McConnell Blames Entitlements, Not GOP, for Rising Deficits

I think it is going to take this type of thing, unfortunately: https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/05/politics/social-security-benefit-cuts/index.html

Social Security can only pay for 79% of projected benefits starting in 2034. And it's not just CNN saying that.

 

Most rich folks were born that way and or had connections. That is especially true the higher up in wealth percentage that you go. That isn't always the case, just most of the time. Not everyone can be like Donald Trump who made it after only getting a 1 million dollar loan.

It's fine that they earned it or that they didn't have to earn it. Either way is fine. But if they want to continue to be able to earn it, they need to pay more taxes. It is better for our society. A strong middle class will be better at providing money to the entrepreneurs and small businesses.

 

….have landed us $21 trillion in debt. Actually, that's where the debt is now. If you project it out a few years, based on what the government is obligated to pay, it triples or quadruples.

The house of cards will fall someday. But it can probably keep going for another decade or so, unfortunately.

 

That wasn’t my point. If you have a revenue system based off of income for example where do you think most of the revenue will come from?

The rich paying the most is by design.

Relevance? Them financially engineering lower taxes only means the middle and lower class has to pay more or lose more.

Except it doesn’t since I don’t have donors or PACs behind me like Trump or the wealthy. I don’t have the resources or the time to effect voting like they do unless I dedicate my life too it.

I agree, the GOP thrive on low voter turnout.

 

Defense is "only" 18 to 22% of the federal budget. Yes, I would like to see it cut back, but it suffers from the same problem that SS and Medicare do: the American people themselves. A lot of defense spending is in fact funding corporations that many Americans work for.

Does anyone remember the base closing issue of the early 1990s? The politicians had to set up a commission to "protect" themselves, politically. So, you can see the problem with cutting defense. It's not just fending off "war-happy" generals.

That said, it's SS and Medicare that are the elephants in the room, not defense spending.

And, in a larger sense, we see here the problem with democracy. I'm increasingly convinced that the Founding Fathers had it right when they limited the franchise to those who owned property.

 

This is incredibly nuanced and maybe slicing it too thin but there is a little difference. Cutting defense spending will hurt sectors of the economy without a doubt. It can be done without hurting the ability to defend our country.

Cutting Medicare and Social Security will definitely hurt our senior population and rips off those that have already paid into the Social Security system.

 

Sure, but the point is that if you don't cut in all areas then you aren't going to do anything. If you don't cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, you can't significantly cut spending since that's the vast majority of government spending.

The reason why entitlements are such a problem is that old people would rather the entire system crash than take a little bit less. Same goes for unemployment. Anyone receiving entitlement funds would see the entire country burn before taking a dime less. That's always the problem when giving away "free stuff"

 

I pay my own money into unemployment. I'm paying for that. Also, unemployment is a much greater stimulus for the economy than tax cuts.

Old folks have a bit less flexibility regarding their spending and income. When it comes to Medicare, they have more needs and taking a little bit less could mean the loss of life and quality of life. So it isn't really just that they are just unwilling to take a little bit less.

 

You think that, but you really aren't. Programs like unemployment or Social Security wouldn't be constitutional if they worked the way you seem to think they work, in reality they just count it as a tax.....the same way they kept Obamacare from being struck down.

Social Security and unemployment are merely taxes, your money just goes into the large pot just like everyone else's.

Either way, you are describing why these problem "free stuff" programs get so out of control and that's not helpful. Eventually everyone is going to feel the pain as the entire system collapses if something isn't done before that. Would you prefer that scenario? No one is willing to give a dime to keep the system going so eventually it'll just have to collapse.

And yet, while we talk about this, our friends on the left never stop proposing more "free stuff" programs to make things worse.

 

Actually, the money does go into the specific pot for things like Social Security. The only problem is that the govt. then borrows from that pot. But the money is actually earmarked for the S.S. payments.

 

Yes....and if the money wasn't available to be used for anything then the program would have been struck down as unconstitutional and the country would be in a much better place right now.

 

Not having S.S. or Medicare wouldn't make the country be in a much better place.

 

Not having SS would save the country over a trillion dollars a year that could be better spent elsewhere or put back in the economy.

 

What FB's conversation looks like to me

Spoiler

 

What kind of dirty communist doesn't use CF Dark?

 

Those tax cuts didn't help, hell we didn't even need them.

 

Taxes are the lowest they've been since the 60s in general. Raise taxes to 1960's levels and you may see a difference.

 

Oh no question, you'd see the economy immediately tank.

 

Oh, I agree that we can cut defense without hurting national security. My point is that defense is not the huge portion of the budget that some people seem to think it is; and also that it has its own large constituency among the populace.

There's no way that current SS/Medicare benefits would get cut. That's politically untenable.

No, the argument is whether they will be cut 10-15 years in the future. I think that they will have to be, or else the entire federal budget (or a very large part of it) will have to be dedicated to those programs.

Also, SS wastes a whole lot of money on stuff it should not be supporting. I'm not talking about retired folks. See Social Security Title 4-D. No way the federal government should be spending money on that.

Lastly (for now), I would urge everyone to think about this, when thinking about entitlements such as unemployment and SS (even Medicare and Medicaid). What is the government telling us when it takes this money out of our paychecks? It is essentially saying: "You're too stupid to do this for yourself." And that makes me pretty angry, even aside from the money carved out of my paycheck. It is the Nanny State at its worst.