I have finally come up with a close to finished product for our budget problem. It is honestly fair to all federal programs because it cuts spending equally across the board based on the percentage of the budget the department already holds.
If you were to manage a company and have to give a rate increase to your customers you would do it fairly to all customers across the board.
If you were increasing insurance rates in a state you would do it fairly to EVERY insurance holder in the state (mandatory in most places).
Why not use that same policy for making budget cuts?
Most of my numbers could be wrong because I only researched using Wikipedia.org.
I used the number I found for our receipts (income) which was $2,381,000,000,000.00 (or $2,381 Billion or $2.381 Trillion).
I used the number I found for the 2010 actual budget for spending which was $3,551,800,000,000.00 (or $3,551.80 Billion or $3.551 Trillion).
Then I assumed that for every $100 we receive in receipts we take $20 (20%) and make a payment on debt. This leaves us with $1,904,800,000,000.00 (or $1,904.80 Billion or $1.904 Trillion) to spend on our NEW budget.
Now I will respect the "Mandatory" items and leave them be. Oh wait, our mandatory budget for spending is 2.173 Trillion Dollars! We only bring in 2.381 Trillion Dollars! I don't know too much about the federal government, but I do know that 208 Billion Dollars will not go far in their discretionary budget. So, it's not hard to see that minor changes in our current spending plan are out the window.
Let's continue this the proper way and cut evenly across the ENTIRE budget including both mandatory and discretionary budgets.
In my embedded Google document spreadsheet you will see the following columns:
1) Line Items - Items found on the 2010 Budget
2) % of actual Budget - The line item's percentage of the 2010 total budget.
3) Current 2010 Spending (Billions)- The line item's current budget amount.
4) Spendable $ after 20% debt re-payment (Billions) - The line item's new budget amount after receipts and 20% debt re-payment.
5) Savings (spending-income) (Billions) - The amount of savings for that line item by using my new budget versus the old budget.
6) Actual Income (Receipts) (billions) - The actual amount of income or receipts the Government has to spend for the year.
This budget will show us with zero dollars brought forward to the new year but also paying off $476.2 Billion Dollars in debt as well instead of increasing it.
- Joshua Brunhoff
- Team Bruno Solutions
And for those wondering: "But, what are our departments supposed to do with such a massive cut in spending?" The answer is simple: YOU do not dictate how much money your department will receive for your budget, the United States Congress decides how much money you will receive for your budget. YOUR job is to figure out how to provide the services you are supposed to provide while staying within your budget!
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