Cbo Budget Options Vol 2 August 2009

This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. Restoring America¿s economic health will require dealing with our federal budget deficit over the long term. Reducing that deficit will require reducing the projected level of defense spending over the next 5 years. The defense budget can and should be reduced without harming national security for 3 reasons: (1) The portion of the world¿s military expend. the U.S. consumes compared to our potential adversaries has grown from 60% to 250%, so even if the U.S. were to cut its spending in half it would still be spending more than its adversaries; (2) The global security environment has changed, so we can reduce the overall size and deployment posture of our armed forces; (3) Significant tech. advances make our fighting forces far more efficient than even in the near past.

Briefly surveys more than two centures of American political history to describe how the country has been broken spiritually, politically and financially and advocates a return to core values to restore America's economic and spiritual health.

This testimony is an analyses of DoD¿s budget requests and preliminary projections for FY 2011 through 2028. Those projections are based in part on the President¿s 2010 budget request and budget justification materials the Admin. provided to the Congress with that request. Among the other sources consulted to supplement this analysis were DoD press releases and briefing materials and the Sec. of Defense¿s announcement in April 2009 of changes to the nation¿s defense plans. The long-term demand for defense resources could be larger than the auditor¿s base projections. The auditor estimates that supporting the number of deployed service members would require recurring annual appropriations of about $20 billion in 2010 dollars. Illus.

From the Introduction: This volume presents 103 options that would decrease federal spending of increase federal revenues over the next decade. Those options cover many areas-ranging from defense to energy, Social Security, and provisions of the tax code. The budgetary effects identified for most of the options span the 10 years from 2014 to 2023 (the period covered by CBO's May 2013 baseline budget projections), although many of the options would have longer-term effects as well. Chapters 2 through 5 present options in the following categories: Chapter 2: Mandatory spending other than that for health-related programs; Chapter 3: Discretionary spending other than that for health-related programs, Chapter 4: revenues other than those related to health; Chapter 5: Health-related programs and revenue provisions. In addition to 11 options that are similar in scope to others in this volume, Chapter 5 includes 5 broad approaches for reducing spending on health care programs or revenues forgone because of tax provisions related to health care. Each would offer lawmakers a variety of possibilities for making changes in current laws. Chapter 6 differs from the rest of the volume; it discusses the challenges and the potential budgetary effects of eliminating a cabinet department.