[gscott]

I just feel the cutting has to start someplace and with Trump not having to be elected again he has nothing to lose. I am sure a Democrat will win next term to try to right things. Trump is mart enough to see there is a problem but not smart enough to get in and fix it. It is like a farmer burning the fields for next season. Democrats will have a field to build back better on.

[egberts1]

Three decades to build back better.

How's that debt reduction working so far?

[gscott]

I think the war in Iraq really cost a lot of money and we have to pay for it here. Might as well start with Trump doing some slashing and burning. We will have build up from the ground up again.

We have to do this by choice rather than having it because our hand is forced. It's not a choice anybody wants, but it'll be less pain now than later.

I know republicans created these wars but now we just are all going to have to take the pain. Trump is starting with other people taking the pain first.

[lesuorac]

> Might as well start with Trump doing some slashing and burning. We will have build up from the ground up again.

Well, there's two ways to get a balanced budget.

1) You could increase the tax rate as was done for pretty much every single other war. This of course is not going to happen.

2) You have to lower expenses. The problem with this is that we know the US Budget and unless you cut anything from the big 3 (Defense, Social Security, Medicaid) you cannot have a balanced budget. The deficit is about ~1.75 Trillion per-year. Federal Employee Salaries is about 320 Billion/yr so you'd literally have to fire everybody and stop all non-big 3 spending (~1.5 Trillion) to have a balanced budget this way.

This is the problem, the approach is just not going to work and is going to cause a bunch of problems for the economy as it's enacted.