On the spending side, here's a look at what these proposals look like on paper:
Federal Spending would be limited to 20% of GDP annually.
- Based on data from the CIA WorldFact Book, the 2011 U.S. GDP fell between $15.09 and $15.29 tillion, so the 20% limitation would be between $3.018 and $3.058 trillion per year.
Discretionary Spending unrelated to defense would go back to pre-2008 levels.
- Spending Items Affected:
- Dept. of Health and Human Services
- Dept. of Education
- Dept. of Veterans Affairs
- Housing and Urban Development
- State Dept. and Other Intl. Programs
- Dept. of Energy
- Dept. of Justice
- Dept. of Agriculture
- NASA
- Dept. of Transportation
- Dept. of Treasury
- Dept. of the Interior
- Dept. of Labor
Comparison of 2012 and 2008 Spending Levels: figures shown are in billions of dollars, data courtesy of the GAO Federal Balance Sheet Report for fiscal year 2011
Reduced Wages and Benefit allotments for Federal Employees: note that figures listed are in billions of dollars. Here thousands of billions would be trillions of dollars in real value.
At present, there seems to be no specified criterion or target for reductions in either category. However, given the level of spending and comparing these figures against the data available (courtesy of the Office of Personnel Management) on the civilian and military workforce we can calculate the funds spent per individual per employee.
- There's a total $2,031,000,000,000.00 in employee benefits and wages. divide that by the 2,776,000 total executive branch employees (which include legislative, judicial, and postal employees) that comes to $583,465.42 per person annually.
- Total military benefits and wages came to $3,765,700,000,000. Divided by the 1,602,000 men and women in uniform that comes to $2,350,624.22 per person annually.
Based on what has been published and reported on the Republican agenda around military spending, most of the defense related spending in the federal budget is either left at present levels or expanded further.
Spending Reductions Related to Medicare:
Like the federal wage cuts, the Republican plans for spending reductions are not very specific, but there is plenty of data on what the government actually spends on these programs.
Note that the following figures listed are in billions of dollars, hence thousands or tens of thousands of billions would be trillions or tens of trillions respectively. Spending figures are for FY2011.
Article comments
1 - Glenn Contrarian
Problem is, the conservatives have never been able to answer this one nagging question: why is it that with the exception of certain OPEC nations, ALL first-world nations are socialized democracies with what the conservatives would think are economically-disastrous tax rates and regulation, whereas ALL of the many nations around the world which have small governments, low taxes, and little regulation are third-world nations?
If the economic structure of socialized democracies was SO bad, then they'd never have become first-world nations to begin with! And if small government, low taxes, and little regulation were the path to national prosperity, there's a whole lot of third-world nations who would first-world nations already.
But none of the conservatives have been able to answer this particular conundrum...not that it matters, because the nation's economy can go to hell in a handbasket as long as they get their way, they're in charge, and they get their money.
2 - Glenn Contrarian
And Alex -
Great article, for those of us who are not facts-and-figures challenged.
3 - Igor
That business about "...tax incentives will encourage new economic activity from private sector industries. " doesn't seem to work out at all, and it certainly hasn't the last few years as businesses are just banking their tax gifts so that the money goes dormant.
4 - Alexander J Smith III
Glenn
As always i greatly appreciate you taking the time to read and comment on my work. I really appreciate it
5 - Alexander J Smith III
Igor
Yeah that's one of the reasons I think that the Fed continues to expand its balance sheet. Ideally, its job is to create conditions that make investing attractive from the private sectors POV, but they aren't using the capital, like you pointed out they're just sitting on it and so the Fed keeps pumping liquidity into the economy to keep money flowing. Demand for it is out there, but it seems the federal government are the only ones really looking to capitalize on that demand
6 - Igor
IMO our entire tax break idea, which is little more than trying to bribe businesses to actually do business, is a failure. Take away ALL business tax breaks, create a sensible system of outright subsidies, like SBA, and finance too-big-for-private-money jobs outright, and vigorously enforce anti-monopoly laws to break up overgrown capital concentrations that are stifling entrepreneurship by small bussinessmen.
We've got to cut back overgrown sunset behemoths the way that a good gardener cuts back any wildly overgrown plant in his garden.
7 - Igor
The republicans basic economic idea is wrong: they wish to move more money into the hands of capitalists (they assume, I guess that those older wiser hands will better administer the money than the silly whim-driven masses).
But it is wrong. Demonstrably wrong. Economies prosper, or not, according to the demand created by the most numerous consumers, for the simple reason that their high Marginal Propensity To Spend gives them the highest Economic Multiplier. Every dollar they spend is echoed through the economy 3 or 4 times.