From The Economist Elephant in the room, indeed. There's no way around it. We need dramatic cuts in SS, Medicare, and Medicaid. But there's no good reason that higher taxes on luxuries and high incomes in particular should not make up at least 25% of this balancing act. Minding only their respective ideologies, the Democrats continue to block any serious cuts in entitlements, while the Republicans fight tooth and nail to resist even fringe tax increases. It's obvious to any economist that we need a combination of both.
None of the goons in DC have the backbone required to fight for cutting what have become sacred cows.
We have high income and corporate taxes already. Raising taxes is simply going to make us uncompetitive. We're going to have to trim these entitlements way back.
SS is not in the same budget. It keeps getting put in there but is funded separately from other Federal taxes
Why are net interest payments included in the chart? Is that an effort to mislead or am I missing something? As far as entitlements are "the problem", this is due largely to the very high cost of healthcare - which includes Medicare and Medicaid. That needs reform. But I suspect that this will be used as a reason to privatise Social Security, which doesn't.
I am always extremely suspicious of graphs based on extrapolating existing trends into the future. Reality is not mathematics, and mathematical models are at best an approximation. Sometimes not even a very close approximation. There are a lot of good reasons to be concerned about the proportion of the US budget that goes to entitlement spending, but I don't think this graph does a good job of presenting any of them.
Not really. We have marvelous ability to spin bullshit here in the US, and the corporate propaganda is among the very best the world has ever seen. When you look at the nominal corporate tax rate of the US, it appears to be extremely high. But then when you look at what they actually pay in real figures, and realize the massive tax loopholes exist, you see that isn't the case. Per the Congressional Budget Office, as a percentage of gdp, the US pays the third lowest amount of the 30 OECD companies that release the figures, and is in the bottom 10% of countries in that group in the tax rate actually taken in, despite having a nominal tax rate that is the 2nd highest in the world. Table 2-1, page 13. http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/69xx/doc6902/11-28-CorporateTax.pdf Our assholes lie better than anyone else's assholes. We'll see how much effect the recent repeal of the tax laws on outsourcing have. Because our assholes really like corporate profit and don't care if there is a middle class in America, for the last 15 years there's been a tax loophole that existed that allowed companies that outsourced labor to other countries to lie to the US about how much of their income derived from that country and lie to the host country the same in reverse, resulting in massive tax breaks while ensuring that the cost benefit for outsourcing was so high that efficiency of the work force wasn't a factor compared to the tax shelter provided. That closed, and three days later my company divested itself of the majority of its overseas workforce, and announced rehiring in the US. Other companies are following suit. That was an Obama initiative, btw. Well, that will certainly continue to keep shareholder's profits high. And who needs old people anyway right? They aren't productive members of society.
Good grief. When SS was created, the productive members of society outnumbed the retired at least ten to one. Nowadays, it's more like three to one, and the elderly are living far longer than they did eighty years ago. And even if this was about pulling the plug on Grandma, the lack of funding will affect future generations far more than those that are on it now anyway....but the 20 and 30-somethings with any knowledge on current events know better than to rely on government benefits. At least, I hope so.
Well we could cut back on the crazy checks and the kids who are allergic to soap but get SSI checks. Maybe time to start means testing with S.S., if you are drawing a union pension, do you really need S.S. as well.
[action=Zombie]scratches Demi off the Right List and puts him on the [-]Wrong[/-] Left List.[/action]
You know in the end it doesn't matter. We are seriously fucked. People complained about George Bush and the budget but Obama has taken it to a new record. Our February 2011 Deficit is greater then the entire 2007 Deficit. Think about that......
Let me tell you something about Grandma. She's old, bitter, and doesn't give a fuck that her cozy entitlements are creating a death sentence for our nation's solvency. She probably won't be around to see the collapse, so what does she care? I'm merely suggesting that we return the apathy. But seniors vote more than most other demographics in this country, so politicians will bow to their demands for more or sustained entitlements. They're basically running the show unchecked, because the rest of us don't have the time to vote.
Oh teh noes, I've failed Zombie's ideological purity test! LOL. I'm on a moderate, always have been. I don't care about Right or Left, I care about being right, as in correct. Theory has a way of breaking down in reality, and it's reality that I care about. As it stands, what I mostly here on the 'Forge is rhetoric. I rarely hear a cogent answer on exactly why I should support the policies that have continued to reduce my standard of living while enriching the top 1% of the populace immensely. The argument used to be 'these ideas make it better for everyone', and for a long time there was some truth to that. That's not the case now, nor has it been for the last decade. People I love have suffered over this outrageous greed, no one has been held accountable for it, no one has been jailed even when clearly breaking the law. I'm about done with ideological rhetoric - no force or fraud? One of the largest frauds in the history of mankind occurred, we all lived through it, and yet very few people seem to be aware of it or have evaluated their belief system based on it. Hopefully that will change in the future.
Interestingly enough, this sounds to me like an argument for privatizing Social Security. Instead of the current Ponzi scheme, where the State takes money from productive workers and hands it directly to people who aren't working, stuffing any excess into a mattress for later use (and then stealing that and replacing it with worthless IOUs, but I digress), if SS$ went to shares in companies it would all align to allow us to lower taxes and increase productivity.
If the SS$ went into the stock market it would just get diverted into the pockets of the well connected and people would be left broke when they retired.
They're too busy making their own nooses for when the day of revolution is at hand. Let them. It'll save us all some trouble. CHEERS. And nooses can be reused...
As proposed, such a scheme would also defeat one of the central purposes of Social Security - universality. I don't see much point in it if it's just a private investment fund.
