(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Let's Do The Math For Trump's Budget [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-11-13 Trump is putting Musk and Ramaswamy in charge a new agency called the Department of Government Efficiency. Are we going to have some head butting here? What about all of Musk's business ventures? Is he going to clone himself so he can be in two places at once? Musk wants to cut $2 trillion from the budget. Have we been lied to again about Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid not being affected? What about that nearly trillion dollar each year military budget? There's only one thing Musk is really capable of doing, which is to find out why $3.5 billion has been spent on the new spacesuits for the Artemis missions and they still aren't ready. Somebody Trump trusts should explain to him what tariffs are. He obviously doesn't have a clue. The deportation project sounds like a trillion dollar project just by itself. One estimate for it is $318 billion. Trump has promised it'll be funded no matter what, that it has "no price tag." With the way anytime the government estimates costs, and there are cost overruns, let's put it at a more realistic $500 billion. I'll be doing round up's and down's in the calculations. I'll try to make sense of the 2025 budget of $7.3 trillion actual budget and the $5.3 trillion that would be left after the $2 trillion removed right off the top. So now we take the 2025 Fiscal Year $7.3 trillion budget and we've ripped $2.5 trillion out of it. He'll wind up giving corporations and businesses a $300 billion tax cut a year and now we're down to $4.5 trillion left in the budget. Discretionary spending for 2025 is $130.7 billion, and $1.7 trillion in mandatory spending, which is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other programs. Left over now is $2.6 trillion. If you leave the military the FY at $842 billion, you're left with $1.75 trillion. Don't tax tips and you've removed $20 billion a year. The Republicans want to cut the additional 87,000 employees that was planned for the IRS. They've already cut out $20 billion out of that expansion and will probably cut the rest. The money that the IRS would have collected from wealthy individuals and corporations not paying their taxes, and you've lost $400 billion annually. Various economists have said that for every dollar spent on the IRS there is a 6-12 dollar return. We can't deduct the $400 billion, it's just a huge source of revenue we're losing because of Republican stupidity. More revenue than the tariffs, which are going to cost us, not the countries of origin, with estimates running from $2,000 to $4,000 annually per person. 10 years of Trump tariffs at 20% would bring in $3.3 trillion, or $330 billion a year. that allows more spending to $2.06 trillion. Pay for non-military government personnel in 2024 was $271 billion. We're now left with $1.79 trillion left to spend on everything else the government does. 16% of the budget goes to infrastructure (roads. bridges, airports), maintaining natural resources, farms, the environment; investing in scientific and medical research; enforcing the nation's laws; and other basic duties of the federal government. 16% of $7.3 trillion is $1.7 trillion. Now we're left with approximately $100 billion. Economic security programs take up 8% of the budget. 7% goes for Veteran's benefits and federal retirees. Of $7.3 trillion that would be $1.09 trillion. With the $100 billion we have left we've got a $1 trillion deficit. Factored in with the $1.7 trillion in mandatory spending was the interest on the national debt. What isn't in there is the difference between the budget and the actual estimated revenue. Revenue for 2025 is projected to be $5.5 trillion. Subtract that from the 2025 budget, and you've got still more to add to the deficit with $1.8 trillion. If you start with a budget of $5.3, then you've got a government surplus of $200 billion. With the mandatory expenditures, and percentages of the pie for the rest of government functions, I couldn't come up with an answer other than starting with the $7.3 trillion budget and the $5.5 trillion revenue. Total deficit of $2.8 trillion to add to the debt in 2025. Four more years of Trump is $11 trillion to the national debt not even including the additional cost of financing the larger amount. With the $2 trillion cost cutting goal by Musk and Ramaswamy, that money will come out of all the areas of the budget, so that isn't factored in on some of the costs and calculations of pieces of the pie. If the $2 trillion isn't cut from the budget, then it's a $4.8 trillion a year deficit. Somehow Trump and Musk are going to involve cryptocurrency in government financing. What a bad idea. Not only is the government not going to be able to work, we bankrupt the whole United States at the same time. Trump's been through enough bankruptcies to know how to do it to the whole country. Go ahead, tell me where my math is wrong. I could easily have made a mistake in logic of pluses and minuses. The point is that the plan to summarily cut $2 trillion from the budget isn't possible. Those that can least afford it will be hurt the worse and the wealthy and corporations will make off like bandits. The deportation plan and tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations add a large amount to the cost of running the government. I think the estimates are low. I think the deportation plan will cost $1 trillion, instead of the $500 billion I've used, and the $318 billion predictions. I think, based on Trump's first time in office, that the tax cuts for the top would be a $1 trillion loss in revenue each year, so that would change the projected revenue to $4.5 trillion instead of $5.5 trillion. Every time a Republican becomes President, especially since Ronald Reagan, we go back to this imaginary fiscal plan called a trickle down economy. Give those at the top a break and it eventually gets to the little people. It never happens. The top just pockets the money and everyone else suffers. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/11/13/2285924/-Let-s-Do-The-Math-For-Trump-s-Budget?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/