# Starving the Beast: Can it work? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 18, 2003, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755 "2003-12-18T14:29:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755/21 "2003-12-18T21:11:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by HayekHeyst \* > **But as several of the posters have pointed out, both parties are ignoring the elephant in the room, which is the growth of non-discretionary entitlements, esp. Social Security and Medicare.** That’s what building up the fund was supposed to prepare for, but Bush has been successful in claiming that it amounts to excess taxation by the “beast”. ---
**Author:** ![Eveready](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/87869e/32.png) [@Eveready](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eveready)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755/22 "2003-12-18T21:21:24Z")
> [@](#): > > Both Everready and Coil are right about the Laffer curve… Thanks HayekHeyst you beat me to the punch I would also like to add that the maximum value of the curve changes due to other variables and is not static. ---
**Author:** ![HayekHeyst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/45deac/32.png) [@HayekHeyst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HayekHeyst)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755/23 "2003-12-18T21:30:51Z")
Building up the SS/Medicare trust funds was never a serious solution to the long-term problem with those programs. The long term problem with those programs is that their expenditures are growing significantly faster than GDP. Prefunding (building up the trust funds) would delay the ‘day of reckoning’ but that’s all. (If the interest rate on the trust fund were sufficiently large relative to the gap between the growth rate of GDP and the growth rate of expenditures, and the trust fund were in real assets instead of obligations owed by the government to itself, a trust fund might be able to solve the problem. But, IFAIK, neither of those conditions hold in reality.) ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755/24 "2003-12-18T21:41:39Z")
So you instead advocate just letting old people go away and die? You either bring funding up to meet demand or you reduce demand - but if that isn’t what you meant, you didn’t say what you really think it entails. There’s something in a story, popular this time of year, about “decreasing the surplus population”. Maybe that rings a bell with you. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755/25 "2003-12-18T21:42:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ElvisL1ves \* > [Paul Krugman Explains It All For You](http://www.pkarchive.org/economy/TaxCutCon.html) **Elvis** , that’s the scariest goddamned essay I’ve read in my life. I sorta knew a lot of it, but Krugman really put it all together in one place with that one. ---
**Author:** ![HayekHeyst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/45deac/32.png) [@HayekHeyst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HayekHeyst)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755/26 "2003-12-18T22:05:49Z")
Wow, **ElvisL1ves** , that was quite a jump. A desire slow the rate of SS/Medicare growth to the growth rate of GDP represents > [@](#): > > just letting old people go away and die How about this: 1. Freeze the real (inflation adjusted) value of Social Security and Medicare spending per recipient per year. If our current policies don’t amount to ‘just letting old people go away and die’ then carrying on that policy into the future won’t either. 2. Automatically raise the SS/Medicare eligibility ages as life exptectancy increases. 65 year olds are in a lot better health now than they were in the 1930s when SS was first instituted. In the 1930s, the life expectancy of a 65 year old was something like 5 or 10 years. Now, it’s more like 20. We’ve already raised the ‘normal’ retirement age for SS to 68. Did that represent ‘just letting old people go away and die?’ Do people have some inalienable right to retire at 65 or 68 when they’re more capable of working at that age than someone when SS was first instituted? Sheesh. ---
**Author:** ![Snag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Snag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snag)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755/27 "2003-12-18T22:08:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Eveready \* > \*\*Wouldn’t an economic crisis cause inflation causing the price of items to increase. \*\* It depends. You could have inflation or deflation. The Fed has been keeping an eye on the possibility of the latter over the last few months. Currently, the dollar is undervalued against the Euro. This situation is expected by some to go on for a few months. As an example then, those with the wherewithal to do so, one might be stocking up on Euros to buy American goods with at an opportune time. I’m sure that there are lots of neat tricks one can do pitting one currency against another, especially if there is a way of having some short term (or long term) control over how that balance will be effected. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755/28 "2003-12-18T23:02:03Z")
I’m not sure what I’m looking for either, Elvis. I did not find the phrase “starve the beast” on the Americans for Tax Reform. I am begining to believe that it is for the same reason that I won’t find “Kill the babies” on the pro abortion sites. It may be that Republicans want to lower taxes to lower revenue to kill the New Deal. But it would be nice to see how they characterize their own actions. Not because they are right, and others are wrong, but because I find it hard to understand critics of a position without hearing the position itself. Personally, I think a major shift has to occur in our thinking before we will be able to fix the fiscal problems with socail security (or any of the other welfare systems for that matter). I don’t think a policy of starving the beast is a particularly efficient way to do that. However, it may be a pretty good politically expedient way to do it. The problem, of course, is that for it to work, it would have to cause enough economic trouble (through deficits) to incite many more people against those programs. And that sort of economic trouble may be worse than the programs themselve. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755/29 "2003-12-18T23:15:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RTFirefly \* > Only as a consumer. > > If they pollute the air or water in any of a number of different ways, I am not free to live unaffected. If they convince the government to let them clearcut the public forests where I hike, I am not free to live unaffected. If they fight energy conservation regs tooth and nail, so that we increase our dependence on imported oil, and we then have to care too much about a group of rather unpleasant countries, I’m affected even if I ride a bicycle. Issues of pollution and environmental regulations are policies that can be argued about, but have little to do with the idea of larger or smaller government wrt social programs (ie, the “starve the beast” concept). If I were arguing for **no government** , you’d have a good point. If you live in a democracy, and the majority votes to clear cut the forests on public lands, then your beef is with the government or the electorate, not with business. > [@](#): > > I’d hate to tie myself to an abstract belief that a particular power concentration is _always_ the one to fear, regardless of the circumstances. At any given time, I think it’s good to look up and see who seems to actually be winning most of the battles. Nothing abstract about it. If you take the long view, especially in the modern era, it is clear that concentrations of government power (say, Germany in the 30s and 40s, the USSR in the 20s-50s, the PRC in the 50s and 60s) have resulted in catrastrophes of epic proportion in no way comparable to the effetcs of conentrations of economic power (say, GE or GM in the 30s-60s). > [@](#): > > As a result, these days I’m a hell of a lot more concerned about concentration of corporate power, and corporate influence on my government, than I am about government power. I didn’t feel that way 25 years ago, but things have changed. Interesting, since the pollution you talk about in the first part of your post is more characteristic of the US of 25 yrs ago than it is of the US today. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755/30 "2003-12-18T23:23:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RTFirefly \* > Clinton proved Friedman wrong. The budget was balanced 2 out of the 8 years of the Clinton presidency. Granted, that’s better than his predicessors in the modern era, but perhaps that’s more an example of the exception proving the rule. But you **are** right-- we have seen a few instances of balanced budgets in the last 50 years. Given the overall track record, though, I think Dr. Friedman is more correct than not. The federal government (Administrative + Legislative branches) has proven itself to be generally incapble of keeping expeditures in line with tax revenues. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755/31 "2003-12-18T23:29:21Z")
If I may ask, **John** , how does Friedman explain that deficits “keep governments from growing even further”? It seems obvious to me that our government has almost no capacity to be fiscally responsible. Its akin to the failure of congress to limit the president’s power to make war with the army’s purse strings. They have absolute power to limit spending in this area. But historically they have failed to do so each and every time. Spending on social security and welfare seems like the same sort of failure. We increase it year after year. We expand its scope constantly. All with little or no regard as to how we will pay for it in the long run. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755/32 "2003-12-19T00:01:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pervert \* > If I may ask, **John** , how does Friedman explain that deficits “keep governments from growing even further”? It was a half-serious, half-cynical remark I heard him make in an interview quite awhile ago. As you have noted, our government appears to have virtually no ability to limit the growth of its expenditures. A balanced budget is often nothing more than a license to “spend even more.” But Friedman is famous for being more concerned about the absolute size of government spending than in the size of the deficit, as per his remarks in 1978: "I would rather have total federal spending at $200 billion with a deficit of $100 billion than a balanced budget at $500 billion.” Interesting how those numbers seem quaint in the year 2003. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755/33 "2003-12-19T00:16:57Z")
**Hayek** , those are not unreasonable positions, now that you’ve explained what you meant. The approach you suggested earlier of simply cutting back funds and expecting the problem to somehow get dealt with anyway is what I object to - but that does seem to be the approach Norquist advocates and Rove follows, doesn’t it? Remember that he wants to “drown government in the bathtub” altogether, so there’s no telling what balance, if any, current GOP policy is intended to achieve. A “fix” to Social Security and Medicare is most certainly a topic for public debate and Congressional action. Trying to kill them by stealth is not in the best interests of anyone, and is not what any electorate has voted for. **pervert** , I appreciate that you’re struggling a little. Perhaps it might be best to set the use of particular words aside (never mind that Reagan’s budget director has already been cited as creating the term in the thread title) and concentrate on the concepts and policies themselves? **John** , we’re only three years away from a surplus budget, even if the deficits are now at record levels. It may be true that our _current_ all-Republican government is unable to act responsibly, but your memory has to be pretty damned short to think it just can’t be done. ---
**Author:** ![RexDart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b77776/32.png) [@RexDart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RexDart)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755/34 "2003-12-19T00:42:47Z")
Killing Social Security and Medicare is certainly in _my_ best interests, **Elvis** , since I don’t expect to live long enough to get any reward for what I put into them. With my lifestyle, despite my family’s history of long life I expect to die around 70 at the latest, so will plan to retire around 60 with enough saved up to get me through the next ten years after that. Conceivably the SS retirement age could be _over_ 70 by then (I’m only 24 now), so everything I put into that program is money down a pit I’m never going to see. Social Security isn’t really that beneficial for men anyways, since we die so much earlier than women. Men kinda get the shaft with that program. If women are going to be in the workforce for good now, then we should probably raise the age women draw SS benefits and lower the age for men to adjust for expected lifetime differences. ---
**Author:** ![Snag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Snag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snag)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755/35 "2003-12-19T10:54:22Z")
For the most part, doesn’t the size of government grow because we as a country force the issue? Are we Americans simplifying our lifestyles much other than when it is forced upon us? Are we going from superconsumers to mere consumers? Aren’t corporations compelled by their shareholders to make more than modest profits each quarter? We’re putting in burgeoning, new communications networks. We have homeland security to contend with. Hell, if you want to drive a status symbol, nowadays you buy a Hummer! So…why should we expect government to be shrinking? How does that serve the needs of a growing economy? Do the Fed and State capitols exist in a vacuum? Do we just want fewer services? Yes, there are some forms of internal momentum that may keep Washington et al on an expansionist track. And if Americans in general were spending less and conserving more, I concede this could suggest a crisis. But let’s be frank about the fact that We Want More! Government is supposed to keep up it’s end by getting smaller? Please explain to me how that works. Shrinking government in light of continued growth smacks to me of less control for the common folk, and fewer benefits that we pay taxes for in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755/36 "2003-12-19T14:56:51Z")
So are we agreed that ‘starving the beast’ isn’t a feasible plan? That government will grow, owing to the nature of the American political system, until external forces (disaster, effectively) force the issue? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755/37 "2003-12-19T15:02:05Z")
Social Security and Medicare don’t need to be ‘killed’. Two things need to be done to make these programs more responsible: First the age of retirement should be moved back a bit - back when SS was first brought in, the average lifespan was something like 70. Today it’s more like 76. Plus, it’s over 80 for women, and women make up a bigger part of the work force. So the retirement age should be pushed back to maybe 68 or so to compensate. The other thing that should be done is that Social Security and Medicare should be means-tested. The elderly make up the wealthiest sector of society, and universal social coverage for them, paid for by the poorest sector of society, is ridiculous. Even those who are asset-rich but cash-poor can pay their own way through reverse mortgages and such. Do those two things, and the burden of care for the elderly on the government will be reduced dramatically. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755/38 "2003-12-19T15:14:59Z")
But do you really feel those issues are politically feasible, Sam? Cheesing off the elderly is something most politicians are severely allergic to. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755/39 "2003-12-19T17:26:47Z")
No, I’m very pessimistic that those steps will ever be taken. My guess is that we’ll just muddle through the next 20 years with increasing debt and rising taxes, until the boomers die off and some demographic balance is restored. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755/40 "2003-12-19T17:35:36Z")
Well, it’s always struck me that increasing immigration will be one way of ensuring an adequate worker-base for the boomer retirement years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-the-beast-can-it-work/219755.md?page=3)