More Ways To Cut Trillions From The Federal Budget Without Dismantling Social Programs For Elderly, Underprivileged And Children

Courtesy of Alan Grayson

Each one of which would save up to $1 trillion, or more, over the next ten years:

1. We could let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire. (“No! No!” shout the Koch brothers.)
2. We could let Medicare negotiate the price of drugs, the way that the VA and private insurance companies already do.
3. We could require the rich to pay the same percentage of their income toward Social Security and Medicare as the poor and the middle class do. Not a higher percentage – my God, that would be progressive taxation! Just the same percentage.
4. We could impose the same alternative minimum tax on giant corporations that we mere humans must pay.
5. We could reduce U.S. military spending to a paltry 40% of the world’s total, from the current 48%, which would still leave us spending four times as much as any other nation.
6. We could make Warren Buffett pay the same tax rate on his income as his secretary pays on hers, by eliminating the long-term capital gains tax break, the great majority of which goes to the hyper-rich.