We (or at least I) pay for Medicare via a tax explicitly meant to pay for it.
Further, the solution is not to stick it to the elderly but rather to fix the rampant problem we have with medical costs.
Sure cutting benefits is easy but the underlying problem of health care costs in the US remain so down that road lie ever deeper cuts. How about fixing the real problem?
Nice try to deflect the very real and not to be missed problems with your argument.
SS, in theory, is sitting on a trust fund which is able to keep paying out more than it takes in for decades. Yes, the government borrowed all that money and left SS with a stack of IOUs. It is not proper to now say though that the US should stick it to grandma because it does not want to pay its debt. SS is not a handout. Grandma paid into the system.
Again, diminishing benefits does not fix anything. The real problem is a shitty economy and not enough people in work paying into the system. Would SS still have a shortfall? Maybe. If the economy was good and unemployment low could SS ride the shortfall out? I dunno…maybe. But you need to fix the real underlying problems first. Then, if SS is insolvent, you start looking at means to make it solvent again by restricting benefits or other means.
Medicare is paid for by taxes explicitly meant to pay for it. Yes, they are costing more than they take in. See above.
You really want to restrict medical care for the poor even further than it is? Healthcare costs need to be reined in and this problem his helped a great deal.
Reading Slander and Poop’s press releases is really starting to tick me off. It appears, upon reading, to be a critique of government inefficiency and ineffectiveness, which is all very well, but that’s not what they’re about, its not their job to make such judgments. Who asked them to? And by what right or credential do they claim expertise?
And in the area of expertise they are supposedly trustworthy, they have shown themselves to be either bumbling incompetent or corrupt. So why should anyone give a rat’s about what they think about our government?
Whack-a-Mole, there are just too many straw men in your post to respond to, so I won’t try. I’ll just close by saying I did not propose screwing over grandma or the poor or those (like me) who have paid umpteen thousands into SS. My question is an adult one that seems to be avoided by many: How will we do so? How will resolve our debt crisis, our downgrade, and not impact the beneficiaries of these entitlements, given the math we face? “But we have to” isn’t helpful.
Indeed. I don’t remember the exact numbers but recent polls show support (or favorability ratings) for the TP has dropped from something like 40% to less than 30%. I think these recent events may mark the “high point” of their influence, and that we will see them significantly diminished in the next election. One can only hope.
While my disdain is similar to yours for S&P and the other rating agencies which seemed to think Credit Default Swaps were AAA investments at the end of the day it is their business to determine risk. Risk, I think, would include a political analysis when it comes to a country.
The Repubs ,working for corporations over the people ,have done everything they could to subvert Obama’s presidency. Rightys whine about the cost of the Health System, but prevented him from a single payer system that would have gone a long way toward fixing it.
The debt ceiling is a new righty ploy. It was never a big deal. Now it will likely be a political football forever. When the Repubs bring in another Bush type president, will the Dems fight raising the debt ceiling automatically? I do not know.
The Repubs have fought hard to keep the Bush tax cuts in place. Allowing them to expire would have gone a long way toward fiscal responsibility. The debt would have been much smaller and projected debt would have been rosier.
I dunno, if China says they think our debt is unsafe while at the same time buying hundreds of billions of dollars of it at near zero interest rates, I tend to think their actions speak louder then words.
Depends why you think they bought it in the first place. Safe to assume it wasn’t a purely a financial investment. I’m not sure it was even in the top two reasons.
Naw, they bought it to keep their currency low relative to the dollar. But I doubt they’d keep buying (especially at near zero interest rates) if they though there was a risk of it not being paid back. A trillion dollars is a lot to loose.
Saying your worried about someone not paying you back while buying huge amounts of their debt at very low interest is silly.
In 2010 SCOTUS ruled that corporations have Free Speech rights, the same as citizens. Given the massive amount of investment China and other foreign interests have made in American corporations, China has every right to express its opinion and to influence American elections.
They have every right to speak their minds and try to influence American elections. As soon as they extend the same rights to thier own people, I will be suitably impressed.
Err…what are you talking about? I never said anything vaguely like “China doesn’t have the right to express its opinion”. They can express their opinion about whatever they want, I just think that their actions obviously show they’re lying about their opinions.
There are plenty of threads about Citizen’s United if you want to kvetch, I don’t really see any reason to hijack this thread.
“Unlimited debt”? Do you think, maybe, this question is misphrased?
Both Parties resist spending cuts. The GOP resists taxes.
I wonder if you think such a question could have a serious answer. 13 trillion just right, but 14 trillion too much? I’ll bet I know your answer: GWB’s debt was just the Goldilocks level, and budget balancing was needed beginning January 2009.
Some of your phrases do a good imitation of it.
It’s not clear how much U.S. Treasury will lose in added interest due to the ceiling circus; one estimate is $100 billion per year. Wasted spending on interest forced on us by the people who pretend to be worried about government waste.
