Obama administration to announce 2nd straight year of $1,000,000,000,000 debt

[Hacp]

I can balance our budget right now. Get rid of social security and medicare and medicaid.

 

[Engineer]

I can balance our budget right now. Get rid of social security and medicare and medicaid.

Would you also cut the taxes collected for SS/Medicare? If so, would your budget be balanced then?

 

[Hacp]

Would you also cut the taxes collected for SS/Medicare? If so, would your budget be balanced then?

Raid the government pension funds.

 

[Craig234]

So what you're saying is that your argument doesn't work? :awe:

It's so ironic, yet so predictable. SS was set up because people would not save for their retirement. So the government comes in, takes that money, then doesn't save it, spending it on crap.

And this is the basic difference between Republicans/Libertarians and Democrats on this.

Republicans/Libertarians have all kinds of ideological objections to it, from the day it was created with elder poverty at a rate at 90%.

Democrats in the meantime had their program cut elder poverty to 10% and be the most popular major program in history - bottom line, it's been great for people.

Republicans in the meantime don't want Democrats getting credit so want to destroy it.

 

[Engineer]

Raid the government pension funds.

What pension funds? They are all IOU's.

Answer the question...would you cut the taxes associated with SS/Medicare and if so, would you then have a balanced budget or would you simply keep taxing.

 

[Craig234]

Greenspan expanded that economy, it was a bubble economy, and it popped (or tried to at least) just before Bush left office. So, total disagreement there.

That's just wrong, because bubble economy or not, he didn't have to balance the budget. Deficits can be done with bubbles just as easily as non-bubbles.

 

[bamacre]

And this is the basic difference between Republicans/Libertarians and Democrats on this.

Republicans/Libertarians have all kinds of ideological objections to it, from the day it was created with elder poverty at a rate at 90%.

Democrats in the meantime had their program cut elder poverty to 10% and be the most popular major program in history - bottom line, it's been great for people.

Republicans in the meantime don't want Democrats getting credit so want to destroy it.

LOL, sure it's been working. But it's not sustainable. And that's what people like you never can realize. How could it not work, in your eyes? I mean look at the demographics back then and today. You had an enormous amount of people supplementing a smaller portion of people, and no we're getting close to the opposite.

It's like giving a poor person a credit card and letting him max it out. You see the situation and say, "hey he was poor, now he has a car, a house, clothes, he's gone from eating hot dogs to now eating steak. It worked! Success!" Then the bills come in, someone says "shit, we can't keep this up," and you argue "the system works fine, he's not poor anymore."

The people SS hurts the most is the middle class. Think about it, if you're rich, only a small portion of your income gets sent to the gov't for SS. If you're a middle class citizen, it's a bigger percentage of your income, a bigger percentage of money that otherwise could be invested, for a much higher return than SS. For them, it's a mandated horrible investment. It's a very regressive part of our federal tax system. So in a way, it's surprising for people like Craig to support such a system. The excuse will always be "it's not perfect, and needs some reform, but it's a good system." That's not just the excuse for SS, but for pretty much any gov't program. And it's the fact that it's a political situation and no longer an economic situation that makes it this way, it's inevitable, because politicians make decisions based on politics, not economics.

 

[bamacre]

That's just wrong, because bubble economy or not, he didn't have to balance the budget. Deficits can be done with bubbles just as easily as non-bubbles.

Read the rest of my post.

 

[bamacre]

I can balance our budget right now. Get rid of social security and medicare and medicaid.

Are you serious? You can't cut people off overnight. That's ridiculous. Those systems need reform, badly, but you can't just cut people off like that. They are dependent on those programs. They shouldn't be, but that's the reality of the situation. You have to have some transition, you can't just throw seniors who planned for these benefits out on the street. If we want to start slashing some big spending, and immediately, the only way to do it is stop the wars, bring all the troops home, close a lot of overseas military bases and installations. Convert out Department of Offense back to a Department of Defense.

 

[Jhhnn]

The people SS hurts the most is the middle class. Think about it, if you're rich, only a small portion of your income gets sent to the gov't for SS. If you're a middle class citizen, it's a bigger percentage of your income, a bigger percentage of money that otherwise could be invested, for a much higher return than SS. For them, it's a mandated horrible investment. It's a very regressive part of our federal tax system. So in a way, it's surprising for people like Craig to support such a system.

That's fundamentally unfair to Craig. What he supports is the disbursement of SS, not necessarily the way that the funds are collected.

I suppose you'd approve of taxing the wealthy more heavily as a way to raise the necessary funding?

Probably not...

 

[hal2kilo]

I can balance our budget right now. Get rid of social security and medicare and medicaid.

And young snots who live in their parents basement.

 

[bamacre]

That's fundamentally unfair to Craig. What he supports is the disbursement of SS, not necessarily the way that the funds are collected.

I suppose you'd approve of taxing the wealthy more heavily as a way to raise the necessary funding?

Probably not...

I would definitely cut as much as possible before I would support raising taxes on anybody. And as I said above, I'd start with our foreign policy. Ending the wars, closing overseas bases, ending all foreign aid. Americans first.

 

[bfdd]

I would definitely cut as much as possible before I would support raising taxes on anybody. And as I said above, I'd start with our foreign policy. Ending the wars, closing overseas bases, ending all foreign aid. Americans first.

Yeah I'm on board with this. After we trim down and focus on US, we can revisit these things. I'm not against them, I just think our current implementations are fucking terrible. If we're going to have these things they need to be done properly or not at all.

 

[bamacre]

Yeah I'm on board with this. After we trim down and focus on US, we can revisit these things. I'm not against them, I just think our current implementations are fucking terrible. If we're going to have these things they need to be done properly or not at all.

To add, if we don't have the political guts to cut our overseas spending, I just can't see us having the courage to deal with our domestic fiscal problems.

 

[ProfJohn]

Here is a theoretical question...

We eliminate SS 100 percent.
We also eliminate SS taxes 100 percent.

The end result would be a higher deficit, but a much smaller total government.
SS taxes net $940 billion a year.
SS payouts were $677 billion last year.
So the difference would be $300 billion.

So here is the question.
Ignoring what the elimination of SS would do to the old etc etc.

Would the $900 billion in extra money left in the economy provide more good than the extra $300 billion in deficits created by the elimination of the SS surplus?

 

[Engineer]

Would the $900 billion in extra money left in the economy provide more good than the extra $300 billion in deficits created by the elimination of the SS surplus?

So the money paid out doesn't end up right back into the economy? Very few SS recipients (i.e. John McCain) actually bank their SS payments. Not making a case either way, just saying that the money goes right back into the economy (payouts, not the surplus which is loaned out to the government).

By the way, not looking at the numbers, I don't think SS had that much of a surplus in tax collection vs payout last year. Also, this year is projected to go negative (back to positive next year and then negative permanently a few years from now).

 

[Attic]

Please edit the title. You left off about $290 billion.

Look at the bright side... it is down $125 billion from 2009.

Of course, the administration will be "cutting debt". Drop your IQ and be happy about it.