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It would have to be an executive order, because what congress would vote to pass it?

What Anonymous said. It’s like saying I could end the deficit in 1 minute. All I have to do is say there isn’t a deficit. Congress makes the laws so there is no way this would ever happen

You guys know Buffett was being facetious, right?

@Jamie: His point is about incentives. We’re only going to solve long term problems if we can tie them directly to short term incentives.

This would of course have the same problems as bonuses tied to goals or Soviet plan economics – while this kind of incentive may indeed cause the stated goal to be achieved, it’ll likely be at the expense of something else that’s not tied to the incentive. It doesn’t encourage a balanced approach.

Here’s an idea for Congress. How about spending less than we make? lol

That’s so un-American, cbmeeks.

Because it’s so important that the government doesn’t go into debt when the unemployment rate is sky high.

Also “entitlement programs” caused the deficit, not wars or the Bush tax cuts.

Ending the deficit sounds like a lot of work, lets just kick the can down the road. Its working well so far.

I agree completely with this statement said above. i also want to add that “another way to end the deficit in 1 min” force those in congress when it’s reached the 3% point, that they have to give a percent of their own money to help the cause.

1) (answer to the anonymous statement)If congress cared that much about this country and it’s citizens; then they would all agree to sign the bill. My next point to that is, congress should only be allowed to stay in their position for a short term period of time; we speak constantly for change, but when you have people who have been in congress for 20 years with the same views evey year, then change will never happen.

2) (anonymous coward) long term or short term means a move forward for this country, so it should matter what incentives they solve, as long as they get solved.

3) (VertexSoup) it’s poeple like you that make other countries say we’re lazy, maybe we should “Kick Your Ass Down The Road”

Last Word: why don’t we create a bank account with a high interest rates that people can donate money into. think about anyone could help the deficit just by dropping as small as a penny into the account.

Cool quote.

In reality what might happen if such a law were passed and the deficit reached 3% of GDP , congress would vote to raise the deficit limit to 4%. This is what has already happened repeatedly with the debt ceiling.

Dave, I was being sarcastic

@David Wallner—

why don’t we create a bank account with a high interest rates that people can donate money into. think about anyone could help the deficit just by dropping as small as a penny into the account.

Perhaps we should start a Kickstarter campaign

To add to my previous comment, looks like someone already tried that “eliminate the US debt on Kickstarter” idea. Looks like it went over about as well as Buffet’s idea probably would.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2116548608/help-erase-the-national-debt-of-the-usa?ref=live

@Anonymous Coward…speaking of incentives (and clearly Buffett is being facetious here), if you make the congressmembers ineligible for reelection, then they don’t really have much incentive to do anything about the budget, do they?

I’m a senior at Auburn University in eastern Alabama with a major in political science with no minor. I’m also legally blind using a red tipped cane and a screen reader. Okay, a combination of issues has created the scenario that we are in that compounds to the multitude of difficulties surely currently and down the road we must face. Firstly, look at the economic deficit with China and other asian markets and this is my opinion must first be addressed and if any country has tarrif’s against us then we raise tarrifs on their goods starting immediately without precurosors or warnings. Okay, then we look at waste and fraud in all fed to local city government functions. Okay, we define what a disability is and how it hinders you in obtaining a marketable job and eliminate 10-20% of the “Learning disabled” a.k.a lazy asses like a friend and most of his pathetic leaches with their multiple children and excuses all of the time via the telephone.

Okay, I would make entitlement programs be a social net again not a leisulrely device. We should make all services means tested and to ensure it by the amount of money they havetot keep it viable in the future. Crack down on illegal immigrants like 20 billion or so dollars annually and stop the flow across borders of U.S currency. You could cut the military at least 25% t 50% range over a time period and simplify the tax code by eliminating all loop holes to elimination of burueacracy at least 50% like the Alabama state constitution could learn from in my opinion. Okay, a next to final recommendation is to tax increase the wealthy on luxuries like mansions, yhacts, etc and to have a flexible nation wide sales tax on similar programs especially products purchased exclusively overseas of such said products. A final idea is to eliminate tenure, teacher to federal worker retirements, cut benefits for member of Congress on pay increases;retirements and health care to reflect the american struggle, eliminate duplicate programs or services, etc. Maybe these ideas would at least eliminate 70% of the deficit minimumally.

It would also be a bonkers thing to do. Imagine, for instance, telling individuals and businesses they could only borrow 3% of their income. See where that gets you.

@David Wallner:

Why don’t we create a bank account with a high interest rates that people can donate money into. think about anyone could help the deficit just by dropping as small as a penny into the account.

I thought that’s why this was invented.

At the end of the day it is all down to motivation. If you have it then you react in a certain way. So simple.

I could end unemployment in 5 minutes by pegging the corporate tax rate to the unemployment rate.

@Anthony: 3% of the GDP is 3% of “the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period”.

It is NOT 3 % of the revenues (aka “income”) brought in my the Federal Government.

Sorry for being pedantic, but after all, if we are doing a thought experiment, lets do it right :-)

Lets get back to the gold standard…or better yet…flat tax rate of 9-10% only give tax breaks for non-profit donations and maybe home mortgages.

Guess what happens? The big dollar guys will give tons of dough to causes that are doing far more than our federal govt.

Anyone heard of an effective state-run alchohol rehab program? Of course not….