Iraqi invasion was to pay for itself, yes?

z_adura: Since you have no idea what size I am, or whether or not I own a laz – e boy, it’s safe to assume you have no idea what you’re talking about.
I don’t take my orders from you.
It’s the government’s job to reduce the tax burden, not increase it.
As long as mindless lefties like you pretend that a reduction in an increase is a “cut”, as long as economically illiterate liberal like you can’t see that if every single agency, department and bureau of the entire government — Executive, Legislative and Judicial — cut their budget by 2 cents on the dollar, in 5 years that would be a 10% reduction in outlays*

That’s more effective than losing 426,200 employees by attrition.

And, BTW, Brainiac, where did you get the $300 billion figure, anyway?

* You see, 5 X 2 = 10. Get it?

Why tax the rich? To quote Willie Sutton “Because that’s where the money is”.

And white whale, I do notice what the trolls are doing. Warren Buffett giving away $30 Billion? That’s worthy of attack because it conflicts with their agenda. George Soros gave away over $280 million last year, but he supports liberal causes with some of that money, so he’s evil.

It’s really sad.

Frank, if we’re going to keep “rebuilding” Iraq (and maybe Iran before long), we gotta tax somebody. And the poor don’t have any money.

Rather than using trite banalities over and over and over again, go to Table B-78 and look HARD at the $318 billion you so caringly are unloading on the next generation. Next, take a look at Table B-84 to find some places to trim the fat. The last serious effort to reduce the size of Government was undertaken by VP Gore with the National Performance Review. As a result, 426,200 employees were cut from the payroll, yet it only cut just north of $13 billion a year (out of a $2.4 trillion budget.) There ISN’T $300 billion in Washington bureaucrats.

So, if you don’t want to maintain or raise taxes and are too lazy to find ways to reduce government spending, I am sorry, bud, but you aren’t a loyal American. You are a selfish, me-first Baby Boomer who doesn’t care if he shits in his children’s punch bowl. Go Frank.

z_adura: Find about $300 billion that doesn t mortally wound some wide swath of the American public and we ll talk.

How about collecting the tax itself. Look at the chunk of money taken out of the economy to be divided up between Lord – knows – who, and the Washington bureaucracy.
How would you feel if I took about 20% of your pay, and told you I had great plans for the money, and then on the way out the door, I put about 7% in my pocket?

I am sorry that you don t care about other people.

I really don’t care how you feel,but I do care about other people. I just prefer to spend my own time and money helping them, not the hard earned wages of others’

I am sorry that you can call yourself an American.

You can kiss my American ass, pal. It takes an enormous amount of gall to tell someone you’re sorry that they can call themselves an American.
How many wars did you fight in, you traitorous punk?

You may be by birth or naturalization but not by spirit.

And which “spirit” is that? The “Rich people owe it to all of us that they are rich, even though I can’t think of a damned thing I did to help them to get rich” spirit, or the “We’re all in this together, so rich people owe it to to all of us to chip in their fair share, even though they already pay more than I do, and I damn sure don’t want to pay anymore” spirit?

Which?

You liberals are monotonous and tedious.
“Tax the rich!” “Tax the rich!” “Tax the rich!” “Tax the rich!”

Um, yes.

I am sorry that you don’t care about other people. I am sorry that you can call yourself an American. You may be by birth or naturalization but not by spirit.