High Five vs High Three

[Buster]

it was Smash Mouth

 

[Mike]

Lest some of you forget, that if we simply let the Bush tax cuts expire, and stop spending on the two wars we are engaged in, we would have a balanced budget.

Overly simplistic and way way off: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1415708320100114 - FY 2010 combined spending for Iraq and Afghanistan operations = $136.8 billion. While significant, that's not even 15% of the deficit we have. In fact, the total cost of the conflicts since 2001 is a hair shy of our current annual deficit. On the tax side, according to this: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html the revenue netted by letting all of the Bush tax cuts expire is $226 billion (for 2015).

It's that easy. Let them expire, and bring our soldiers back within our borders.

It isn't that easy. If it was, would Obama have bothered with appointing a commission to look at the long-term funding problem our government has? Even if we do what you suggest, all else staying the same, we are over $600 billion short of a balanced budget. The system as it currently exists is unsustainable. Period.

Kudos to the commission for having the balls to step up to the plate and propose a solution to a problem Congress has been unwilling to address.