Here is a link to an AP article by Glenn Johnson but I pulled it from Comcast so not certain it will work. It is about the bunch that is supposed to recommend how to fix the national debt. I was impressed ( bulls--- ) on the concept of ending deducting home mortgage interest.

No BS aside, one should pay attention to this thing as it will effect all of us as the train wreck ahead of us can not be avoided. I do not care if you are one those who are R or D or just vote your gut but every special interest from biz to labor, to widows & orphans are going hit the boards on this one and if history is a guide the middle class will take it in the shorts. ( again / still )

http://www.comcast.net/articles/finance/20100711/US.Governors.Debt.Commission/

Yes AM it is going to get rough. 2015 all our tax money currently paid will only cover the interest on the national debt. Bottom line is congress has turned the tax code into, geez it has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. Pile on biz taxes and that just hides them as they just pass them on to the end consumer and adds to the loss of jobs. The free rides are about to end and the screaming will sound like a cat fight concert!

Your right kid .............. we are so screwed.

What do you figure that would do to the price of homes, Hank?

It would most definitely lead to the loss of millions of people's minds.

That is easy. When purchasing ( if you have a brain ) it is price + interest + property taxes - deductions from fed taxes. Interest rates go up people will have to stay down a bracket as to purchase price. Same goes with deductions, at about 30% back off your fed bill it allows you to purchase a higher value target.

If you loose the deductions property values will drop ( depending on the value / low end not so much ) and if interest rates climb with it then housing values will tank big time.

This thing is coming to a end and a lot of pain will come right with it.

I'm almost glad the dems will likely lose power in the next round. Whoever is in office is going to be mighty unpopular, damn quick. The fact is, we must make significant cuts to cherished programs, and or raise unpopular taxes. We have lots of ways to do this but none are going to be popular.
I fear no one will act until we have a full fledged meltdown. Politicians are not fond of making hard choices. Obama originaly asked that the commission’s finding be binding. The Rs said no way.
I just read that our defense budget is more than eight times that of the next biggest spender. Is that necessary? Do we need to have billions of dollars in farm subsidies? Could the rich possible squeeze by on the pre Bush tax rates? Should we pay full Medicare and Social security benefits to those earning more than a million per year? Should Social Security retirement age be raised by eight years, the amount our life expectancy has risen since the inception of SS? The questions and answers are obvious, but as the co chairs of the commission said the implementation will be ugly.

So last year "new home buyers" got an extra tax credit or write-off. Now they're talking about taking away the mortgage interest write-off. This should really stimulate the housing market.

Everything is fine as long as the warlords in Afghanistan are getting paid billions for not shooting at our troops. We pay Israel at least $3B a year. Why don't we cut foreign aid first?

Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson have a battle on their hands. Any cuts will be unpopular. Reminds me of when David Stockman was budget axeman for Reagan in the early 80s. Bowles had us on the right track when Clinton was in office. Then Bush cut taxes, borrowed money for war, and got us into this mess.

The Canadian housing market is hot and there is no interest deduction. They didn't suffer from all of the bad lending as the banks in Canada (I think all 6 of them) knew better then to get involved in those ridiculous loans. In Canada, if you default on your home loan you don't get to walk away free as the banks go after your other assests to make up the difference.

Getting rid of the mortgage interest deduction will hit the middle class. Without it, most of us can't itemize other deductions. Housing and unemployment are the two main players in ecomomic recovery. It would not be a good time to run another knife into the already deflating housing market. That is unless Congress is ready to over haul the whole tax system and I can't see that happening.

Good luck on reducing Medicare and SS benefits. Anyone ever hear of the Baby Boomers, the largest block of voters? Perhaps congress can set the example and vote to reduce their high end benefits before going after us middle class folks.

I sense yet another commission report that will hit the shelves not too long after it is finalized. Politicians are short term thinkers and would prefer to put off and talk around problems that are not an imminent crisis.

Folks always focus on foreign aid, but it's less than 1% of our budget. If you want serious cuts it needs to be defense, entitlements, and subsidies.

Further information: Government spending

A pie chart representing spending by category for the US budget for 2009The President's budget for 2009 totals $3.1 trillion. Percentages in parentheses indicate percentage change compared to 2008. This budget request is broken down by the following expenditures:

Mandatory spending: $1.89 trillion (+6.2%)
$944 billion - Social Security
$408 billion - Medicare
$224 billion - Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)
$360 billion - Unemployment/Welfare/Other mandatory spending
$260 billion - Interest on National Debt
Discretionary spending: $1.21 trillion (+4.9%)
$515.4 billion - United States Department of Defense
$145.2 billion(2008*) - Global War on Terror
$70.4 billion - United States Department of Health and Human Services
$68.2 billion - United States Department of Transportation
$45.4 billion - United States Department of Education
$44.8 billion - United States Department of Veterans Affairs
$38.5 billion - United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
$38.3 billion - State and Other International Programs
$37.6 billion - United States Department of Homeland Security
$25.0 billion - United States Department of Energy
$20.8 billion - United States Department of Agriculture
$20.3 billion - United States Department of Justice
$17.6 billion - National Aeronautics and Space Administration
$12.5 billion - United States Department of the Treasury
$10.6 billion - United States Department of the Interior
$10.5 billion - United States Department of Labor
$8.4 billion - Social Security Administration
$7.1 billion - United States Environmental Protection Agency
$6.9 billion - National Science Foundation
$6.3 billion - Judicial branch (United States federal courts)
$4.7 billion - Legislative branch (United States Congress)
$4.7 billion - United States Army Corps of Engineers
$0.4 billion - Executive Office of the President
$0.7 billion - Small Business Administration
$7.2 billion - Other agencies
$39.0 billion(2008*) - Other Off-budget Discretionary Spending
The financial cost of the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan are not part of the defense budget; they are appropriations.

[edit] Deficit

I don't think Congress has the sack to take away the mortgage interest deduction...........or make big cuts to Medicare/Medicaid/SS.

The wheels will come off the bus before they turn it down those roads.

BWP: That was not MY chart. Simply the easiest I could find with a quick Google search. Many other charts are out there and they are in basic agreement. (I should have mentioned where I got it, but now I forget, and it’s not important. It was not from some MSNBC or Faux News report.)

Not sure what you mean by state buy outs, but they probably are not all that important in the big picture. The chart shows where the bulk of the money goes and that's where the bulk of cuts must come from. This problem is so big a onetime cut of a billion here or there won’t make much of a dent. We need to be thinking multiple billions of cuts, and to do that we have to look at where the big expenditures are.

$515.4 billion - Defense. OK, I'm willing to risk that the US will still be able to defend itself if we knock off $100 billion.

$145.2 billion - Global War on Terror. OK, so how much does our risk to terrorism increase if we knock off $100 billion here?

$37.6 billion - Homeland Security. OK, let's keep the US Coast Guard, but I'll gamble that eliminating TSA won't increase the risk of a US airline hijacking an iota.

I suggest these for starters while acknowledging that national security is the federal government's number one job. Having recently read that the US spends more on the defense budget than all other countries combined, it's not that hard to conclude that perhaps the military-industral complex have successfully conspired to over spend and over-extend us more than just a little bit.

Sg

Christ get rid of the tridents ( wanta watch the WA delegation scream ), some other things, pull the troops out of Europe, out of Iraq, lot we can do and it DOES NOT GET US THERE. Add to the list billions in PORK that our sweet elected officials use to bribe voters. Support for the UN, let not forget Afghanistan or the billions the US spends maintaining shipping lanes for oil tankers with our fleets.

The new medical health plan like it or not is 1 trillion short 10 yrs out, Soc Sec is not maintainable, medicare & aid going under. SG your being a little dishonest when you look at the numbers DV put up and come that way to solve it. Defense cuts, yup, they are easy and coming, now on to entitlements and they are not easy. The basic safety net that was the dream in the 60's evolved into the governments can fix and help everyone, WE DON"T HAVE THE MONEY.

Energy will take a 1 trillion investment in the next 20 years to meet power demands and that is not green but present technology. Dams, bridges, water systems, highways, transit, are aging and will take nearly a trillion a year to just bring up to standards. You can not tax our way out of this nor can you cut our way out, well there go the A typical D & R methods.

Like it or not the concept that government can be all things to all people is coming to an end. No idea what things will look like 10 years from now but they will not resemble today.

If "we" is defined as "we, the collective peoples of the United States," then, yes, we do have the money. Sadly, most Americans no longer truly believe in the ideal of "we, the people..."

Pretty sure every penny of what you call state buy outs is reflected in the totals I posted. Each department that is shown on the chart would include those payments as part of their budget.

Fact remains we must cut and cut deeply, but defense looks like the most likely target as it is discretionary funding and is simply enormous by any standard. Do we really need to spend eight to ten times more than any other country? How much do we spend on Iraq and Afghanistan? If we had that money back we would be in much better shape.

Next I would look toward rising the SS entitlement age, adding a means test and dramatically cutting farm subsidies. Then add back the tax cuts Bush put in without any decreases in spending and we are on the way to balancing the budget – something Bush promised to do.

Not to let Obama off the hook, he too is spending like a drunken sailor. Spend less, tax those who can damn well afford it and we would have a balanced budget.

Nope Bush tax cuts gone and the problem will still be with us. The amounts of money to meet entitlement needs have gotten so large and the new health care thing is about a Trillion short at 10 years out.

2015 present tax revenues will only pay the interest on the debt but we will have more revenue but we also have more expenses with health care.

Can not wait until they parade a VAT out.

Well the old health care number was about 30% of my bill was paying for someone who did not pay for their care. Hell I support the concept but I prefer the truth and truth is this new thing may or may not work BUT it is not funded properly. At least something got out the door now it will be fix it time.

I look at things a little differently. I am old enough that I doubt I will be around 10 years from now and my grave site is paid for! Your ideas are valid as well as DV's, everyone's ( well GH is a little out there needs to read some history a bit ) and that is the point. The federal government can not continue down the road it is on. More taxes they are coming to be sure but where and how will be the fight, budget cuts, well this is the key. A better way to say it is a reprioritization. Our elected representatives will have to for the first time since WWII bite the bullet and do their job.

The states are the same. Citizens want this, want that, fix this, save that, fine with me they have to balance there budgets. Well sorta as the main thing about the stimulus monies was they ended up being used as funds to keep the states from going under which would have been a mess. I don't have the answer but but I do know this. This thing of government spending money like a drunken sailor is coming to an end.

So who here DOESN'T think that the printing presses are about to be fired up?

Raise your hand. That's it .... get 'em up there.

I believe we are right on the brink of an inflation nightmare that is going to murder a whole lot of people's retirement dreams, and the biggest problem I see is that I DON'T see the spending slowing down much.

If I ran my finances the way Government runs it's finances, I'd be living in a tent.....if I was lucky.

We were losing more than 600,000 jobs per month when the Bush nightmare ended. Obama stopped the hemorrhaging, but are still losing something like 20-40 thousand jobs a month. That makes Obamas performance one hell of a lot better than his predecessors Is the patient still ill? Yes! Is the patient doing much better than before? Hell yes!

That number, if accurate, equals less than the MONTHLY job losses that we had as Bush was slinking away.

2009 Average CEO Pay at S&P 500 Companies
Salary $1,041,012
Bonus $203,714
Stock Awards $2,630,574
Option Awards $2,284,595
Non-Equity Incentive Plan Compensation $1,790,703
Pension and Deferred Compensation Earnings $1,060,867
All Other Compensation $235,232
Total $9,246,697

Some aren't doing so bad.