Obama Scalpel on UserVoice

Eliminate Farm subsidies for all but "family" farms. [updated]

2008-12-16T23:05:40+00:00

The big Corporate farms don't need it and the USA needs to start cutting back on these givaways.

HeckRuler said:

First, I think you're right.
Second, you need to explain why family farms are better or any different at all from corperate farms. How come they don't need it while families do? Someone is always riding the combine. The answer is complicated and too long.
Third, just doleing out money isn't a good thing. Personally, I think paying them to make ethanol is better then paying them not to farm.

Reform the tax code: Flat Tax [updated]

2008-12-11T21:45:58+00:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax This is something that could be used in seeing if everyone pays their share of the tax burden. It would be great if the tax return was like one page lone, then not so much would be spent every year on stress and time during tax season.

HeckRuler said:

This is massively unfair to 95% of the population.
The poor have no money.
The working class sweats for their money.
The middle class solves problems for their money.
The upper class manage for their money.
The rich's money makes their money.
The entire economic system gives the most opportunity and control to the wealthy. They own and control the most, they pay the most.

IRS! Institute the Fair Tax. [updated]

2008-12-11T21:36:32+00:00

The Fair Tax will eliminate all tax for the poor and eliminate all tax breaks for the rich, while eliminating almost all enforcement costs! Sounds lke a no brainer to me!

HeckRuler said:

vontrapp, if you get Ron Paul to admend it, then that's one problem down. But "we can admend it" hardly fill me with confidence. It still puts the majority of the burden on the middle-class, doles out welfare, rewards black markets and buying foreign! Unless you want some sort of tariff. That worked out swell in 1930.

What about stuff on Ebay? Garage Sales? Too many holes and grey areas.

Federal Contracting

2008-12-11T01:36:59+00:00

an anonymous user suggested:
The federal government should eliminate contracting. Contracting companies cost the government about 18 billion dollars more than it would cost to simply hire people. This money is largely funneled to contracting company executives and lobbying efforts.

The drug war [updated]

2008-12-09T17:57:17+00:00

How much money do we spend on non-violent drug crimes and imprisonment?

bevo82 said:

At the very least, we shouldn't be imprisoning minor drug offenders or some parole violators; rather, we should use some of the money saved (it costs anywhere from 18,000-30,000 per year to jail someone) for rehabilitation programs and job training (costs less and much more effective).

Department of Education [updated]

2008-12-07T22:55:38+00:00

Let's return responsibility for education back to state and local government. The current DOE budget is $58 Billion/Year.

M.C. Lee said:

While some national standardized testing is needed, the current extent is not only excessive but flawed.

Instead of sending federal dollars to schools in an attempt to encourage measurement of "learning", let's spend federal $s encouraging school boards to be more efficient , more responsive to students' needs, and more transparent to local district taxpayers about how local dollars are spent.

"Use it or lose it" policies [updated]

2008-12-07T22:42:48+00:00

When government gives out money based on the amount used, as opposed to what results the money can produce, it discourages efficiency. I see this waste happening all the time, especially in large public works projects where money gets spent because it can, not because it needs to. The new economic stimulus programs should not just dole out money as quickly as possible to anyone who can "use" it.

M.C. Lee said:

Agreed, wholeheartedly.

Lower home mortgage tax deductions [updated]

2008-12-07T22:37:09+00:00

This would need to be done very slowly and carefully, but we shouldn't be encouraging people to carry such huge home mortgage loans forever. Perhaps we just notch the deduction down by 2% per year.

M.C. Lee said:

Good idea, but take it further. Have a sliding scale deduction such that the higher the original mortgage, the lower the deduction. Then raise the deduction at small percentages if the property devaluates.

Revise the "Presidental dollar" ($3) campaign fund.

2008-12-07T22:33:34+00:00

M.C. Lee suggested:
Obama refused the voluntary "Presidental campaign dollar" funding for his campaign. Indeed, both the major parties have good fund-raising machines, already. Designate this fund to go only to third party and independent candidates, revising the requirements such that these candidates have easier access to the funds to raise new issues during Presidential elections.

Let tax payers set budget priorities

2008-12-07T22:03:08+00:00

M.C. Lee suggested:
This was an idea I advanced years ago in grad school. When people complete their income tax forms (after tax reform simplifying the tax code, of course), let those who pay the taxes (not those who owe no taxes) indicate their preference for proportional spending among several budget categories of spending. This would be a few extra tick-marks on a tax form. Either: 1) allocate those proportions to accounts of the specified budget categories; or 2) use aggregated statistical ranges to set budget category ranges whithin which the President and Congress must stay when detailing the federal budget. This has several advantages, without taking actual line item decisions away from our top lawmakers. First, people will get what they want, so they must be careful in making their choices. Second, it gives our leaders a clear signal about how tax dollars should be spend. I won't go so far as to suggest that this move would make paying taxes more popular, but it would certainly give taxpayers more satisifaction when paying those taxes if they know they have direct input to spending priorities. I will go so far as to suggest that such an approach could be an alternative to all the "special loophole" deductions that encourage people to spend money in ways the government would like. Rather, have the taxpayer indicate how they would like the government to spend tax dollars.

"Use it or lose it" policies

2008-12-06T18:24:30+00:00

an anonymous user suggested:
When government gives out money based on the amount used, as opposed to what results the money can produce, it discourages efficiency. I see this waste happening all the time, especially in large public works projects where money gets spent because it can, not because it needs to. The new economic stimulus programs should not just dole out money as quickly as possible to anyone who can "use" it.

The drug war [updated]

2008-12-04T19:46:56+00:00

How much money do we spend on non-violent drug crimes and imprisonment?

bonedog84 said:

oh, btw, that argument only fails to hold water in some cases. In others, such as cocaine use, there is a medical reason for drugs to stay illegal. The policy certainly bears revisiting.

The drug war [updated]

2008-12-04T19:44:34+00:00

How much money do we spend on non-violent drug crimes and imprisonment?

bonedog84 said:

Agreed. Many people automatically assume that illicit drugs are illicit for some scientific reason. That argument fails to hold water, and the current backward US policies have prevented research into alternative treatments of PTSD using some currently illicit drugs that have, gasp, been scientifically proven to HELP with something.

The bailouts of giant banks

2008-12-02T18:31:05+00:00

an anonymous user suggested:
We should stop bailing out the executives and investors (debt and equity) of Wall Street firms who took giant risks and obscured their accounting so that no one knows what their liabilities are. Now that the market is punishing their reckless behavior, the taxpayer is paying the cost! We shouldn't bail out any company until it comes clean on what all of its significant liabilities are, so at least we know how deep the pit is that we're trying to fill. AIG, Citigroup, these pits just keep getting bigger. There are plenty of smaller, healthy banks to step in and take business and employees away from banks who have made bad decisions.

Looks like there's a lot to cut; how about that hatchet!

2008-12-01T17:32:25+00:00

vontrapp suggested:
You can try to use a scalpel to remove a gangrenous limb, but it would take a long time!

IRS! Institute the Fair Tax. [updated]

2008-12-01T17:27:29+00:00

The Fair Tax will eliminate all tax for the poor and eliminate all tax breaks for the rich, while eliminating almost all enforcement costs! Sounds lke a no brainer to me!

vontrapp said:

HeckRuler, allright, consumerism is exactly the problem with our economy today. Oh, and we could amend the thing to include services.

military hardware research and development [updated]

2008-11-30T22:06:18+00:00

Ballistic Missile Defense has never worked and most experts say it never will. It destabilizes the nuclear arms situation and encourages those who already have missiles to acquire a very large number ot defeat the system. And a real nuclear attack would almost certainly use a small "suitcase" device that's not traceable back to any nation-state. Researching small nuclear bombs is also madness as the long term result of this is almost certainly that one goes off in an American or NATO city - open societies being vastly more vulnerable to infiltration than dictatorships. And continued research into offensive bio-weapons, whether masked as "defensive" or not, is far better put into the public health system that would deal with any large-scale epidemic, attack or not. Land mines also need to be banned and so do all other weapons that primarily target civilians. Civil law should allow vendors of these to be sued by any civilian harmed by them after the war is over.

Dilpil said:

This is somewhat of a confused submission. What does creating liability for weapons manufacturers do to shrink the federal budget?

Tax subsidies to big oil companies [updated]

2008-11-30T21:49:18+00:00

Oil companies receive billions of dollars per year in tax subsidies. This is an easy cut to make given their exorbitant profits.

Dilpil said:

Can someone point me to a more comprehensive report of how these subsidies work, and how they came to exist? Thank you.

Central Intelligence Agency

2008-11-29T05:45:58+00:00

an anonymous user suggested:
The CIA has supposedly done some great things for the USA, and I'd applaud them for that, except I don't know those things are because it's classified. The only time we hear about it is when they screw up, and we only hear that 10 years after the fact. The agency is built on an unstable, inherently defective design of secrecy that cannot function effectively in a democratic society. Furthermore, the nature of their operation is questionable at best. They are in the business of clandestine operations, the sort of things we don’t want to admit to. The CIA has a very ugly track record that left a path of destruction through central America. It’s their job to do thing that we ourselves, other countries, and international agreements all label as illegal. Aren’t we supposed to be the good guys? And there’s the argument that all of these dirty actions have come back to bite us. It’s a term called “blowback”. If you give people a reason to hate you, they will go to great length to harm you. Al-Qaeda needs to be hunted down and destroyed. But it needs to be done in a way that the rest of the world, our children, and the majority of the USA will be proud of. Otherwise they will be martyrs, and their children, countrymen, and brothers of the faith will find us to be “the bad guy” and they will hate us. And they will seek revenge. And our children will witness our past and will have to go through all of this again. So America must be loved. America must give the world reason to love us. But that isn’t the CIA’s job. The war that the CIA was made for has already been won, no thanks to them. Soviet Russia collapsed under it’s own oppressive weight and when the Berlin wall fell, the CIA had no operative in the country. They had to watch CNN like the rest of the world. I’d like to tell you how much we could save by removing them, but those funds are black listed. It’s probably a lot.

The drug war

2008-11-28T03:40:08+00:00

an anonymous user suggested:
How much money do we spend on non-violent drug crimes and imprisonment?

Tax subsidies to big oil companies [updated]

2008-11-27T17:27:24+00:00

Oil companies receive billions of dollars per year in tax subsidies. This is an easy cut to make given their exorbitant profits.

epheterson said:

Forget giving them subsidies, TAX them! They're getting rich out of our pockets! Why in G's name do we give them MORE?

Department of Education [updated]

2008-11-27T17:25:40+00:00

Let's return responsibility for education back to state and local government. The current DOE budget is $58 Billion/Year.

epheterson said:

I disagree with this idea. I think a united DOE (and funding pot) at the federal level is beneficial at the student level in each and every county. A functional DOE can watch over schools and make sure students are leaning the right things at the same time.

military hardware research and development [updated]

2008-11-27T17:23:05+00:00

epheterson said:

I am against this idea. I believe some of the best inventions and innovations are brought to light through military funding. Nuclear bombs were invented for the military, now clean nuclear plants power my home.

Reform the tax code: Flat Tax

2008-11-27T07:42:44+00:00

step forward suggested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax This is something that could be used in seeing if everyone pays their share of the tax burden. It would be great if the tax return was like one page lone, then not so much would be spent every year on stress and time during tax season.

IRS! Institute the Fair Tax. [updated]

2008-11-26T20:24:50+00:00

The Fair Tax will eliminate all tax for the poor and eliminate all tax breaks for the rich, while eliminating almost all enforcement costs! Sounds lke a no brainer to me!

HeckRuler said:

FairTax is interesting. It has one nice effect. It will kill consummerism.
It has a lot of bad. The wealthy will become rediculously wealthy. It gives unending handouts to the poor. The real burden is on the middle-class, the traditional consumers.

One big issue I have with it is that services aren't taxed. This is a MASSIVE LOOPHOLE! I didn't buy that from him, I paid him to make it.

Swap farm subsidies for renewable fuel investments [updated]

2008-11-26T20:15:14+00:00

Seems more in the national interest to focus on renewable fuels/energy sources than just direct payments to farmers and agricultural companies.

HeckRuler said:

As an Iowan city slicker, I've been saying this since I saw it and did the math. Ethanol is a viable alternative, not to oil, but to farm subsidies.
(Yes, we need the farms. No, I don't want them owned by Enron. No, we can't tax wealth without destroying farmers. They have massive wealth, and move a lot of money, but little profit. )

military/defense spending

2008-11-26T05:35:35+00:00

bshanks suggested:
According to http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy09/pdf/budget/tables.pdf , over half of discretionary spending is going to defense. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures , we spend more than twice as much on our military as Europe (not just the average country in Europe -- all of the EU, combined! We spend about 10x as much as the UK, for example). Our budget deficit is about $450 billion. The amount of yearly interest we pay on our national debt is about $450 billion ( http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm ). We need to make extremely massive cuts in spending, and we can't expect to do that without massively cutting the one item that accounts for over half of the discretionary budget. We can't expect that increased efficiency will cut the cost of our military in half. The reason for the huge cost is that we try to exert influence on far-away places more than other countries do. We have to bite the bullet and realize that we simply cannot afford to remain as powerful as we are today. Therefore, we must pursue a much less aggressive foreign policy -- by comparison with our current policy, an "isolationist" one. Completely pull out all units from the entire Middle East, and from most other foreign lands. Dramatically cut the size of the military. Over time, this will lead to savings. We are paying $450 billion a year in interest. We don't have a choice, we have to make drastic cuts. More than half of our discretionary spending is on defense. We are spending $400 billion more than the EU does on defense. The conclusion is forced.

IRS! Institute the Fair Tax. [updated]

2008-11-26T05:05:43+00:00

The Fair Tax will eliminate all tax for the poor and eliminate all tax breaks for the rich, while eliminating almost all enforcement costs! Sounds lke a no brainer to me!

bshanks said:

i've heard that under the current system the rich get so many tax loopholes that they would actually pay more under a flat tax! in theory i would prefer a progressive tax scheme, but i don't trust politicians to keep out tax loopholes unless the system is ridiculously simple. so perhaps in practice this would be the most progressive scheme.

Cut corn subsidies [updated]

2008-11-25T17:50:37+00:00

Why are we subsidizing corn production over other crops?

whatelse said:

Exactly! Corn is killing us and we need to stop subsidizing pretty much the worst crop to grow. It is harsh on the land and to our bodies. Why must corn be in everything!?

Cut back on maintaining forest service roads

2008-11-25T17:13:07+00:00

an anonymous user suggested:
Turn more forest service roads into non-motor vehicle roads, essentially wide bicycle trails, and stop the regular maintainance on them. This has happened some recently. It might be able to be done more.

REFORM IMIGRATION [updated]

2008-11-25T09:32:57+00:00

addoNovus said:

Allow for a points system so that highly skilled immigrants hold their own visas, as opposed to forcing them to be dependent on employer sponsored visas.

REFORM IMIGRATION

2008-11-25T02:33:59+00:00

IRS! Institute the Fair Tax. [updated]

2008-11-25T02:24:39+00:00

The Fair Tax will eliminate all tax for the poor and eliminate all tax breaks for the rich, while eliminating almost all enforcement costs! Sounds lke a no brainer to me!

NoGovNoTax said:

Equally percentage wise on spending. What's wrong with this? Nothing. Not a republican idea. A non-partisan idea.The Poor is untaxed. What do they care after that? Middle Class will save more money under the fairtax system. Yes some will actually be taxed. Why? They make more money, and the rich will pay more into it then all of us. I could care less how much you or anybody else "Earns".

Lower home mortgage tax deductions

2008-11-24T21:32:17+00:00

snyd3282 suggested:
This would need to be done very slowly and carefully, but we shouldn't be encouraging people to carry such huge home mortgage loans forever. Perhaps we just notch the deduction down by 2% per year.

Highway projects designed to move more cars

2008-11-24T21:26:20+00:00

snyd3282 suggested:
The Boston Big Dig resulted in more traffic jams, not less. It encourages more sprawl and oil consumption when we should be looking at smarter ways to grow. Lets cut these highway projects that are intended to move more cars and look at moving people and goods more efficiently instead.

Cut corn subsidies

2008-11-24T21:23:12+00:00

snyd3282 suggested:
Why are we subsidizing corn production over other crops?

wasteful government spending

2008-11-24T21:20:01+00:00

dollyh suggested:
so many programs can be cut and economies should be made on remaining ones ,people should be encouraged to use electronic transfer for social security checks and payroll and tax refunds

Eliminate Farm subsidies for all but "family" farms.

2008-11-24T20:36:07+00:00

an anonymous user suggested:
The big Corporate farms don't need it and the USA needs to start cutting back on these givaways.

Department of Education [updated]

2008-11-23T05:02:19+00:00

Let's return responsibility for education back to state and local government. The current DOE budget is $58 Billion/Year.

Mike Mathieu said:

Do you mean to stop spending the $58B on education, or just that there'd be more savings on administrative costs if you sent that money directly to state/local offices? A blanket cut on education spending doesn't sound like a scalpel approach.

IRS! Institute the Fair Tax. [updated]

2008-11-22T19:13:52+00:00

The Fair Tax will eliminate all tax for the poor and eliminate all tax breaks for the rich, while eliminating almost all enforcement costs! Sounds lke a no brainer to me!

snesich said:

How do I SUBTRACT votes from this awful, Republican idea? Any tax system that takes equally from billionaires and average income people is dumb, counterproductive and very conservative. This is a Fools Gold "idea" that sounds good until you look into it. Every nation in the world uses a progressive tax system, unless they're a backward place or a dictatorship. Don't fall for a "Flat Tax" scheme.

IRS! Institute the Fair Tax.

2008-11-22T13:26:54+00:00

an anonymous user suggested:
The Fair Tax will eliminate all tax for the poor and eliminate all tax breaks for the rich, while eliminating almost all enforcement costs! Sounds lke a no brainer to me!

Department of Education

2008-11-22T05:14:57+00:00

an anonymous user suggested:
Let's return responsibility for education back to state and local government. The current DOE budget is $58 Billion/Year.

The Federal Reserve

2008-11-22T04:25:25+00:00

an anonymous user suggested:
The Federal Reserve's function is to conjure money into existence. And it does so at the behest of politicians who require this money in order to pay for the programs, bubbles, and wars that they know we can't afford. As the Fed inflates the money supply, it erodes the value of our citizens' real savings and retirement. And its artificial injections to boost one market (stocks) leads to bubbles in others (housing), which ultimately crash. While the Fed exists, we will never live within our means. All other cuts are just rearranging the deck chairs.

Sugar Subsidies

2008-11-22T03:57:22+00:00

an anonymous user suggested:
We eat too much sugar in this country. Every year the U.S. subsidizes sugar cane production to prop up the price, and is extremely protectionist against other countries that produce sugar... We need to produce less sugar and more arugula!

Demand off the shelf pricing for medical goods. [updated]

2008-11-21T23:08:28+00:00

Medical goods and services are priced absurdly due to the idiosyncrasies of the current system. Gauze in a hospital should not cost $50. This will save medicare and medicaid lots of money

Barakawolf said:

"Marketing to the public at large is a ludicrous and wasteful product"
Ack. I meant to say "practice" instead of "product."
Carry on :)

Daylight Savings Time

2008-11-21T23:07:55+00:00

caross suggested:
The US practices daylight saving time or DST, shifting one hour ahead in the spring and one hour back in the fall. Academics on the NYT Op-Ed page, state that there is little scientific proof that this reduces energy consumption. It also turns out that this practice could be wasteful. In fact an Indiana study, showed an overall increase of 1 percent in residential electricity use with occasional increases of 2 to 4 percent in late spring and early fall. Time to lose this outdated idea.

Demand off the shelf pricing for medical goods. [updated]

2008-11-21T23:06:12+00:00

Medical goods and services are priced absurdly due to the idiosyncrasies of the current system. Gauze in a hospital should not cost $50. This will save medicare and medicaid lots of money

Barakawolf said:

Medicines cost as much as they do because of the television, radio and magazine ads Big Pharma takes out. Prescription medicines aren't directly available to the consuming public, doctors dispense them. Marketing to the public at large is a ludicrous and wasteful product. Cut out the media campaign, market to the trade only, bring our medical costs down!

Welfare and food stamps

2008-11-21T21:55:20+00:00

pburkind suggested:
People deserve second chances, but this system is still badly abused by drug addicts and mooches. Spend that money on education, and fix the system!

military hardware research and development

2008-11-21T20:40:58+00:00

an anonymous user suggested:
Ballistic Missile Defense has never worked and most experts say it never will. It destabilizes the nuclear arms situation and encourages those who already have missiles to acquire a very large number ot defeat the system. And a real nuclear attack would almost certainly use a small "suitcase" device that's not traceable back to any nation-state. Researching small nuclear bombs is also madness as the long term result of this is almost certainly that one goes off in an American or NATO city - open societies being vastly more vulnerable to infiltration than dictatorships. And continued research into offensive bio-weapons, whether masked as "defensive" or not, is far better put into the public health system that would deal with any large-scale epidemic, attack or not. Land mines also need to be banned and so do all other weapons that primarily target civilians. Civil law should allow vendors of these to be sued by any civilian harmed by them after the war is over.

Demand off the shelf pricing for medical goods.

2008-11-21T17:30:13+00:00

jlaprise suggested:
Medical goods and services are priced absurdly due to the idiosyncrasies of the current system. Gauze in a hospital should not cost $50. This will save medicare and medicaid lots of money

Swap farm subsidies for renewable fuel investments

2008-11-21T14:14:50+00:00

Mike Mathieu suggested:
Seems more in the national interest to focus on renewable fuels/energy sources than just direct payments to farmers and agricultural companies.

The Iraq War [updated]

2008-11-21T14:10:43+00:00

The Iraq War costs almost $300 million per day. It's time to bring home the troops.

Mike Mathieu (admin) responded:

End the war is a bit of a hatchet. Specific ideas for a scalpel approach?

spending on new roads and highways.

2008-11-21T02:05:39+00:00

frontseat suggested:
This money would be better spent maintaining our existing infrastructure.

The Iraq War

2008-11-21T01:56:50+00:00

frontseat suggested:
The Iraq War costs almost $300 million per day. It's time to bring home the troops.

Tax subsidies to big oil companies

2008-11-21T01:55:45+00:00

frontseat suggested:
Oil companies receive billions of dollars per year in tax subsidies. This is an easy cut to make given their exorbitant profits.