DO NOTHING. BALANCE BUDGET?

[D]oing nothing allows all kinds of fiscal changes that politicians generally abhor to take effect automatically.

 

First, doing nothing means the Bush tax cuts would expire, as scheduled, at the end of next year. That would cause a moderately progressive tax hike, and one that hits most families, including the middle class. The top marginal rate would rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, and some tax benefits for investment income would disappear. Additionally, a patch to keep the alternative minimum tax from hitting 20 million or so families would end.

Second, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Obama's health care law, would proceed without getting repealed or defunded. The CBO believes that the plan would bend health care's cost curve downward, wrestling the rate of health care inflation back toward the general rate of inflation.

Third, doing nothing would mean that Medicare starts paying doctors low, low rates. Congress would not pass anymore of the regular "doc fixes" that keep reimbursements high. Nothing else happens. Almost magically, everything evens out.

- Annie Lowrey, Slate.

Balance

 by Adam Zagajewski 
translated by Clare Cavanagh

I watched the arctic landscape from above
and thought of nothing, lovely nothing.
I observed white canopies of clouds, vast
expanses where no wolf tracks could be found.

I thought about you and about the emptiness
that can promise one thing only: plenitude—
and that a certain sort of snowy wasteland
bursts from a surfeit of happiness.

As we drew closer to our landing,
the vulnerable earth emerged among the clouds,
comic gardens forgotten by their owners,
pale grass plagued by winter and the wind.

I put my book down and for an instant felt
a perfect balance between waking and dreams.
But when the plane touched concrete, then
assiduously circled the airport's labryinth,

I once again knew nothing. The darkness
of daily wanderings resumed, the day's sweet darkness,
the darkness of the voice that counts and measures,
remembers and forgets.


from: Eternal Enemies. Copyright 2008.

HOW TO BALANCE THE FEDERAL BUDGET . . . Yes, It Can Be Done

Esquire attempts to balance the Federal budget, and succeeds.

It's worth clicking through to read the specifics. 

Once you take partisan politics out of the equation, 

the way is fairly clear. 

No, not easy. But clear.

"A few months ago, we announced the formation and mandate of the Esquire Commission to Balance the Federal Budget. The plan was simple: A group of former legislators from across the political spectrum would convene, make the hard choices that our current leaders refuse to make, and erase the annual budget deficit by 2020. Below, the results of their efforts in all their statistical detail (also available in the November issue — now on sale). You can also read the authors' introduction here and the story of how it all happened here.

A Few Words on the Objectives:

Primary Objective: To balance the federal budget by 2020 by instituting spending cuts and/or revenue increases, most of which would not begin until 2013.

Secondary Objective: To adjust annual government spending and annual government revenue so that both equal 20 percent of the gross domestic product by 2020.

Tertiary Objective: To stabilize national debt at less than 60 percent of GDP by 2020.
Other Objectives That We Hadn't Intended to Meet but Did Anyway:
• Guarantee the solvency of Social Security over the next seventy-five years.
• Restructure the military to better meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.
• Keep individual tax rates at or near their current levels for all Americans.

Note: All projected savings and revenue for fiscal year 2020 only, and all amounts in 2020 dollars."

The Commission to Balance the Federal Budget: The Results.