"I could end the deficit in 5 minutes," he told CNBC. "You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election. The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why?
Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971...before computers, e-mail, cell phones, etc. Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure.
Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise. In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.
• Congressional Reform Act of 2011
1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.
2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.
3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.
4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.
National Spending? Here are some facts
Washington D.C. - some facts about revenue collections and spending.
Collections: Tax Revenues
plus: Misc. Federal Receipts
minus: Expenditures
equals: Surplus/(Deficit)
1 Income Security includes programs like unemployment, food and nutrition, and Federal employee retirement benefits.
2 The Federal government uses "netting" logic to reduce published outlays to $3.456 trillion (3.744 - .288). They are separated here to show true spending. "Net" outlays in 2011 are an estimated $3.819 trillion (+10.5% vs. 2010).
Some Observations
• Approximately 56% of spending is for "mandatory" programs like social security, medicare, and veteran benefits.
• 44% of spending is for discretionary programs.
• Our Federal government spent approximately 40-50% more than it brought in during 2010. This is projected to be over 60% in 2011.
• If the individual income taxes collected each year were doubled, the budget would still show red ink in 2011 and would barely cover the 2010 deficit.
• Three times more is spent on legal and government administration than on agricultural support.
• Estimated net Federal outlays increase by 10.5% in 2011.
The estimated spending increases in some key Federal functions are:
• General Government: up 39.3%
• Veteran's benefits and services: up 30.5%
• Administration of Justice: up 13.5%
• National Defense: up 10.8%
• Medicare: up 9.5%
So as the political rhetoric hits high gear and politicians debate increasing our $14 trillion in national debt you now have the facts no matter which side of the aisle makes more sense to you.
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