balanced budget. congress should set every item in the budget, except social security and health care, to be the same percent of GDP every year. like defense spending might be twenty percent of GDP, and it will stay that way every year even as our GDP rises.
the exception, is that congress can always pass legislation on a case by case basis that deviates from this norm. by having this overall balanced budget approach, we will avoid the yearly debt ceiling fights that we see every year. those are risky, and they're not sustainable.
of course, someone will complain that GDP shrinks during recessions. historically and practically, though, that's not a big deal. as was said, congress can always pass legislation on a case by case basis to deficit spend even more so. but just as importantly, though, is the fact that GDP doesn't shrink much during recessions, usually just a few percent. even during the great recession, GDP only shrunk 5 percent.... so, a 5 percent spending cut isn't that big of a deal. of course, during the great depression GDP shrunk 30 percent... so congress would need to use its case by case power to deal with that sorta situation, cause there are no good options during those times other than to deficit spend to stimulate the economy but maybe not too much, it's their judgment call.
the reason social security and health care are exempted, are because those are expected to change over time, given the government has been borrowing against medicare and SS and currently is trying to pay them back and demographics change over time. the thing is, with these debt ceiling fights, republicans are trying to cut say spending on say food stamps, in order to have enough money to pay social security back. that's the way our accounting is structured. that choice shouldnt exist... social security should just do its own thing and rise and fall on its own merit. it shouldn't come at the cost of other programs, such as food stamps. forcing a choice between paying seniors more and paying poor people less (or giving less food to hungry people) shouldn't be a thing that politicians do. social security can be figured out on its own and congressmen will be forced to reckon given by 2033 the trust fund is going to run out of money and can only pay 80 percent of benefits. maybe taxes on the rich can go up on their payroll tax, benefits for the rich can be cut, retirement age can go up, maybe everyone can chip in a little more on their pay roll taxes. point, solutions are out there, but it shouldn't be intermixed with other governemnt spending. one of the biggest mistakes ever congress made was borrowing against social security and medicare. and on that point, healthcare spending needs to be tackled on its own just like social security, for many of the same reasons.
