A few sincere questions about the budget crisis:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1451268

One interesting bit of political chicanery is the phenomenon whereby the states that condemn loudest the mere idea of the welfare state as an atrocity against all law and order, and as a type of Communism (whereby instead of a totalitarian party-state idea they seem to mistake it for Dr. Doom's Latveria with elements of Mordor) themselves take more out of the government than they pay into it. My first question is why these people expect the Federals to keep doing this? My second is what good is it if the Federal government keeps subsidizing people who give great lip service to the ideas of Ayn Rand, but like Rand herself depend on the Federal dole to keep themselves functional?

My second point is here: http://moneyning.com/money-news/federal-budget-breakdown-2011/

Defense, Social Security, and Medicare respectively are the big three of Federal spending, as shown by actual data. If people are truly sincere about cutting the budget, wouldn't one of the first and most obvious moves be to retool the military for a post-Cold War geopolitical sphere where soft power is more advantageous than hard power? Given the huge degree of pork spending in the Defense System, and the extent to which it serves to keep Senators and Representatives in the Congress until they're 100, why not start eliminating all *this* pork? It hardly meets the needs of a 2010s military, and didn't really meet the needs of the 1980s one very well. Too, a lot of military investment is toward weapons that break if you look at them cross-eyed, meaning millions of dollars, frankly, go to something that does not half of what it's supposed to do. Is it also not sensible to eliminate useless things like this?

Too, both Social Security and Medicare were designed for the lower-population and higher mortality rate of the 1930s, when most people, to put it bluntly, did not live to be 80. These days the Baby Boomers are getting older, but are going to be supported on a system drawn up in the 1930s. Wouldn't the most sensible ideas about Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid be to retool them to a 21st Century society that is much more populated and older, as opposed to the one of FDR's day?

In my view, so long as these big 3 are ignored any and all talk of "fiscal conservatism" is so much humbug designed to hoodwink the voters. To retool and cut from these services is not a magic bullet, and there's other cuts that will have to be made. But how is it remotely possible to believe a budget can be balanced when these three are considered sacred cows that must not be harmed lest Ahura Market have to face the challenge of Angra Gubment?

Comments

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Since when did you become a supporter of Ron Paul's? Or even Paul Ryan's?

Those two are basically the only ones in Washington who are even willing to address those issues.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I'm not, but I'm willing to give credit where credit is due. They're the only ones pointing out in this particular place that the Emperor is gallivanting around naked.

[singlethink.livejournal.com]

Ron Paul has a lot of good ideas. He also has a lot of very bad ideas.

It's strange to me that it seems to me that many (but clearly not all) of us on the Talk_Politics community agree on many things (restructure or reduce spending on "sacred cows," particularly the military industrial complex, social liberal policies) and yet there are no politicians (that I know of) that seem to make these same arguments.

[tridus.livejournal.com]

People around here aren't afraid of talking about tough decisions and policy changes because their livelihoods don't depend on it.

A politician's livelihood DOES depend on it, and in the political climate that we have today there's not many willing to talk about what REALLY needs to be done.

That's not just a US problem here. This (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/commentary/barrie-mckenna/health-care-costs-our-single-most-pressing-budget-item/article1922693/) and this (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/stephen-gordon/tax-hikes-or-lower-transfers-ottawas-only-deficit-solutions/article1923131/) are what Canadian politicians need to be talking about right now.

Compare that to what they're really talking about (http://news.google.ca/news/url?sa=t&ct2=ca%2F0_0_s_1_0_t&ct3=MAA4AEgBUABgAWoCY2F6AWg&usg=AFQjCNGFeaS1gkynyEqJrQ9HshII_AqMIw&did=7265d194feafd221&cid=8797666332754&ei=q_RrTdDxCcHNgAfYntHWAg&rt=HOMEPAGE&vm=STANDARD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ctv.ca%2FCTVNews%2FCanada%2F20110228%2Fparliament-monday-110228%2F).

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

And I think we're probably reflective of society in general with those positions too.

[capthek.livejournal.com]

You say we need to retool social security, and this may be true enough but what did you have in mind? Most people who talk about changing social security talk about privatizing it, but that would not fix anything because it is set up to have current workers pay for current retired workers.

[singlethink.livejournal.com]

You could increase the minimum age or reduce (or eliminate) spending to richer retirees.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

But that right there is the central problem with Social Security.

In effect it is a Ponzi Scheme, where the money paid in now is simply distributed as benefits now and eventually the benefits to be paid out will outpace the money being paid in.

The only reason it has lasted as long as it did is because it is mandatory and we have had a rapidly growing GDP for 50 of the last 70 years. However for a great many reasons** it is clear that GDP cannot continue to grow at that rate and in fact is likely to be relatively stagnant (at best) for the next several decades meaning that it is impossible to increase the money going in and demographic forces (namely a stagnant and aging populace) requires massive growth in the money being paid out.

Whether privatized or not Social Security needs to be transformed into a program where at least a portion of the money you contribute is placed into an account which YOU own and 100% of the money is placed into accounts belonging to some future beneficiary (that is if you pay in $10,000 then all $10,000 of it goes into someone's future retirement account, none is paid out to current beneficiaries).

If it is not, then it will continually be in danger of bankrupting the country because it's stability will be subject to the whims of demography and stagnant or shrinking populations will always mean not enough money coming in to pay the benefits.


** = While there are a lot of reasons why this is so the main one was the fact that the US had an artificial short term windfall coming out of World War 2 as the only functioning industrial economy. It took until well into the 1980's for other large states to fully recover from that war and some of them were then saddled with the burden of leadership imposing socialism on them. By the late 1990's when the last of those states finally recognized the failure that is Socialism and instituted Market Reforms plus India and Brazil's abilities to leave the ranks of the "developing world" and actually develop into something approximating modern industrial/post industrial economies has knocked the US down several pegs to the point where economic dominance is gone and we're only barely holding on to economic leadership.

In this world of increased international competition the US will always be a rich country, possibly always the richest, but it is never going to be able to consume anywhere near the fraction of global GDP that it did from 1940 - 1990 and in terms of real purchasing power parity the US GDP can only shrink or at best stay stagnant as the rest of the world catches up.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Several people in Congress have said "Social Security is in crisis mode!" are full of it. You could increase taxes on the richest 1 percent by 2 percent, and it would completely fund the shortfalls. They also say that those fanning the "it's a crisis" fire, have some ulterior motives in doing so, and really have bigger issues with the concept of Social Security in general.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Essentially this:

http://robertreich.org/post/3331762717

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

U.S. military spending is a giant handout to corporate welfare.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

That we all pay for.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

A few sincere questions about the budget crisis:

Why do I doubt this statement?

the states that condemn loudest the mere idea of the welfare state as an atrocity against all law and order ... themselves take more out of the government than they pay into it.

Because there's a difference between voters and politicians. The ones doing the condemning are voters and the ones doing the grabbing are politicians. This isn't really a hard concept.

As for the big three, defense is an accepted function of government, and cuts are proposed, but it does take some time to wind down things in a controlled manner. For Social Security, things have been promised and it's reasonable to try and keep that promise as much as possible, so not much can be done here until someone gets the guts to just end the program. For Medicare, almost the same thing goes, you can't just cut it off at the knees unless you're willing to take the backlash.

But how is it remotely possible to believe a budget can be balanced when these three are considered sacred cows that must not be harmed

I don't see any indication that this is the case. Proposals have been made to cut all three to some amount, just not a large amount, which is fine for this year.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

1) Because you're a cynic who thinks tabloids are a good citation to prove points?

2) Voters who happen to be so incapable of making their voices heard that they *elect* politicians who keep the "fiscal conservative" states in the red.

3) They have only been proposed by two Republicans, who have been jeered by the great majority as kooks. All three are sacred cows.

4) Not really, given that the total debt of Bush's wars is equal to the debt caused by the healthcare plan, but nobody seems to point out that we really have to pay back *2* trillion or even bothers to consider how we'll pay that back.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

Robert Reich wrote a column recently on blaming SS, and noting how income equality changes fucked it up, and how simple it would be to ensure it's fully funded again:

http://robertreich.org/post/3331762717

tl-dr summary: The most sensible thing to do with SS would be to ensure that the SS payroll tax hits 90% of all wages covered by SS, as Alan Greenspan et al intended back in 1983. That's all, SS solved.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

If you make the rich pay more in taxes you will have a hundred million dollar campaign to make sure you never get a job higher than dog catcher, so hey good luck with that.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

...and then you're paying out that much in response, fixing nothing.

The problem is that SS is eternally broken. It doesn't need to be fixed, it needs to be nuked from orbit.

Check out the Actual Data!

[russj.livejournal.com]

If you look at the actual data, social security, medicare, and other entitlement programs are more than THREE TIMES what we spend on national defense. (Read the fine print.)

Source: 2010 IRS i1040ez




1. Social security, Medicare, and other retirement: These programs provide income support for the retired and disabled and medical care for the elderly.

2. National defense, veterans, and foreign affairs: About 22% of outlays were to equip, modernize, and pay our armed forces and to fund national defense activities;
about 3% were for veterans benefits and services; and about 1% were for international activities, including military and economic assistance to foreign countries and the maintenance of U.S. embassies abroad.

3. Physical, human, and community development: These outlays were for agriculture; natural resources; environment; transportation; aid for elementary and secondary
education and direct assistance to college students; job training; deposit insurance, commerce and housing credit, and community development; and space, energy, and general science programs.

4. Social programs: About 13% of total outlays were for Medicaid, food stamps, temporary assistance for needy families, supplemental security income, and related programs; and the remaining outlays were for health research and public health programs, unemployment compensation, assisted housing, and social services.

Note. The percentages on this page exclude undistributed offsetting receipts, which were $93 billion in fiscal year 2009. In the budget, these receipts are offset against spending in figuring the outlay totals shown above. These receipts are for the U.S. Government’s share of its employee retirement programs, rents and
royalties on the Outer Continental Shelf, and proceeds from the sale of assets.

Re: Check out the Actual Data!

[russj.livejournal.com]

That 40% "borrowing to cover deficit" doesn't look good either.
If I tried to run my life that way, I'd be bankrupt pretty quickly.

did someone say "pie charts"??!!!

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm

Re: Check out the Actual Data!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm sure if we examined it we could also note that under our totally-not-broken healthcare system we allot three times the funds to the perfectly-free-market healthcare system that the pork-barrel defense system gets. Not exactly the place you want to go here, I do think.

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

My list. Yay lists, I love lists!

1. End the drug war ASAP, decriminalizing possession and enforcing intent to sell only when there is violence involved; dissolve all federal bureaucracies that deal with enforcing drug laws.

2. Empty the prison system of all non-violent drug offenders.

3. Repeal the Bush tax cuts.

4. Require all new laws to be funded through existing revenue.

5. Pass a balanced budget amendment.

6. Sell at least 50% of federal land that is currently being unused.

And so on....

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

Regarding federal land, what would you consider as "unused"? My concern would be that friends of politicians would get great deals on cheap land that they would then use for land fills, strip mines, strip malls, strip clubs, etc. It might be better to turn it into parkland, public gardens, green space or farmland.

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

Why do "these people" expect the federal government to keep doing this? My guess is that the federal government has some kind of legal obligation not to cut off funding for states based on which party won the vote.
The whole idea of the welfare state is that some people contribute more than they receive and that others receive more than they contribute. That's just the way it works.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Since conservatives like the family analogy so much, there is a point at which people become irritated at continually subsidzing ungrateful wretches who can't keep their heads above water. Throwing good money after bad has never made sense, and that's what the Blue States keep doing. They should make the whiny putzes in the Red States put up or shut up.