McConnell Blames Entitlements, Not GOP, for Rising Deficits

Did you see the news today? It's only 5 percent, but tell me any other president that has done this.

 

I guess this boils down to a difference in philosophy. I am of the mind that the government cannot protect every American from every possible downside scenario, nor is that its proper role.

 

Prudent saving and investing, in diverse portfolios, and starting early, protects very well against these scenarios.

 

They won't be able to protect all Americans from disaster after they become seniors. And even if you don't think it's the govt. role to try. That leaves society and everyone in it with a huge problem.

If the govt. doesn't try and prevent large-scale disaster. They save some money. But once that disaster hits, society is burdened by a huge population of homeless, sick, and starving senior citizens. That would likely cost more money than taking steps to prevent such a huge scale disaster. Either way, the money will be spent. In one instance it prevents a significant proportion of destitute seniors. In the other scenario it doesn't, but money still has to be spent.

 

It prevents the worse case scenarios. But if you put a third of the investment into the market and you lose that, then you are trying to get by on only 2/3 of the income and assets you thought you were going to have.

 

"Old" people of whatever political stripe should have been planning for their retirement for years. Any failure on their part should not be placed on the back of the American taxpayer. Yes, there's a place for SS and Medicare, but they are going to have be scaled way back.

 

Nobody is starving here. You don't hear of Americans dying of starvation. Plenty safety nets prevent that

Thats exactly what im saying

 

i did indeed see the news. trump cut taxes and increased spending, resulting in a $1.2 trillion dollar increase in the debt in 2018, double the amount added in 2017. so now he wants to cut 5% spending in all departments to make up for that (which isnt going to do s*** to make up for the debt he has created). its the same philosophy that brought us a $12 billion dollar subsidy to farmers due to the trump tariffs...you create the problem and then use our tax dollars or the tax dollars of future generations to try and offer relief for it. there is nothing fiscally conservative about any of this.

i actually try to keep up with the news and current events. you, on the other hand, said that you dont follow the news anymore because it is all leftists. you even said fox news was leftist and that the only reliable sources of news are breitbart and some random dudes youtube channel. you also said that the only people who follow the news are those who have no lives or full-times jobs.

 

You are plain wrong.
https://www.nokidhungry.org/who-we-are/hunger-facts
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/19/AR2010111906872.html

 

Without looking people may be hungry they aint "starving" Srarving implies flirting with death

Ethiopians starve

So im right again

Secondly i wouldn't give a damn if you were wrong again. Im not tracking i have a life

 

to pay for tax cuts for top 1% and for more military than we need.

You know those old people likely have paid their entire adult life into Medicare and SS. The government in turn has promised them those entitlements in their retirement.

And now you are saying that the old people are stupid for believing the government promises and should have planned accordingly.

Any guesses how well House and Senate candidates would do if they promised to f*ck over old people?

 

There have been 4 or 5 French revolutions, and only the first had anybody starving. That revolution was started because the nobles wanted the Louis XVI to call the estates general. (Or maybe taken to conclusion by Napoleon)sIt was then taken to its conclusion by middle class lawyers like Robspierre and Danton. Starving sans coulottes were basically an accelerant, not the cause of the fire. There were no sans culottes in the Jacobin Club.

Haitian Revolution, American Revolution, Mexican Revolution... none were about starving rabble taking to the streets because they were starving.

 

I didn't starving was necessary for Revolution

I was responding to a specific post

And the American Revolution was about

Badumtah

Taxes

You lost

 

The 'ol declare victory ruse, huh?

Even if I give you that you haven't addressed a fraction of what I wrote. You took a little tertiary thing out on the periphery, set it aside, and tried to make that the sum of my point.

 

The purpose of social security has changed drastically since it was established. It was created in 1935 and the full retirement age to qualify for benefits was 65. In 1935 the life expectancy in this country was 61. It was supposed to be for the last few years of life for those that were outliving the population and had no money. Now it is a 20 year retirement plan. It is impossible to role back politically because you can't do it without screwing over some segment of the population. They will have to continue to raise the retirement age and make changes to kick the can down the road until the government has to make cuts when the Chinese stop buying our treasury bonds. Which is also why Trump is stupid for playing hardball with the Chinese. He doesn't have the leverage and they can pull the Ace card out any time they want by just saying they won't buy anymore of our debt.

 

The thread is about taxes. You wanna increase them. Then gave the American Revolution as part of your

Acknowledgement of your screw up goes a long way towards redemption

That's a message from Jesus H Christ

 

I have said ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL about taxes. Not a word. I was just responding to your mischaracterization of the French Revolution of 1792 as a starving peasant revolt.

You're becoming as unhinged and defensive as "the usual suspects".

That's a message from Ottomaton.

 

It's a suggestion of a step, but nearly the entire increase in the deficit was related to interest costs rising (+65 billion), social security (+40 billion), and defense (+32 billion). DHS spending was up significantly by $18 billion but that was primarily for disaster relief. The only major cut was the Dept of Education (-48 billion) and that was primarily from deep cuts to loan programs, which I don't think is bad.

So basically social security needs adjustments and defense spending needs to revert to 2017 levels and we need to hope that inflation doesn't get too hot. Which of these things is likely to happen? Also, we can't really "cut" medicare and medicaid. Spending in the Dept of the HHS was only up by 4 billion.

Also, I'd expect corporate tax receipts to increase significantly over 2018. We need corporate and personal tax receipts to outpace the interest spending which it clearly didn't in 2018. Personal tax receipts being up 6% (+$96 billion) only barely countered the 31% drop (-$93 billion) in corporate taxes in 2018.

So what are we realistically left with cutting out of the $4.1 trillion budget? Social security, Dept of HHS, and interest account for nearly 65% ($2.7 trillion) of the budget. We are left with $1.4 trillion that can realistically be cut by 5% which is like only $70 billion. To add on $600 billion of that $1.4 trillion is defense related. Point being I don't know what we are actually going to do lol.

 

What a crock of ****. Screw people who make overly broad statements that distort reality.

 

You would have to do it over a period of a decade or two and you'd slowly start cutting the benefits, there's not a great way to do it, and in a perfect world it would only need to be temporary. The goal is to eliminate 300+ billion worth of interest payments, in order to do that you make spending cuts across the board so that hopefully they won't be too painful. When you've eliminated the debt, you can go from there planning out a sustainable number of "free stuff" programs.