The Greenfield Report with Henry R. Greenfield

Episode 10- Solving America's Debt Crisis: A Practical Roadmap

• Henry R. Greenfield • Season 1 • Episode 10

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The national debt crisis threatens America's economic future, yet politicians from both parties have avoided meaningful solutions for decades. We dive deep into the practical pathways toward fiscal sanity without sacrificing essential services or imposing regressive tariffs on working families.

Our comprehensive analysis reveals how strategic reforms could transform federal finances while strengthening public services. Starting with administrative efficiency, every department could achieve 10% budget cuts by focusing solely on overhead – not service delivery. Government consolidation would eliminate redundant structures while maintaining program effectiveness. These initial steps alone could save up to $500 billion annually.

The healthcare system represents the largest opportunity for meaningful reform. By addressing pharmaceutical pricing, eliminating the fiction of "non-profit" hospital corporations, streamlining benefit management, and reducing administrative bloat, we could save between $600 billion and $1 trillion yearly while improving care delivery. Similarly, thoughtful Social Security reforms would ensure long-term viability through reasonable adjustments to eligibility ages, contribution requirements, and maximum payouts.

Defense spending – our largest discretionary expense – demands careful reconsideration through a bipartisan commission identifying outdated systems unsuited for 21st-century challenges. This process could yield $200-300 billion in annual savings without compromising security.

When combined with revenue preservation by maintaining current tax rates rather than implementing new cuts, these reforms would eliminate the deficit while enabling debt reduction. The total impact: approximately $2 trillion in spending reductions paired with $2 trillion in maintained revenue – all without implementing tariffs estimated to cost American families $5,000+ annually.

Ready to move beyond partisan gridlock toward real fiscal responsibility? Join us as we explore how America can become "sane, rich and healthy once again" through pragmatic reforms that benefit everyone, not just the wealthy and well-connected.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Greenfield Report with Henry R Greenfield, your gateway to understanding today's geopolitical landscape. With 50 years of experience across 10 countries, henry shares expert insights on world affairs, offering practical solutions and engaging guest perspectives. Dive into the Greenfield Report for lively discussions on the issues that matter.

Speaker 2:

This is Henry R Greenfield for the Greenfield Report. Today, we are tackling part two of the US debt and deficit crisis, which threatens, in the long run, to actually tank and collapse the entire US economic system. This is a problem that both sides of the aisle have avoided forever, and one that Trump is trying to solve in an absolute worst way possible and which will not succeed. Now. We've already discussed some of the issues involved with that, so on this segment, or the second half, we're going to look at solutions. So the first thing that we want to say straight up and this is important for all of our listeners and for the Americans and US government is that, yes, there needs to have spending cut. Number one and number two there would be no tax cuts, including no new tax cuts. With the Trump tariff cuts now in full swing, the solution side of the US debt and deficit crisis is even more important than we could have ever imagined, even a short few weeks ago, when we began to put this all together. We may need to break this into a couple of more parts, so let's begin with a few general fixes that everyone, or most everyone, can agree on and avoids the chaos of Doge Musk and Trump that have been visited upon millions and millions of Americans. The difference between our method and the Trump-Musk-Doge or other in his administration method is we take things step by step and we do not crash the airplane for no reason, which is why millions took to the streets this weekend to protest. In the US, americans, contrary to what much of the world thinks, may have made a crazy decision on bringing Trump back in, but they are not stupid.

Speaker 2:

As we noted in the 2025 budget, under the Greenfield plan, all departments would do a self-analysis and cut at least 10%. There would be restrictions on cutting services. It all has to come from admin, which most people agree on. That is year one, which would mean a savings of $450 to $500 billion out of a total budget of $6.8 trillion budget of $6.8 trillion. As part of all of this would be admin in every agency except defense and social security, which we're going to deal with later. It would mean a cut of 20% of their administrative jobs. That's 10% budget cut, but up to 20% in the job cuts. Noting services cannot be cut and I completely disagree with all of the department heads who say we need to have separate structures, and many people are right, including RFK Jr, who's consolidating, even though I don't agree with the method, and that is, we don't need to have all those department heads, which would lead to maybe a modest saving of a few billion dollars, but at least you'll be going in the right direction.

Speaker 2:

Now let's move on to 2026. We would then cut another 10% Again, none from the service side. How can we do that? But we would get a savings of, let's say, $300 to $400 billion, as the budget actually would be going down, not going up. The key here is that, unless you meet your targets, your budget would be zero. That means if you don't make your cuts, you don't get a budget. So we believe that this would clearly get everyone's attention and focus, and after one now two years in the Greenfield plan, what you would have is people who understood where the cuts would come from without cutting services, and, of course, we're going to deal later with cutting regulations and cutting paperwork. All of this comes together to mean a cost savings at the administrative level.

Speaker 2:

Now the big topic, of course, is consolidation and an end to the government sprawl which almost everybody agrees with. On consolidation, as we said, rfk Jr is correct to consolidate, but not this year. It takes time to cut departments without chaos. Again, a minimum of 20% consolidation is what we're saying for year one. A special emphasis, as we also noted, would be on cutting senior admin jobs.

Speaker 2:

Now let's get serious and stop playing games like Trump and Musk do. That means cuts to all agencies, including the White House. No more extras. No more new departments for Trump. My understanding is there's between 50 to 100 executive office departments. Is there's between 50 to 100 executive office departments? Definitely no more gold trinkets that we see popping up like mushrooms in his constant briefings at the White House. If Trump wants them, he personally pays for them. No more changes to the Rose Garden or anything else where I guess Trump says he wants to pave it over. You leave it alone. He says it's like being in a war. Well then, no more improvements period until the war is won. In that same regard, let's delay taking the new Air Force One and cancel it if possible, and absolutely no cost overruns.

Speaker 2:

Trump has to lead the way on cutting his team, his departments, and that was, I said, the easy part of this. But you can easily get up to $500 billion so far in savings that we have outlined, no problem. So let's get real. If you have a crisis, it is time to step up and stop the lying. So what's the next big category before we get to what we call the big three, which are defense, medicare, medicaid and, of course, social Security?

Speaker 2:

And that is no new tax cuts and no extension of the current tax cuts that Trump enacted in his last administration. Even according to Trump, that would save at least $2 trillion a year, meaning that we do not extend that and we also do not take away the tax on tips or the ludicrous idea of taking away the tax on Social Security. Why? Because, on Social Security, the only ones who would benefit from such a tax cut would be what we call the rich retirees, who make so much as we pointed out in the first half of this on the actual cost situation that they make so much money that they actually have to pay tax on their social security Most people who are getting by. They already have it covered by their personal deduction, as we previously noted. Now you have a combined savings of about $2.5 trillion in the savings and revenue combined. Now, remember we have a $6.8 trillion budget and we've already saved $2.5 trillion. So we're already in a positive zone and we balanced the budget, but let's keep going, because the United States definitely has too many levels of tax.

Speaker 2:

There should be local tax cuts. Shifting everything to the states, as Trump is doing, and local governments is out. This is not going to be a payout or payoff for red states to just do whatever they want on education or any other program. Trump needs to lead a national initiative to cut at least 10% of all regulations in all departments and all levels of government in the United States. For instance, let's eliminate the overlapped, useless levels of government, such as county governments on top of city governments. That could save up. If you add all across the entire United States in that big GDP of $30 trillion, you could save at least $1 trillion, and that doesn't even factor into the savings that we are getting with our plan for the federal government.

Speaker 2:

Now, we've talked a little bit about it, but let's tackle it directly. We need to cut regulation to stimulate the economy. And who's the worst at this? Yes, it's true, the Democrats. No more NIMBY or not in my backyard allowed and set national standards on set areas as emissions, using California, as it always used to be in the past. That means Texas can't get around it and no one can get around it, and we can actually meet our emissions goals, which we have to do for the future.

Speaker 2:

Next, the progressives have to grow up. I don't ever want to hear about another five trillion dollar program from AOC or Bernie Sanders. There's no money to pay for it and the federal government would not be great at administering it, and we'd be back to that whole waste and not fraud, but waste that we've heard from everybody else. Let's get back to what you do to need to win in any century, including the 21st century, and that is building and investing, which is exactly what Biden was doing when he left office. In this same regard, kamala was correct. She was right to build 3 million new housing units. However, we are going to do that with private money and not with public money.

Speaker 2:

Now, in the same regard, though, we need to have the government in there for oversight. So what's that? Do not privatize anything for oversight. So what's that? Do not privatize anything. It is a ripoff, especially not Social Security and not Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Remember those two? Those are the so-called loan consolidator guarantors. Trump says he can sell that off for a half a trillion dollars, and maybe up to a trillion. If he does sell it off.

Speaker 2:

Building and investing that I have laid out will cost the taxpayers nothing and stimulates the economy, while continuing to make a profit for the taxpayers at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and make sure that the property market does not get out of control as it did in 2007, crashing property prices and leading to millions in foreclosures. Do you really want that again? If you are counting as a bonus on top of this, the savings and stimulus so far will add 1 to 2% growth per year in the economy. So let's say your projection is 2 to 2.5%, which is a pretty good growth rate, and these cuts will then get you to three to three and a half percent, or a very nice growth rate, far surpassing anything. Trump got close to, and even better than, biden in the so-called bounce back years after COVID.

Speaker 2:

Now I have saved tackling the big three to last, and you know what they are defense, medicare, medicaid and social security. As this is where the rubber meets the road First, don't panic. It can be done and you will not lose your benefits. You will, in fact, be way better off with our plan. While it may not seem like it, defense is actually a discretionary budgetary item, meaning it is not an entitlement or something fixed into law like Medicare, medicaid and, of course, social Security. So let's tackle defense first and see what we can say.

Speaker 2:

I'm proposing that we have a national commission to identify and eliminate all outmoded systems that cannot be justified to be effective in the next 10 years, and then we would move that up to the next 20 years. This would be bipartisan, to make sure that everybody buys in Now. The savings per year estimated by experts would be at $200 billion, on top of the 10% admin savings that we already achieved, which mean a total of $300 billion off of the defense budget. Now for savings and revenue. If you're starting to add all this up, we are getting close to $3 trillion in year one, or just about one half of the entire federal budget. But let's not stop now, because Social Security has a problem and, yes, it it could go bankrupt or at least services and payments be lowered, unless it is fixed in the next few years.

Speaker 2:

So here are the five fixes that can be done and should be done and will be done to save the system. First of all, we need to raise the minimum age to collect any kind of benefits at at least as a pensioner from 62 to 65, like any responsible country would do. Then the United States has a system which is called 100%, which would be achieved at the year of 70. However, if you don't take that at the age of 70 and you let it go, you would then get your so-called maximum at the age of 75. Now, the upward movement in ages reflects the obvious reality that people are living longer and incentives should be in there to keep on working. Savings on that alone would be, in particular, would be somewhere between $300 billion to $500 billion. Now number two let's forget the ridiculous current cap of around $160,000 in terms of FICA deductions and put that up to half a million dollars or $500,000 of income, which would equal another $100 to $150 billion coming into the system.

Speaker 2:

Now, under the Greenfield plan, there would be absolutely no illegal workers. Every worker and every employer would have to pay into the system. There would be significant criminal penalties for non-compliance, including automatic deportation if you are caught being paid under the table. This will increase Social Security's revenues. Now this is an expert saying this a minimum of $150 billion to $200 billion into the system. And let's also, while we're at it, get a national guest worker program going, so we don't have to worry about everyone running and hiding in the system and that we also don't have the insane, inhuman spectacle of ICE crashing down doors of people who have been living in the US for 20 to 30 years and are now getting deported. And on top of that, what about the cost of ICE and the rest of the world looking at the United States and saying the US is out of control, to get paid out?

Speaker 2:

We also need to do the next fix, which is fix number four, which is we need to up the years or quarters, equivalent to at least 15 years of work over a lifetime. Over the current 10 years, we would still be able to have a special provision for spouses who could not work. Savings is modest, but this would be around 30 to 40 billion dollars per year. Now, the last one is kind of a special one, and I'd like you to think about this carefully. There would be a maximum payout under the Greenfield plan of $3,500 per month, no matter how much you pay in. This is, yes, a minor means fix for the short run. In the long run, we would need to eliminate for high earners all Social Security payments. Now let's take a breath.

Speaker 2:

In this final section of solving the US debt and deficit crisis, we are now going to tackle what is called the ultimate prize or goal, which is actually saving the US health care system. Changes in the US health care system have several levels of so-called solutions. If you ask the experts, there are what they call the big swings, like throwing out private insurance or Medicare for all, or what they call medium swings, on doing something about private equity buyouts, or modest swings, which include a few more drugs to be included in lowering prices, especially for seniors on their meds. Well, if we're going to fix the system, let's forget the designations and just say it how it is. There are two points to start. First of all, we all must agree the US is the most expensive health care system per capita, not just in gross dollars, but in per capita by far in the world. And however you want to put it, the US is, at best, number 20 in some categories of health and up to number 50 for people of color Women, specifically, where their rates of dying and childbirth are among the highest in the developed world.

Speaker 2:

This cannot go on, and RFK Jr's approach of less fast foods and wellness is not going to get it done, as, after all, in the end, it is about the money. Yes, and every study shows that, globally, the rationing of healthcare is a key to either success or the failure of every healthcare system, including the United States. So let us begin with Medicare and Medicaid. Rfk Jr is again correct in one area as we have mentioned, we need to change to a national wellness program, in a way, from the horrible foods or so-called ultra high processed foods which I'm not really sure they're foods that Americans eat in abundance. That, however, is a long-term fix.

Speaker 2:

We need to fix some things here in the short run. First of all, every drug needs to be renegotiated downwards. We need, by using a benchmark, a successful program like Australia which is up to 90% cheaper for the same exact meds as in the United States. Ironically, almost all of those medicines are actually produced or originally came from the United States. So I know it is difficult, but if you want to fix it and find a solution, this is a big place to start. The savings alone on getting all those meds down would be approximately $200 billion, and that goes directly not only to the government but also to us, the citizens, as we're going to pay less and then we can put a maximum on the copay for people with disabilities, age or income issues.

Speaker 2:

Now for the hidden cost of Medicare and Medicaid. Make all hospital corporations taxable. Eliminate the non-profit designation, which everybody in the system knows is pure bullshit. Also, eliminate asset stripping. I know it's complicated, but it can be done and it has to be done. And if you want public support on this, just show the salaries and compensation for executives in this insane ripoff system and you will quickly see that the average this is the average top executive in the system makes at least $5 million and up to $200 million in total compensation per year. In total compensation per year. And don't forget Pittsburgh, which was once the steel capital of the world, now is the mega health services capital of the United States, making billions off of you, the taxpayers.

Speaker 2:

Well, how much would the savings on that be? At least $200 billion and up to $250 billion and, more importantly, would save the hospital system. Now here's an area that you may not be so happy with, but we need to put a cap on the doctors and the specialist fees and get them also back to doctoring and away from paperwork and form filling. Yes, I know this sounds a bit socialist, but it is not. There is no reason or justification for multimillionaire anesthetists, and every study shows that the cost associated with the doctors, including too much paperwork 94%, by the way, complained about that in a recent survey has to be brought under control. That alone would be around $50 billion a year in savings.

Speaker 2:

Now I'd like to get to the core here of savings, and that is we need to eliminate the planned benefit program managers. Throughout the United States, whether you are Kaiser Permanente or the University of Michigan or Blue Cross or Blue Shield, there are thousands and thousands of planned benefit program managers who are negotiating essentially with each other and they say they're saving money, but what they are doing in fact is actually costing the system an exorbitant amount of money. Now remember if we have actually now negotiated all of our services and all of our meds at the national level, we don't need national plan benefit managers. So let's eliminate the entire system, as all those rates again will be negotiated nationally, not locally. What's the savings on that? A hundred billion dollars, okay, I hope you see that we are on a roll and we are doing good for everyone in the system, except for the people that are ripping us off. So let's also, while we're at it and this is important, as every doctor does complain about this is reduce all regulations and paperwork with zero duplication. That's the goal here and that would be the benchmark Zero duplication, with the federal system being the default, but then administered locally. Savings on this would be at least $50 billion and some say would be up to $250 billion in paperwork and elimination of duplication alone. This goes even more for Medicaid, which is part of the $1.1 trillion transfer to states.

Speaker 2:

Now that we have done some of the basic fixes, let's take on the biggest ripoff of all and I'm sure if you've been following it, you know what it is and that is health insurance companies. Health insurance companies are not the solution. They are a big part of the problem and we need to change the entire nature of what health care insurance is like, and that does not mean elimination, but first of all, we should change this to what health care insurance companies do in a country like Australia, which is a system of extras and co-pays, let's say, for hospital fees and, of course, wellness, in a way, from covering everything else, and also those so-called plan benefit managers, all the levels of bureaucracy that are involved with the private insurance companies. Now, you're not going to like this, but let's be honest. We need to eliminate the ACA, or so-called Obamacare. The Republicans were right, as it was the wrong program, but we do have an easy fix for that that everywhere around the world, people use and they do not have to have an Obamacare which is to give everybody a Medicare card from an early age and end that insurance nightmare.

Speaker 2:

All right, now let's add it all up. Where are we now? So we would have caps on costs, caps on fees. We would reduce the insurance industry and change it to where it's actually more beneficial to everyone, including they'll still make profits, and we would be getting big pharma under control. We would end the insanity of private equity asset stripping and charging the US taxpayers, closing the non-profit loophole, which has been massive. The total savings would be a whopping minimum of at least $600 billion a year to easily $1 trillion or more. Or, to make it simple, the goal would be one-third of the total medical cost in the USA, which tops out at $3.5 trillion. Now I want to note and this is extremely important these figures that I'm giving you are from experts and from my research when I have listened to dozens of programs on the medical and medical costs in the US.

Speaker 2:

Now talk about adding up all this. Where do we get to? Well, we have saved about a half of the current budget without a problem, especially when you throw in no tax cuts. So revenues would be up for the government services would be up and admin would be way down and consolidation would be achieved. There would be no shortfalls in revenues and that would be eliminated. The budget would be easily balanced and we could start paying down on the national debt.

Speaker 2:

The military would be ready for the 21st century and not the 20th century, and be far more competitive. We would have no more chaos or craziness like Elon Musk, and he could get back to doing whatever he wants to do, maybe fixing Tesla for a change, I don't know. The US would then once again become the shining beacon of light, the leader of the free world and sorry, elon, it has built in empathy. Not because we'll have become saints, quite the opposite, because we will have gotten rid of the real waste and corruption and there would be no need for tariffs. We covered that before and we have written about it extensively on Quora, and we will make a special episode update of the Greenfield Report to show why it will not work. And the reason for that is, quite honestly, the world is in chaos right now and we need to actually look into that. Quite honestly, the world is in chaos right now and we need to actually look into that. But for today, we are balancing the budget and just be rest assured, you do not need tariffs and taxing the poor, working in middle classes with what is now estimated to be at a minimum of $5,000 per family per year, just to pay for the Trump tariffs, to do what. That doesn't even get you things like a new car, which is another $10,000 more. Well, again, it'll be another episode, but I hope you can see it is not necessary at all.

Speaker 2:

So who is the real culprit? You know Bernie Sanders talks about this all the time, the second of the twin evils that he talks about, with first oligarchs and billionaires and yes, you guessed it corporate waste and corporate corruption. It is not the federal government. It is corporate waste and corporate corruption, or, as we like to call it, corporate state, subsidized crony capitalism. There's no need to do what Musk is doing. Everyone knows it. No one seems to have the guts to say it. There's no need to increase the tax on the rich, by the way. Just cut the deductions and the loopholes, which is where Trump has lived his entire life. Trump has it all wrong. Musk has it worse. The Democrats are no better.

Speaker 2:

My solution is the one that is approved by people who are tax experts, and it is a blend from both sides of the aisle. You will cut the budget by at least $2 trillion or more without any loss of service. You will add at least $2 trillion in revenue without screwing the poor, working and middle classes on useless tariffs. That will bring back net zero on jobs and you will simplify the entire system and get people back to work as in productive, fulfilling work, not paperwork, and not running from Musk or other jerks who do not care about America or Americans or their health or their well-being. Not everything Trump is doing is wrong. Maybe, perhaps even up to half, is overdue to be looked at, but you should not throw out the baby with a proverbial bathwater. Start now, start again and save America and make America sane, rich and healthy once again with the plan that we have laid out. This is Henry R Greenfield signing off for the Greenfield Report.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for joining us on the Greenfield Report with Henry R Greenfield. We hope today's insights into the ever-shifting geopolitical landscape have sparked your curiosity and broadened your perspective. Stay connected with us for more in-depth discussions and expert solutions. Until next time, keep exploring the world beyond the headlines.