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You mention malpractice a lot, but it accounts for less than 2% of nationwide healthcare spending.

There is larger low hanging fruit as far as cost savings go. My friends in healthcare all gripe about how half their time is wasted fighting to get paid and doing things inefficiently to satisfy insurance requirements.

Let me start by saying, flat out, that I'm not trying to troll or start a war here, but what exactly would you have them cut?

It's a fact that most fiscal conservatives, when asked what they would have the government cut can't name a single program to cut that is both A) large enough to have an impact, and B) not political suicide to cut.

We already know exactly what we have to cut. We have a whole branch of the government (the CBO) whose main purpose is to answer that question, and they've been telling us the same thing since 2000. All we need are leaders with the will and courage to do it. Yes it may be political suicide to make those cuts. But not making those cuts is economic suicide. You see in the news how the EU is struggling with the bankruptcy or impending bankruptcy of Greece, Portugal, Italy, Spain, and Ireland? That is our economic destiny if we don't make the necessary cuts.

I see lots of calls to cut defense spending, and I completely agree there's a lot of fat in there which can be trimmed. But defense is not what's killing our budget . Medicare and Medicaid are. The budget problem is spiraling out of control because half the country refuses to believe that, and thinks cutting defense will solve all our woes. News flash: If we dropped our defense spending to zero - completely eliminated the DoD and our armed forces - growth in Medicare and Medicaid would consume all of that savings in roughly 20-25 years. We are not going to fix this mess until we start addressing the real problem. Read the CBO reports .

Let me start by saying, flat out, that I'm not trying to troll or start a war here, but what exactly would you have them cut?

It's a fact that most fiscal conservatives, when asked what they would have the government cut can't name a single program to cut that is both A) large enough to have an impact, and B) not political suicide to cut.

We already know exactly what we have to cut. We have a whole branch of the government (the CBO) whose main purpose is to answer that question, and they've been telling us the same thing since 2000. All we need are leaders with the will and courage to do it. Yes it may be political suicide to make those cuts. But not making those cuts is economic suicide. You see in the news how the EU is struggling with the bankruptcy or impending bankruptcy of Greece, Portugal, Italy, Spain, and Ireland? That is our economic destiny if we don't make the necessary cuts.

I see lots of calls to cut defense spending, and I completely agree there's a lot of fat in there which can be trimmed. But defense is not what's killing our budget . Medicare and Medicaid are. The budget problem is spiraling out of control because half the country refuses to believe that, and thinks cutting defense will solve all our woes. News flash: If we dropped our defense spending to zero - completely eliminated the DoD and our armed forces - growth in Medicare and Medicaid would consume all of that savings in roughly 20-25 years. We are not going to fix this mess until we start addressing the real problem. Read the CBO reports .

Let me start by saying, flat out, that I'm not trying to troll or start a war here, but what exactly would you have them cut?

It's a fact that most fiscal conservatives, when asked what they would have the government cut can't name a single program to cut that is both A) large enough to have an impact, and B) not political suicide to cut.

We already know exactly what we have to cut. We have a whole branch of the government (the CBO) whose main purpose is to answer that question, and they've been telling us the same thing since 2000. All we need are leaders with the will and courage to do it. Yes it may be political suicide to make those cuts. But not making those cuts is economic suicide. You see in the news how the EU is struggling with the bankruptcy or impending bankruptcy of Greece, Portugal, Italy, Spain, and Ireland? That is our economic destiny if we don't make the necessary cuts.

I see lots of calls to cut defense spending, and I completely agree there's a lot of fat in there which can be trimmed. But defense is not what's killing our budget . Medicare and Medicaid are. The budget problem is spiraling out of control because half the country refuses to believe that, and thinks cutting defense will solve all our woes. News flash: If we dropped our defense spending to zero - completely eliminated the DoD and our armed forces - growth in Medicare and Medicaid would consume all of that savings in roughly 20-25 years. We are not going to fix this mess until we start addressing the real problem. Read the CBO reports .

Ok, as I start writing this I don't know the answer, so let's figure this out together.

Your reply doesn't smell right because the national debt increased so dramatically under Reagan so how does it make sense that spending decreased. The obvious explanation is the last part "vs GDP" is skewing things. The grandparent's statement had nothing to do with "as a percentage of GDP", he/she simply stated that Reagan grew the government, so let's look at the raw numbers of increased spending in their raw form and examine the person's original premise. (You can find a link on the page you referenced to the data used for the charts shown. That's where I'm getting all my data since it's coming from the CBO that's about as good a reference as you'll get.)

How much did the government grow under each president?

Here's the raw data: (Government spending for the last year of the previous president's budget year vs last year of this president's spending. So for example, Bush1 is "Outlays:2005/Outlays:2001 - 1")

Ford: 61% increase (4 years)
Carter: 59% increase (4 years)
Reagan: 93% increase in federal spending (THE WINNER!)
Bush 1: 29.8% increase (4 years)
Clinton: 29% increase
Bush 2: 66% increase

So, the grandparent's statement is correct Mr "I'm done with this guy".

In fact, looking at these numbers, if you're a small government loving conservative, Clinton is your hero. He grew the federal government by far the least of any president in recent history!

However i'm a liberal and I believe in being fair, it behooves me to point out that both Carter and Ford grew the federal government at a faster rate than Reagan, but since they were in office for only 4 years their overall growth is less than Reagan. Reagan did indeed grow the federal government the most of any president in recent history.

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/108xx/doc10871/historicaltables.pdf

d

Actually, Defense spending is one of the few pieces of government spending which has been trending downward. It picked up again after 9/11, but is still near historical lows. The outrage over the amount of military spending made sense back in the 1960s - if we were at Vietnam War-era spending levels today, the Defense budget would be around $1.2 trillion instead of only $660 billion. Our modern levels of defense spending are only slightly above the world's average if you factor in Japan's GDP (we are obligated by the peace treaty ending WWII to provide for Japan's national defense - a treaty I agree is long overdue for renegotiation). People keep dragging it up sometimes not adjusting for inflation, and sometimes adjusting for inflation but not for economic and population growth. If you compare defense spending as a percentage of GDP, it was on a clear downward trend prior to 9/11 unlike just about every other part of the budget.

It's the social programs (primarily Medicare/Medicaid) which are ballooning out of control and busting the budget. Those are the sacred cows we need to sacrifice (or at least pass some common sense reforms) if we want to get the budget under control.

And another stat I'm sure will throw people here for a loop. It was actually George W. Bush who increased non-DoD science spending the most of modern Presidents (though merely restoring it to 1980s levels as % of GDP).

Actually, Defense spending is one of the few pieces of government spending which has been trending downward. It picked up again after 9/11, but is still near historical lows. The outrage over the amount of military spending made sense back in the 1960s - if we were at Vietnam War-era spending levels today, the Defense budget would be around $1.2 trillion instead of only $660 billion. Our modern levels of defense spending are only slightly above the world's average if you factor in Japan's GDP (we are obligated by the peace treaty ending WWII to provide for Japan's national defense - a treaty I agree is long overdue for renegotiation). People keep dragging it up sometimes not adjusting for inflation, and sometimes adjusting for inflation but not for economic and population growth. If you compare defense spending as a percentage of GDP, it was on a clear downward trend prior to 9/11 unlike just about every other part of the budget.

It's the social programs (primarily Medicare/Medicaid) which are ballooning out of control and busting the budget. Those are the sacred cows we need to sacrifice (or at least pass some common sense reforms) if we want to get the budget under control.

And another stat I'm sure will throw people here for a loop. It was actually George W. Bush who increased non-DoD science spending the most of modern Presidents (though merely restoring it to 1980s levels as % of GDP).

So if you added corporate taxes to the top 5% then you are talking 71.7% of revenues in 2009. It would 67.7% of revenues in 2010. So it would appear to me that the "rich" in this country are paying significantly more than half of the cash needed/used for the government to run.

Corporate Taxes

First off, simply adding corporate taxes to the top 5% is disingenuous. Corporations are taxed as separate entities because legally they are. Corporations give benefits to their shareholders, such as limited liability. If the owners of a company wanted to bypass the corporate income tax, they could by making it into a partnership, but then they would be liable for the company's debt. Corporate taxation is not strictly a tax, at least part of it is like paying for a better product. My dentist's practice is a corporation even though it is entirely owned by his family. He could easily have paid less in taxes by being sole proprietor, but he preferred to pay more so that he would not have to declare bankruptcy if his business went under.

Tax Share

Secondly, when discussing taxation you need to include earnings distribution. A country could get 90% of its tax revenue from the top 1% and it would seem very unfair on the surface, but if it was a banana republic and the top 1% earned over 90% of income, the tax structure wouldn't seem very fair at all. Since I couldn't find the share of earnings for 2009, here are some data points for the top 5% in the last decade:

• 2001 - 27.5% of earnings, 38.5% of tax share (full chart)
• 2006 - 31.9% of earnings, 44.7% of tax share (cbo report).

Furthermore, State and Local taxes are more regressive than Federal taxes (second chart), so the share for top earners is even less. The Tax Foundation didn't have break it down for the top 5%, but the top 20% had 41.5% income share, and 41.4% tax share for state and local taxes.

Please explain to me how this is suppose to work where the "rich" supposedly are not paying their fair share. I am not saying the distribution of earnings in the US is a good/perfect thing.

Unequal distribution is essential to our current tax structure. Very few would argue that the rich pay a smaller percentage of their income than other citizens. If we were only concerned about a tax rate as a percentage of income, we wouldn't have a progressive income tax structure in the first place. When people argue about paying "your fair share", they are not talking about pure income (which would give us your 'share'), but rather 'disposable income' (which would give us your 'fair share'). As a society, we feel that 20% of a poor person's income is more valuable to them than 20% of a rich person's income. 20% of income for poor people could cut into food or housing: necessities; 20% of income for rich people could be things like larger housing, better cars, or a fancier vacation: luxuries. This is why while we could tax everybody at 21.5% of income, we think that taxing the top 20% at 22.5% and the bottom 80% at 20.5% would be better. We still argue about making the rich pay more because people have different ideas of what would be your 'fair share'. Indeed, I think that if the bottom 20%, all of whom make less than $20,000 a year did not have to pay any taxes that would be a nice boon for them. They make only 4.2% of earnings, and pay 1% of total federal taxes, so the burden on you or me would be minimal.

Your 'fair share' for taxes is not the same as your 'share'.

I do think everyone still has a chance to make more money and own their own business today, if they are willing to work hard an

Uh, I guess for you it's "open sand, insert head". You've crossed over from damn lies to statistics. While true in once sense, your numbers paint the rosy little picture that matches your ideology so you don't have to think. Here are some charts to help set the record straight.

See here, and here.
And in case you care to pay attention to our unemployment problem, which is where the government actually gets its money, see here.

Uh, I guess for you it's "open sand, insert head". You've crossed over from damn lies to statistics. While true in once sense, your numbers paint the rosy little picture that matches your ideology so you don't have to think. Here are some charts to help set the record straight.

See here, and here.
And in case you care to pay attention to our unemployment problem, which is where the government actually gets its money, see here.

The u.s. is like the decline of Rome. Most of the budget spent on the military to little gain.

The U.S. is in decline because a lot of people think the problem is overspending on the military. It's not. Don't get me wrong; yes there's lots of pork in the U.S. military budget which could be cut. But it doesn't comprise most of U.S. government spending, nor is it the cause of the U.S.'s budgetary woes. And a good part of the reason we're in the buget mess we're in now is because people like you who think that it is implement solutions which don't address the real problem.

U.S. military spending is actually one of the few parts of government spending which has been more or less steadily declining since WWII, both as a % of the budget and as a % of GDP. It started climbing after 9/11, but it's still close to the lowest it's been since WWII.

What's killing the budget (indeed, where most of the money is spent) are the social programs; specifically, medicare and medicaid. They're projected to grow so quickly that even if you stopped all military spending, dropped it to zero , all the money that saved would be eaten up by growth in medicare and medicaid within 20-25 years. In other words, in 20-25 years we would have no military, no military spending, and our budgetary problems would be the same as they are now.

The first step in fixing a problem is to correctly identify what is causing it. The Congressional Budget Office hires a lot of really smart people to do nothing but identify the causes of the budget problems, and publishes a nifty report on it about every 2 years. Please go read it. Put aside any moralistic preconceptions you may have about which parts of the budget are good or bad. Look at it purely from an accounting standpoint - which parts are decreasing and which parts are ballooning out of control? The parts that are ballooning out of control are what we need to address to fix the problem, the parts that are decreasing are a much lower priority.

The u.s. is like the decline of Rome. Most of the budget spent on the military to little gain.

The U.S. is in decline because a lot of people think the problem is overspending on the military. It's not. Don't get me wrong; yes there's lots of pork in the U.S. military budget which could be cut. But it doesn't comprise most of U.S. government spending, nor is it the cause of the U.S.'s budgetary woes. And a good part of the reason we're in the buget mess we're in now is because people like you who think that it is implement solutions which don't address the real problem.

U.S. military spending is actually one of the few parts of government spending which has been more or less steadily declining since WWII, both as a % of the budget and as a % of GDP. It started climbing after 9/11, but it's still close to the lowest it's been since WWII.

What's killing the budget (indeed, where most of the money is spent) are the social programs; specifically, medicare and medicaid. They're projected to grow so quickly that even if you stopped all military spending, dropped it to zero , all the money that saved would be eaten up by growth in medicare and medicaid within 20-25 years. In other words, in 20-25 years we would have no military, no military spending, and our budgetary problems would be the same as they are now.

The first step in fixing a problem is to correctly identify what is causing it. The Congressional Budget Office hires a lot of really smart people to do nothing but identify the causes of the budget problems, and publishes a nifty report on it about every 2 years. Please go read it. Put aside any moralistic preconceptions you may have about which parts of the budget are good or bad. Look at it purely from an accounting standpoint - which parts are decreasing and which parts are ballooning out of control? The parts that are ballooning out of control are what we need to address to fix the problem, the parts that are decreasing are a much lower priority.

The u.s. is like the decline of Rome. Most of the budget spent on the military to little gain.

The U.S. is in decline because a lot of people think the problem is overspending on the military. It's not. Don't get me wrong; yes there's lots of pork in the U.S. military budget which could be cut. But it doesn't comprise most of U.S. government spending, nor is it the cause of the U.S.'s budgetary woes. And a good part of the reason we're in the buget mess we're in now is because people like you who think that it is implement solutions which don't address the real problem.

U.S. military spending is actually one of the few parts of government spending which has been more or less steadily declining since WWII, both as a % of the budget and as a % of GDP. It started climbing after 9/11, but it's still close to the lowest it's been since WWII.

What's killing the budget (indeed, where most of the money is spent) are the social programs; specifically, medicare and medicaid. They're projected to grow so quickly that even if you stopped all military spending, dropped it to zero , all the money that saved would be eaten up by growth in medicare and medicaid within 20-25 years. In other words, in 20-25 years we would have no military, no military spending, and our budgetary problems would be the same as they are now.

The first step in fixing a problem is to correctly identify what is causing it. The Congressional Budget Office hires a lot of really smart people to do nothing but identify the causes of the budget problems, and publishes a nifty report on it about every 2 years. Please go read it. Put aside any moralistic preconceptions you may have about which parts of the budget are good or bad. Look at it purely from an accounting standpoint - which parts are decreasing and which parts are ballooning out of control? The parts that are ballooning out of control are what we need to address to fix the problem, the parts that are decreasing are a much lower priority.

But if you look at the history of government in the US, it has been pretty uniformly in the direction of bigger and more expensive, ...

Actually, that depends on how you measure. For instance, if you go with absolute number of dollars, it will definitely appear like there's an average 2% increase each year, but that's because of inflation. If you look at percentage of GDP, you'll see fluctuations that reflect the fact that GDP drops during recessions. If you look at inflation-adjusted dollars, you'll get a slightly different picture.

In short, when it comes to government budgets, the numbers are awful.

Yes, it's been said on /. a million times before: end the freakin' wars. Stop the runaway military spending. It's that simple.

No it's not that simple. I wish the people saying this would go to the Congressional Budget Office web site and actually try reading some of the budget projections instead of parroting some line which happens to fit their worldview.

In a nutshell, U.S. military spending has more or less been steadily declining as a percentage of the GDP and percentage of the budget, up until 9/11. After 9/11 it started to tick upwards, but is still near the lowest it's been since WWII. It's actually one of the few parts of the budget which has been getting smaller over the last 50 years.

What's killing the budget are the social programs. Specifically Medicare/Medicaid, though Social Security rears its head every now and then. Medicare and Medicaid are projected to grow so much and so quickly that if we completely eliminated all military spending - dropped it to zero - within about 20-25 years the growth in Medicare/Medicaid will have consumed all of the savings.

This isn't a conservative problem, this isn't a liberal problem. It's a straight-up accounting/math problem, and I know most of the folks here are pretty good at math. Put aside any preconceptions you may have. Go read the the CBO report on the budget. See for yourself where the problems in the budget are.

Yes, it's been said on /. a million times before: end the freakin' wars. Stop the runaway military spending. It's that simple.

No it's not that simple. I wish the people saying this would go to the Congressional Budget Office web site and actually try reading some of the budget projections instead of parroting some line which happens to fit their worldview.

In a nutshell, U.S. military spending has more or less been steadily declining as a percentage of the GDP and percentage of the budget, up until 9/11. After 9/11 it started to tick upwards, but is still near the lowest it's been since WWII. It's actually one of the few parts of the budget which has been getting smaller over the last 50 years.

What's killing the budget are the social programs. Specifically Medicare/Medicaid, though Social Security rears its head every now and then. Medicare and Medicaid are projected to grow so much and so quickly that if we completely eliminated all military spending - dropped it to zero - within about 20-25 years the growth in Medicare/Medicaid will have consumed all of the savings.

This isn't a conservative problem, this isn't a liberal problem. It's a straight-up accounting/math problem, and I know most of the folks here are pretty good at math. Put aside any preconceptions you may have. Go read the the CBO report on the budget. See for yourself where the problems in the budget are.

Yes, it's been said on /. a million times before: end the freakin' wars. Stop the runaway military spending. It's that simple.

No it's not that simple. I wish the people saying this would go to the Congressional Budget Office web site and actually try reading some of the budget projections instead of parroting some line which happens to fit their worldview.

In a nutshell, U.S. military spending has more or less been steadily declining as a percentage of the GDP and percentage of the budget, up until 9/11. After 9/11 it started to tick upwards, but is still near the lowest it's been since WWII. It's actually one of the few parts of the budget which has been getting smaller over the last 50 years.

What's killing the budget are the social programs. Specifically Medicare/Medicaid, though Social Security rears its head every now and then. Medicare and Medicaid are projected to grow so much and so quickly that if we completely eliminated all military spending - dropped it to zero - within about 20-25 years the growth in Medicare/Medicaid will have consumed all of the savings.

This isn't a conservative problem, this isn't a liberal problem. It's a straight-up accounting/math problem, and I know most of the folks here are pretty good at math. Put aside any preconceptions you may have. Go read the the CBO report on the budget. See for yourself where the problems in the budget are.

and a distraction from policy measures that could actually solve the problem (and other pernicious problems at the same time): reducing sugar and ethanol import tariffs drastically.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil#Comparison_with_the_United_States
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/sc019
http://sugarcaneblog.com/2010/03/22/washington-post-editorial-on-u-s-sugar-policy/
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12623

It is possible that Haiti and other impoverished nations could develop into self-sustaining economies by adopting some of Brazil's agricultural methods while providing a robust, diverse supply of fuel. And with corn's inefficiency versus sugar ethanol, it would go back to its proper market of food, reducing onerous cost burdens imposed on Mexico and Latin America for corn meal, a staple food.

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/100xx/doc10057/MainText.4.1.shtml

The increase in the amount of corn used to produce ethanol has exerted upward pressure on corn prices, boosted the demand for cropland, and raised the price of animal feed. Those effects, in turn, have lifted the prices of many farm commodities (for example, soybeans, meat, poultry, and dairy products) and, consequently, the retail price of food. The rise in food prices has affected not only the costs to individual consumers but also spending for the federal government’s food assistance programs.

http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Courses/Ec1F07/tortillas.htm

"The price of oil is driving up the price of corn (because of increased ethanol production), which is driving up the price of tortillas," said Peter Navarro, a business professor at UC Irvine. "You push on one thing and another thing moves," added Navarro, the author of "If It's Raining in Brazil, Buy Starbucks."

He said the U.S. ethanol stampede could be thought of "as a regressive tax on Mexico, because it raises the price of a basic commodity. In economics, we call these general equilibrium effects. Something happens in one market and it ripples through other markets."

I would because it would cut down on the crazy medical malpractices awards and maybe, just maybe, make healthcare affordable.

Rising healthcare costs have little to do with malpractice awards -- malpractice costs account for less than 2 percent of healthcare spending. Malpractice costs have been estimated to be about $12 per American a year. So, if you completely eliminated them, you'd have...a dollar a month. Whoop de frickin' do.

"Tort reform" is a shibboleth for the right wing and a way to distract people from the enormous profits that health insurers and Big Phama extract from the system, not a serious proposal to reduce costs.

>>The break even point on corn is roughly $4.25 per bushel. Before the big ethanol push, corn was selling for, if you were lucky, $3.00 per bushel. That is a sizeable loss that farmers were eating on ever bushel produced.

Educate yourself, read the CBO report on ethanol on corn prices... prices shot up to around $8/bushel mainly due to the pressure from ethanol production.

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/100xx/doc10057/04-08-Ethanol.pdf

Comparing the tax break given for purchasing a hybrid to the "kickbacks" (Corn producers are subsidized in the name of environmentalism, i.e. ethanol, but I'm not sure what subsidies you are referring to that are given to energy companies. Perhaps, you have just been trained to think that oil companies are bad.) given to some corporations is pointless.

He could have been referring to the incredibly low 9.2% effective tax rate that the petroleum industry pays. Or that for many small and medium size petroleum companies the tax on capital investments is so low that it is more than eliminated by various credits. Tax rates that low are effectively a subsidy. There are lots of other subsidies given to the petroleum industry. It isn't difficult to find them if you take the time to look. I'm not saying these subsidies to the petroleum industry are wrong, they may be justifiable for national strategic reasons. For the same reason, subsidies to jump start an EV infrastructure could also be a worthwhile investment for the government.

Transporting energy in chemical form, i.e. as gasoline, is much, much more efficient than transmitting electricity.

That depends on how the energy is being used. If we're talking about heating a house, then yes, fuel oil is more efficient than electricity. But for moving cars, ICEs are so inefficient that using batteries charged through the electrical grid is more efficient. A 2007 study by the Electric Power Research Institute calculated that powering a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle would cost the equivalent of roughly 75 cents per gallon of gasoline.

Disposal of hybrids and electrics and their batteries must also be taken into account.

What disposal issues did you have in mind? Is this any more of an issue that currently exists for ICE vehicles? The material in EV batteries and electrical motors is recyclable.

In fact, the very fact that laws are being proposed to push alternatively powered vehicles onto consumers strongly suggests that the technologies are simply not commercially viable yet.

I guess this is like the internet, then. It wasn't commercially viable when the government started subsidizing it, either. Fortunately, legislators like Al Gore had enough foresight to see what it could become.

The cognitive dissonance is tear-my-hair-out infuriating.

It's not dissonance. The lowest 40% of income earners pay NEGATIVE federal income tax, and pay the vast majority of their effective federal taxes on Social Security and Medicare, both of which contribute to a benefit that they themselves will (hopefully!) receive.

State taxes, of course, are an entirely different animal, but people's state taxes aren't going to pay for new health care programs.

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/EffectiveTaxRates.shtml#1011537

The problem is that you can't cut taxes and have an out of control military budget. You get one or the other, not both.

Please do some research before parroting things you hear. Military spending is actually one of the few parts of the budget which has been decreasing over the last 50 years (up until 9/11 when it started picking up again).

What's breaking the budget is growth in mandatory spending, primarily medicare and medicaid. At current growth rates, you could drop military spending to zero and all the savings from that would be consumed by growth in medicare and medicaid within about 20 years.

Here's another graph which shows the relative size and growth of all the major budget components so you can see and compare what's been going on with each historically. It's from the Urban Institute if you want to read more (the CBO budget outlooks are good too). You'll note that military spending is the component which is shrinking the most, while medicare/medicaid is the component which is growing the most.

The problem is that you can't cut taxes and have an out of control military budget. You get one or the other, not both.

Please do some research before parroting things you hear. Military spending is actually one of the few parts of the budget which has been decreasing over the last 50 years (up until 9/11 when it started picking up again).

What's breaking the budget is growth in mandatory spending, primarily medicare and medicaid. At current growth rates, you could drop military spending to zero and all the savings from that would be consumed by growth in medicare and medicaid within about 20 years.

Here's another graph which shows the relative size and growth of all the major budget components so you can see and compare what's been going on with each historically. It's from the Urban Institute if you want to read more (the CBO budget outlooks are good too). You'll note that military spending is the component which is shrinking the most, while medicare/medicaid is the component which is growing the most.

So could you do me a favor and explain why these tables do not contradict your statement?

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/EffectiveTaxRates.shtml

There is room to shake things around because it discusses households rather than individuals, but I'm not sure that is really going to overwhelmingly favor the rich.

Also, even though the top fifth pay lower rates of social insurance taxes, they still end up accounting for 44% of the total payments there (I would guess because there is no income cutoff on Medicare).

Now, I don't really feel bad for the rich over the taxes they pay, and I think the arguments that a few percent here or there will make people earning millions work less are a little hilarious (perhaps it has some effect on the margins, but I doubt that the amount of productivity destroyed comes anywhere near matching the taxes collected), but I don't see how you can possibly argue that they aren't paying higher income taxes than other people.

Don't forget the actual report that goes with those tables:

http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2010/AverageFedTaxRates2007.pdf

In contrast, the top 10% of taxpayers paid 55% of total federal taxes in 2007. The lower 90% of taxpayers paid the other 45%.

Top 10% has a median income of $394,500, top 5% has a median income of $611,200, and the top 1% has a median income of $1,873,000.

Within that same report you quoted, people earning less that $138,800 per year paid 55.2% of the total federal tax liabilities.

In order to be included in the top 1% of income earned, you had to make at least $341,800. All people making less than that paid 71.6 of the total federal tax liabilities.

The effective individual income tax rates for the lowest 40% has been negative since 2002, as the methodology includes low-income tax credits. However, once you add in the other types of federal taxes, it's no longer negative, but the lowest quintile's share of total federal taxes was less than 1% in 2007.

To be in the lowest quintile, you can't make over $19,400 per year, and to be included in the second quintile you can't make over $33,000 per year.

The millionaires always claim that they pay the majority of the taxes and therefore deserve some kind of tax relief. But according to the CBO report, the group which they associate themselves with (over $341,800) only pay $28.4% of the total bill. Unfortunately the CBO hasn't updated their brackets so we can't really know what percentage the millionaire segment actually pays.

The problems with this report is that it only includes income reported as taxable, so if an individual had a trust that handled their wealth it wouldn't necessarily show up here, and the report only includes realized capital gains not actual capital gains (market worth).

Only poor people pay taxes.

Oh, BS. This meme is stupid, and can be disproved in moments with the US Government's own publications:

http://cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2010/all_tables.pdf

That's the Congressional Budget Office's compilation of effective tax rates and percentage of taxes paid by the various income quintiles in the US from 1979 to 2007. They also provide numbers for the top 10%, top 5%, and top 1%.

The effective individual income tax rates for the lowest 40% has been negative since 2002, as the methodology includes low-income tax credits. However, once you add in the other types of federal taxes, it's no longer negative, but the lowest quintile's share of total federal taxes was less than 1% in 2007.

In contrast, the top 10% of taxpayers paid 55% of total federal taxes in 2007. The lower 90% of taxpayers paid the other 45%.

The problem with that publication and your post is that it doesn't tell the whole story.

Yes, the top 10% of taxpayers paid 55% of the total federal taxes collected. However, they (Google being the example in this article) paid the smallest percentage of their income in taxes.

Nearly 40% of my paycheck goes to income tax alone. Google pays just 2.4%. That is the basis of the statement "only the poor pay taxes." We can't afford accountants to help us benefit from those juicy tax evasion policies in the Netherlands and Bermuda.

The rich still pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes, but that percentage has dropped quite a bit over the past few decades.

The tax rate may have dropped, but the share of all federal taxes paid by the top 1% has increased: from 15.4% in 1979 to 28.1% in 2007. The total share paid by the top 20% has also increased, but not as dramatically: from 56% to 69%

In contrast, the share of all federal taxes paid by the lowest 80% has steadily declined in the past two decades. See the first table on page 4:

http://cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2010/all_tables.pdf.

Only poor people pay taxes.

Oh, BS. This meme is stupid, and can be disproved in moments with the US Government's own publications:

http://cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2010/all_tables.pdf

That's the Congressional Budget Office's compilation of effective tax rates and percentage of taxes paid by the various income quintiles in the US from 1979 to 2007. They also provide numbers for the top 10%, top 5%, and top 1%.

The effective individual income tax rates for the lowest 40% has been negative since 2002, as the methodology includes low-income tax credits. However, once you add in the other types of federal taxes, it's no longer negative, but the lowest quintile's share of total federal taxes was less than 1% in 2007.

In contrast, the top 10% of taxpayers paid 55% of total federal taxes in 2007. The lower 90% of taxpayers paid the other 45%.

As someone who is middle-aged and used to be young, I know that I thought the same too, and I was stupid for thinking that. Not sure how someone older, who usually hangs out with older and younger, is assessed to knowing LESS history given they've lived longer, talked to more people across a wide breadth and depth of demographics as they age...but hell, they know less than some college aged kid who may know facts but not understand the implications fully not due to lack of intelligence but lack of experience.

There's a lot more to understanding history than just living through it. People pick up all kinds of bizarre ideas over time and they take hold in certain communities and are accepted as truth. Take your claim that growth is less under conservatives than Democrats. You probably believe that, and you probably believe that the Republicans are the more conservative party. However, if you take a look at the actual government growth statistics, you'll see that you're exactly backwards. Facts trump experience and accepted wisdom.

Seriously, go look at the data.

US corporate income tax is only high by international standards if you only look at the nominal rates. If you take into account the overall system (deductions, etc.), then in 2002 (PDF) US corporate income taxes were 1.8% of GDP, much less than the OECD average of 3.4% (OECD weighted average was 2.5%). In the OECD, only Germany and Iceland had lower values than the US.

The cutoff for the top 10% of income is $110,000.

The minimum income of taxpayers in the top 10% in 2007 was $102,900, for single-person households.

http://cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2010/all_tables.pdf

It's the last table on page 9.

Deriving the minimum income for families requires a bit of calculation. The CBO adjusts household income by the square root of the number of people in the household. So, the minimum income of a two-person household in the top 10% in 2007 was $102,900 * 1.414 = $145,500.

Hopefully, Slashdot readers will be able to calculate the minimum income for other family sizes. The CBO's methodology is described in more detail on the last page of the document linked above.

I suppose it depends on what precisely you mean by solvency. The government will never be unable to pay its debt, but it is true that the US does not have unlimited purchasing power and that hyperinflation is in principle one of the ways in which that limit could manifest itself. (But seignorage doesn't automatically lead to hyperinflation.)

In the real world, however, Social Security is usually lumped into dire forecasts of runaway entitlement growth, but the runaway growth comes from health care costs. Social Security costs are projected to rise from 4.8% of GDP this year to around 6% of GDP in 2030 and then stabilize at that level (assuming that full scheduled benefits will be paid). Note that the democrat co-chair of the deficit panel lumped in Social Security with health care entitlements in his list of programs that will cause the US to become "a second-rate power".

I won't say much about health care, except that per capita total US government spending on health care is already more than the UK spends on the NHS, so a saner health care system, while not necessarily reducing government spending, could significantly reduce private spending, some of which could be recouped in taxes.

As for Social Security being "pointless shuffling of wealth", I don't think that the millions of retirees who depend on it for a substantial portion of their income would agree with that description.

About "burdens" placed on the economy, I'm not quite sure what you mean by a "burden" or what justifies your claim about the relationship between the future size of the economy and current burdens. But you might find this article interesting.

It may be factual to describe bonds as IOUs, but the phrase "bunch of IOUs" is a phrase used almost exclusively to describe the Social Security Trust Fund. It's misleading because the same phrase is never used to describe other debt, like the debt owed to the public.

As evidence that the Trust Fund is just as legitimate as bonds held by China, consider the following fact: this year, revenue from payroll taxes fell short of expenditures. Where did Social Security come up with the funds to make up the difference and continue paying full benefits? From interest payments on the trust fund.

Hmm.... During an election year, politicians proclaim a love for lowering people's taxes. During other years, they try to lower taxes for businesses in their areas.

Okay, the picture is definitely not as simple as I suggested it is, but in any case, I would suggest the history of corporate tax rates is not as significant as the corporate tax rates relative to other countries. Here are a few references that discuss tax rates and history:

First, A little old, but paints the current picture

Also, the ultimate reference for everything paints a bizarre picture of corporate tax rates.

And this, from the IRS, gives a long history.

Then there's this interesting article

I provided a link to a press release that references a non-partisan letter sent by the Joint Committee on Taxation. That press release happened to be from the Republican Ways and Means committee.

The evidence you ask for was linked in the article that you obviously didn't read:

The bill establishes tax requirements in:
SEC. 401. TAX ON INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT ACCEPTABLE HEALTH CARE COVERAGE.

You'll find fines and imprisonment in these sections:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode26/usc_sec_26_00007203----000-.html

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode26/usc_sec_26_00007201----000-.html

Since the above links aren't from official government sources - merely a prestigious law school, you can reference them against this official document:

http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/26C75.txt

And a letter from the Joint Committee on Taxation using Congressional Budget Office data:
http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/106xx/doc10691/hr3962SubsidiesRangelLtr.pdf

Yes, you can - peel the Obama sticker off of your Prius.

...the $13Trillion in US national debt

The debt is LARGER.

The USA's national deficit in 2009 was $1.4 Trillion. The USA's total (or gross) national debt was, as of July 29, 2010, $13.2 Trillion. The post you replied to was correct.

... we had a real GDP back then.

Real GDP is a relative measure of the economic output of some predefined region in a particular year adjusted for inflation from some base year.

...we monopolize the new gold standard

There is no longer a gold standard (or fixed exchange rate of dollars and goal). When it existed in the USA, it had nothing to do with a monopoly over some good.

...we realistically traded it [gold?] for OIL we didn't have but was sold in dollars...

I don't think that I can help you on this part. I don't even know what you are trying to convey.

You started off strong, though slightly off-topic, with your true comment about people often confusing deficit with debt. But your comment degraded quickly as you continued. Thanks for letting us know that you are confused... I hope I've helped.

"Fact" 1: Click here. Go to page 42 (page 56 of the pdf). Look at the graph. Notice that the 2010 projection for healthcare spending in 2025 is about 7% of GDP and a hair lower than when recent healthcare changes are excluded.

(but I am probably just reinforcing your viewpoint...)

You're not going to win on infant mortality. The US has ridiculously good data, Cuba just has some numbers they publish. More importantly, your math is off. See this for a better analysis of why the infant mortality numbers are bullshit.

Maybe a better question: Would you rather have a baby in the US or in Cuba (hypothetically)? And I mean you specifically, someone who's presumably at least middle class and has insurance, or access to state aid, etc...

I picked breast cancer because it's one of their much bandied about statistics.

Overall, my point is I as a middle class American have access to better care than just about anyone (barring maybe the very top party members) in Cuba.

Cuba does a lot with what they have, but I don't for a minute accept any of their numbers. They're just produced magically from the State, no transparency, accounting, etc... You're trying to present a strong factual argument based on extremely questionable data.

Finally, I don't care who I cited. I cited logical arguments with factual backing, you cited vague opinions of esteemed people.

Actually no a flat tax doesn't burden the poor any more than it burdens anyone else..

Yes. A flat tax is, by definition, inherently a regressive tax.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax

A regressive tax is defined as burdening the poor disproportionately more than the rich.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_tax

There is no way in which your statement can possibly anything but utterly factually incorrect.

Event "I got mine" shills for the wealthy at fairtax.org recognize and acknowledge this, and offer "coupons" to the poor to try and offset this. Unfortunately, this does nothing for the middle class, who then shoulder the majority of the tax burden. Once you sp

at the highest bracket.. which should be up to 35% but can be almost *entirely* shifted from actually paying taxes to *other* things .. reducing tax liability to less than 10%...

Not true in the slightest. You see, this is something completely unsupported by any evidence, with numbers you just made up on the spot. Anyone making better than median income, and paying less than 10% in taxes, is a flagrant tax cheat, and can expect to soon go to jail.

"According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, the federal tax system is progressive for all but the richest 1% of Americans.": http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/12-11-HistoricalTaxRates.pdf#page=6

Warren Buffet (in that notably non-progressive top 1% tax bracket) pays 17.7%. While that's far less than he should pay, it's well over 10%. And more to the point, a flat 10% tax will not provide enough of a tax base to support the US government, so in reality, the rate will be far higher.

Additionally, you continue to ignore what I keep saying. While a flat tax is unfair, a logarithmic tax would be very simple, and naturally and smoothly progressive. It would not required special cases and loopholes to get it's progressive nature, and it would not need to be amended every year for inflation and the like to maintain a reasonably fair tax schedule.

but you will never see the "Defense Budget" getting fitted for a hair cut. Never. All in the name of "national security".

Scroll down to figure 1 and you will plainly see that defense spending is the budgetary item receiving the biggest cuts over the last 50 years. (Post-9/11 it's grown by about 35% as percent of GDP.)

They had a year to read it, and many of them bet their jobs on it. They read it. If I gave you a 1 page book, which you read, and then added a page a day, would you be able to keep up? Of course.

The Congressional Budget Office reviewed the bill for impact:

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a federal agency within the legislative branch of the United States government. It is a government agency that provides economic data to Congress.[1] The CBO was created as an independent nonpartisan agency by the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974.

http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/health.cfm

It is not their job to 'take sides', or to push an agenda. Their only purpose is to evaluate costs as it affects the budge, congress, or the nation in general. Whether congress follows those recommendations is another matter.

"On March 20, 2010, CBO released its final cost estimate for the reconciliation act, which encompassed the effects of both pieces of legislation. Table 1 (on page 5) provides a broad summary and Table 2 offers a detailed breakdown of the budgetary effects of the two pieces of legislation. CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that enacting both pieces of legislation will produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $143 billion over the 2010-2019 period. About $124 billion of that savings stems from provisions dealing with health care and federal revenues; the other $19 billion results from the education provisions. Those figures do not include potential costs that would be funded through future appropriations (those are discussed on pages 10-11 of the cost estimate)."

[Source]
http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/health.cfm

They had a year to read it, and many of them bet their jobs on it. They read it. If I gave you a 1 page book, which you read, and then added a page a day, would you be able to keep up? Of course.

The Congressional Budget Office reviewed the bill for impact:

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a federal agency within the legislative branch of the United States government. It is a government agency that provides economic data to Congress.[1] The CBO was created as an independent nonpartisan agency by the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974.

http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/health.cfm

It is not their job to 'take sides', or to push an agenda. Their only purpose is to evaluate costs as it affects the budge, congress, or the nation in general. Whether congress follows those recommendations is another matter.

"On March 20, 2010, CBO released its final cost estimate for the reconciliation act, which encompassed the effects of both pieces of legislation. Table 1 (on page 5) provides a broad summary and Table 2 offers a detailed breakdown of the budgetary effects of the two pieces of legislation. CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that enacting both pieces of legislation will produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $143 billion over the 2010-2019 period. About $124 billion of that savings stems from provisions dealing with health care and federal revenues; the other $19 billion results from the education provisions. Those figures do not include potential costs that would be funded through future appropriations (those are discussed on pages 10-11 of the cost estimate)."

[Source]
http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/health.cfm

So government pre-dates concentrated wealth in the history of mankind?

Absolutely. Concentrated wealth only became possible with civilization and agriculture; when we were nomadic hunter-gatherers, no one owned land, and personal possessions were limited to what you could carry. Back then, "wealth" was that you had a nicer spear and shiner trinkets than the next guy. It was only after it became possible for you to have more land (or better land), or more cattle, than me, that we could have a real difference in wealth.

Industrial civilization has only amplified this trend, giving us the L curve of wealth, where the top 1% make in one year what it takes a mere millionaire a lifetime to accumulate.

Goverment predates all of this. The most primitive form of government -- the alpha of the pack -- predates humanity. Even if we limit discussion to Homo sapiens, nomadic groups had tribal chiefs or councils. And kings and princes pretty much came with cities. (As did priests, but that's another rant.)

As Tom Paine, that radical socialist, noted,

Poverty, therefore, is a thing created by that which is called civilized life. It exists not in the natural state.

...

It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural, uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race. In that state every man would have been born to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor with rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, vegetable and animal.

But the earth in its natural state, as before said, is capable of supporting but a small number of inhabitants compared with what it is capable of doing in a cultivated state. And as it is impossible to separate the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that improvement is made, the idea of landed property arose from that parable connection; but it is nevertheless true, that it is the value of the improvement, only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property.

(Technically, it could be argued that "the history of mankind" only picks up with writing, thus after civilization, but I'm presuming the broader meaning of "humanity's existence including prehistory" here.)

wealth will concentrate in the hands of those with the greatest willingness and ability to use force. The fact that this is currently the government does not escape me.

The group that has the greatest potential to use force, is by that fact the government -- de facto, if occasionally not de jure. If we shrank and shrank our democratically elected government until it could be "drowned in a bathtub", government by plutocrats or by strongmen would fill the power vacuum.

And indeed, this often seems to be the goal of some leaders of the conservative movement; going back to this nation's founding there have always been those who are suspicious of too much democracy, and want to tilt the scales to aristocracy and plutocracy. They appeal to the universal American desire to "get government off our backs!" -- but don't mention that it's because they want to put the leeches of landlords, bankers, and absentee investors on our necks.

>>We don't have that, unless you're targeting those who can't afford a car.

We do. As I said, it doesn't apply to commuters, but for small business owners for myself, who has to drive to meetings in San Jose or something, it does exist.

You pay, what, 40 cents per gallon in tax, right? You get 50 cents per mile back off your federal taxes. If you do the math, if you drive an old gas-efficient car, it's a net tax gain.

>>So the Wall Street Journal is wrong?

Not picking on the WSJ blogger you quoted in particular, but I've done the research myself on this topic, using primary sources, and have found almost all single secondary sources to be wrong in one area or another. But I'm not sure why you say that nuclear can only compete if there's a carbon tax, and then turn around and say that coal shouldn't get a free ride by dropping external costs on society. (How do you charge coal and gas for their social costs? You tax them.)

But the math isn't as bad as you make it out to be. The "sticker shock" prices of $5-10B are because bigger plants lose a lower percentage to overhead. You can certainly build smaller nuclear plants, but in any event, if you look at the actual costs and profits generated by new nuclear plants in the last 10 years, the situation isn't so dire. They're cost competitive with coal.

In any event, the CBO report that your blogger quoted is actually pretty good (though I disagree with bits of it). Read through:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/91xx/doc9133/toc.htm

It actually answers your question about why the various incentives are in place.

>>Nuclear power is not clean, it is dirty from cradle to grave, oops there is no grave for nuclear waste.

Dirty means that a plant emits pollution. Nuclear plants don't emit pollution. Really, only coal, oil, gas and certain types of biofuel/MSW plants are "dirty". Nuclear, hydro, and all the rest don't have any emissions at all, except water vapor and waste heat.

The nuclear waste problem is, again, entirely the fault of Greens. They seem to think that radioactive materials buried deep underground are evil. ("They'll plague our childrens childrens children!") And appear completely oblivious to the fact that these radioactive materials... were originally buried underground. By nature.

I'm kind of saddened that you've fallen into this trap, since you're obviously a smart person. Yes, uranium mine tailings and the rest are a real problem, I agree with you on that, but the only explanation I can find for Greens thinking that "natural" uranium with no containment whatsoever underground is better than "processed radioactive "waste" is that nuclear reactors are made from elemental evil, and cause small little devils to enter the uranium at that point. Uranium is tainted by its contact with humans! Ai ya! Mother Earth will be so mad at us!

It's really one of the most illogical stances Greens take. If there weren't Greens, there wouldn't be a waste problem.

In some other thread, a guy was opposed to burying waste deep within the earth's mantle. "Who knows what side effects it would cause?" /sigh

>>Saying that's true now, I don't know, solar is constantly dropping in costs.

It's true. In fact, if some of the developments posted here on /. come true, Solar might be the best technology. I'm hardly a nuclear fanboy or anything. Just given the way the world is right now, the pros and cons are very clearly pointed toward nuclear.

But solar has a long way to go before it's cost competitive without subsidies.

>>A very small fraction of the geothermal potential has, therefore, been developed so far

Sure, but the most efficient sites are only located at certain geothermic hot spots - the hotter the temperature of the steam, the more energy you can draw out. Depending on what cost you're willing to pay, there's more or less sites available.

It's possib

Every study I've ever seen has shown that illegal immigrants put in more tax money then they put into the system. See http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/87xx/doc8711/12-6-Immigration.pdf . How does this change your world view?

"I hear people talk about a "path to citizenship" for illegals. I got a path for them: get out of the US before our law enforcement finds you and go through the legal application process. That's the only path that should ever have any hope of leading to citizenship for an illegal alien. If you're found to be here illegally, not only should you never have any chance at citizenship, but you should also never be allowed to return legally."

It's against the law in most states to have sex or drink before the age of 18, yet the vast majority of the population violated it at some point in their lives. Should they be prosecuted to the furthest extent of the law? (Often several years of jail-time). Should we give police officers the authority to plant cameras in teenagers rooms and monitor their Facebook for sexual activity? Three of our last presidents have publicly admitted to illegal drug use, we have a sitting Senator (Vitter) who has been found to frequent prostitutes. Should they be jailed? Why the double standard?

These people, for the most part, are hard-working members of their communities, with a huge number of friends and family who are citizens. The pain, both emotional and economic, caused by ripping them out far exceeds whatever benefits come from idealogical purity of having perfectly enforced laws.

Personally, I don't see why someone who wants to work here, doesn't commit any crimes, and is willing to forgo welfare benefits for a certain period of time and pass a basic English proficiency test, shouldn't be allowed to come. If it were up to me, I would put a $5,000 charge on a green card, let in anyone who passes a background check, and use the money for education and job retraining for the professions that would be affected.

To me, this screams for a simplification of tax law. Here's a thought:

Step 1: Eliminate corporate taxes.

EXACTLY WHAT WE SHOULD DO! Corporations will move to reduce their costs; people often move or adjust behavior to reduce costs. Taxes are a cost. If you want to keep companies in the US, eliminate the corporate tax. And when you see that in the good market of 2006 corporate taxes were 2.7% of all US Federal tax receipts. Given a current 30% budget deficit, 2.7% is a drop in the bucket.

Eliminate the corporate income tax, and the economy will grow more than enough to cover the slight cut in revenue.

Our nation is already bankrupt, this bill now solidifies it.

CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that enacting both pieces of legislation—H.R. 3590 and the reconciliation proposal—would produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $143 billion over the 2010–2019 period as result of changes in direct spending and revenues. That figure comprises $124 billion in net reductions deriving from the health care and revenue provisions and $19 billion in net reductions deriving from the education provisions. CBO has not completed an estimate of the potential impact of the legislation on discretionary spending, which would be subject to future appropriation action.

http://cboblog.cbo.gov/

We did! It's called the CBO

CBO is an agency of about 250 employees located in the Ford House Office Building at the foot of Capitol Hill. Well over half of its staff have advanced degrees in economics, public policy, and a variety of other disciplines.

Yahoo news reporting the new bill will save billions of dollars.

That's according to the preliminary findings of the Congressional Budget Office. Which was an okay source when it was reporting that the old bill would be more expensive.

Again, Fox can't seem to bear the weight of the truth.