"The arithmetic is irrefutable, whatever some people would like to believe. There simply is no room in the budget for much else but entitlements."
With the midterm elections now concluded, people should naturally want to consider how Washington might shift its spending priorities. The answer, regardless of what the candidates have promised or whoever runs the government for that matter, is that Washington can change very little on this front. Entitlements—Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance and the upcoming outlays associated with the Affordable Care Act—so dominate the budget already that there is little room for anything else. Without serious reform in these areas, such financial constraints will only intensify in coming years and ultimately close out all other spending options, whatever presidents, senators, or Congress people say.
These constraints are crystal clear in existing budget data. Entitlements have grown relentlessly over the decades, from 30 percent of all government spending in 1950 to fully 70 percent today. They amount to 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). More than one dollar in seven, then, of everything this country produces now gets paid out in one or the other of these programs. Since the full implementation of the Affordable Care Act promises only to increase those proportions, and voters clearly show no desire to fork over still more economic resources to Washington, the rest of the budget, everything else that Washington does, faces a relentless financial squeeze.
In the past, defense cuts relieved the strain entitlements otherwise would have imposed on other budget priorities. Of course, Pentagon outlays have continued to grow absolutely, but their take of Washington’s spending pie has declined over the long haul, dramatically and relentlessly. At the height of the Cold War, defense constituted half the entire budget and fully 10 percent of GDP. Today it is just over 15 percent of the budget and about 3.0 percent of GDP. It is noteworthy that the War on Terror, for all the financial hand wringing it engendered, did little to interrupt this relative decline. At the height of the Iraq war, Pentagon spending rose from 3.0 to 3.8 percent of GDP, hardly a bump in the long-term downtrend.
These past declines have so reduced defense as a portion of the whole that future relative cuts at the Pentagon can provide only the thinnest of cushions against the growth of entitlements going forward. Many would argue President Obama plans to cut defense further, though the rise of ISIS makes the prospect dubious. Still, even if this somehow occurred, in the highly unlikely event that he cuts defense in half, he would free only 7-8 percent of the budget at most and buy the rest of the government only a few more years before the relentless growth of entitlements would begin to squeeze. That last bit of bought time may work for those who live by the election cycle, but most citizens take a longer perspective over which this budget reality will close options, including spending on things such as research and development, technical education and the ever-popular infrastructure spending.
Rising interest expenses on the government’s outstanding debt will compound the pressure and shorten the time to this inevitable squeeze. Recently, very low interest rates have relieved much of this budgetary strain. The expense of debt financing takes up just over 6.0 percent of the federal budget, well down from the 1980s, for instance, when higher interest rates took such expenses up to fully 14 percent of the budget. Interest rates, however, will not stay this low indefinitely. The Federal Reserve has made clear its intention to push them upwards. The White House, to its credit, recognizes this reality and has built into its expectations a rise in such financing expenses to 11.6 percent of the budget. That jump alone would all but offset any relief offered by otherwise unlikely defense cuts and make the point of pressure on the rest of the budget immediate.
The arithmetic is irrefutable, whatever some people would like to believe. There simply is no room in the budget for much else but entitlements. Washington will either reverse sixty-plus years of practice and turn to serious entitlements reform, or it will have to give up on most of its other priorities. The only remaining question is this: can the White House, the Senate and the House do the math?
I think we are past the tipping point and no way to put the genie back in the bottle...that is, not without major major pains. And, that will happen (the pain that is). We cannot sustain the mess we have created. What FDR started (and liberals have compounded on) will not be fixed without a major crisis - and 2008 was not it (and don't get me wrong - the greedy, morally bankrupt, corporate tycoons have contributed just as many problems).
I am 51 years old. I do not have any hope of seeing social security. In fact, keep it. I have put in way more than my share to take care of the generation before me. The can keep it - consider it my contribution. All that i ask is that that they stop taking anymore. That way i have paid my fair share and my kids will not be burdened to take care of me.
I do not need the government to take care of me, and i do not want them to. That is not what this country was founded on. We have forgotten what has made us a great nation and in forgetting we have not passed it on to this generation. We have destroyed what was a good thing...Obama is the death nail of it all. And the opposition of Obama's party have been terrible in putting forward any answers...we need to get back to the basics but no one even knows how good the basics were anymore.
I don't have hope for this country any longer and i am concerned for my kids and what they will have to live with.
Nailsale wrote:I think we are past the tipping point and no way to put the genie back in the bottle...that is, not without major major pains. And, that will happen (the pain that is). We cannot sustain the mess we have created. What FDR started (and liberals have compounded on) will not be fixed without a major crisis - and 2008 was not it (and don't get me wrong - the greedy, morally bankrupt, corporate tycoons have contributed just as many problems).
I am 51 years old. I do not have any hope of seeing social security. In fact, keep it. I have put in way more than my share to take care of the generation before me. The can keep it - consider it my contribution. All that i ask is that that they stop taking anymore. That way i have paid my fair share and my kids will not be burdened to take care of me.
I do not need the government to take care of me, and i do not want them to. That is not what this country was founded on. We have forgotten what has made us a great nation and in forgetting we have not passed it on to this generation. We have destroyed what was a good thing...Obama is the death nail of it all. And the opposition of Obama's party have been terrible in putting forward any answers...we need to get back to the basics but no one even knows how good the basics were anymore.
I don't have hope for this country any longer and i am concerned for my kids and what they will have to live with.
wow! Heck of a comment
check out the first part of this, or the whole thing. I think this speech and your comment compliment each other. Sarah Palin doesn't speak, promise
Nah, I'll go either into remote mountainous terrain within the Rocky Mountains, or jungles in South America, some of which are still largely unexplored.
thegreekdog wrote:I can't tell whether the OP contemplates all entitlement spending or just entitlement spending on poor and/or middle class individuals.
I did see there is a proposal to reform the food stamp initiative.
Just guessing, but I would bet food stamps take up less than 1% of USA budget, probably far less.
Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare take up 65%, going on 100% (all entitlements)
What I find interesting is how very quick folks who are doing well are to categorize anything that benefits the poor and middle class individuals as "entitlements" as a way of dismissing them, as if people could simply choose not to take money to provide food, shelter and medical care or their own retirement as a choice.
You know what REALLY should not be a choice? To pay people less than it takes them to live upon!
If you don't water plants, they die. If you cannot afford to feed your animals, you get rid of them.. you don't tell them to eat less!
When you pay your workers less than it takes them to buy food, clothing and basic shelter, then you are expecting society or others to support your workers. THAT is the crime, not that people who work full-time expect help when they are not making enough to provide for themselves.
nah, sorry Player, I wish a lot of things too and agree with probably everything you do about the way things 'should be' But those simple demands that things should be this way and that way, we should know by now that is a pipe dream. Yeah, and parents are supposed to love their children, we should take care of our homeless veterans before illegal immigrants, mom n dad are supposed to always be happy and together, children should not die before their parents, a country should not spend twice as much as it takes in year after year after year after year after year after year. Get that last one??? Don't get me wrong, I don't think they should be called 'entitlements' either. Heck, I have paid into social security every single week for going on almost 20 years with the exception of 12 weeks. Want to talk about the way it should be some more? That money should be mine, sitting in an account, waiting for me, earning a bit of interest, and it should be passed onto my children if I pass and there is still some left in it. But, that's not at all the way it works, is it? Nope, because of greed, that money that I earn is nothing but a transfer from me to another person who also paid in all their life, but their money they paid in for their retirement did not go towards their retirement at all, it was taken by someone else and other voted someone else should get it for now, and that 'we're good to pay it back ' and now they are waiting for me and you and 7 others to earn it for them every hour of every day. See, we 'owe' it to them....That's what makes it an entitlement. The way it should be?? what to call these programs is without a doubt the least amount of our worries, it's what kind of programs the government and at least some folks have created and helped create, and what the government does with the money, and it's what it is to the government, which is an unfunded liability.
Remember my thread years back, titles simply in quadrillions 1,400,000,000,000,000? remember more recently last year or 2013 maybe, I kept asking you to tell me what USA unfunded liabilities were? Hopefully you got around to finding the answer. Entitlements have been expanded and extended and expanded again to the point of dependency.... regardless of how truly bad a situation someone has, or how someone who actually can perform many different task for a job is going to opt for the 'free' check 99 times out of 100.. This is a lot bigger than poor people or middle class people, this is 'soon, there won't be anything left for any people' because humanity again fooled itself into thinking that we can just print more money, we can just borrow more money, we can just ask more of the future, we can just take more from other people who are 'not us'. and you know what f*ck POLITICS! One side will blame the other, no matter whose fault it is, all the way til the last year, to the last month, to the last week, to the last day, to the last hour, to the last minute, to the last second. playing on people fears more and more the entire time, telling us how it's 'their' fault over there. heck, it's everyone's fault except for the politicians who have never had to balance a budget and who regularly played people's emotions and stoked severe fear everytime someone tried to tell them they can't spend twice what they take in. Someone always seems to be there pointing the finger, about how if we don't spend another trillion, we are racist and want poor people to die, right?
I think often about how this just might be perfectly natural though. I mean of course human nature is itself greedy...not only for money, but also to try to get other people to do as much for them and get out of doing things themselves as much as they can get away with. But I mean natural as in the generation who is just passing were the last ones to know just how bad things can get. They are the generation that saved money, no matter how poor they were, they just did without things they did not truly need. They had basements full of food they created themselves in their gardens, just in case, because they remembered the bad times in the depression, and they would NEVER EVER EVER allow that to happen to them again and do whatever they could to prepare as much as they could to never be caught flatfooted again. They never threw a single thing away that still has some use. They reused it, who cares of someone rips on their flip phone? Not them, they were not spoiled rotten. Part of that is many of them remember in the roaring 20's how they could never have imagined just how bad things can get when we let monetary issues spiral out of control. They remembered spending that easy money in the 20's on frivolous things, and how for every night year after year they thought if they could just have one night of spending entertainment back, by golly they would be able to stretch that to survive for months! All we have left now is people who do not understand how bad things can get, it's not anyone's fault really, we've just had basically decent and stable times. Today it's been found that almost 70% of Americans could not come up with $1000 cash if they needed to. collectively, we don't give a flying f*ck about tomorrow. But we'll come back to that later, right now I want to point out the generation that endured and understood and survived the great depression are no longer with us.
That means virtually everyone else remaining, in their lifetime; The US dollar has always been the worlds reserve currency. That is about to change The US has always been the #1 economy. That is about to change some say it has already in ways. The US, for the most part, was a country of savers and at least our strategic stockpiles of resources were safe. Now, heck, 10-15 years ago stockpiles were depleted in certain resources, even strategic stockpiles like silver....gone. They have never known economic depression. serious severe recession, sure they remember Carter/oil embargo. Things were bad, yet as truly horrible as they were, the 70's was disneyland compared to the depression. They have always had access to affordable gasoline (cept for a couple years it was expensive and hard to get)
The reality is we really don't have any idea the darkness that lurks, it just can't be understood by anyone who did not live through it. Not just economically, like 25 cents of every dollar earned going to pay the interest on the debt in about 20,000 days from now, but also the darkness that takes over people's souls when it's survival mode and one way or another, they are going to find some food. people who think we were saved from a depression a few years ago, stfu. you have no idea what that even means, it's just something convenient we might tell ourselves to justify borrowing and printing trillions, with interest. Well, very, VERY soon, that debt, and specifically the interest on that debt is going to be one mean and ugly mother fucker. The most tragic thing, in my opinion, is that the people who are going to be stuck holding the bag did not even get to see or use any of the money they will be tasked with paying pack.
Oh, and by the way. Interest rates are going to rise, dramatically. What will be a 200 billion dollar payments, just to service the debt with not a single thought about the possibility of paying it down can very easily become a 400 billion dollar interest payment with the stroke of a pen. Just a couple of small interest rate hikes can put our payments over a trillion. Maube 2 trillion in interest payments...what does the gov't take in today, and at a record level....2.2 trillion? hmmmm I hope we aren't naive enough to think we Americans, or an American is going to be in charge of that decision. That will be the new power of those we owe the debt to, long since subsidized, derivatived out, bought by those with savings. Perhaps now we can understand how we are handing that future foreign power the whip to be applied to our very own backs, the reality they are going to be the new 'crackers' putting it to our backs. just when we think we are getting ahead....CRACK! oops, interest rates just went up another .5%
Ya know how some people like to shrug it off with 'but.....the military spending and the wars!' Yeah, all that money wasted on wars! If we know anything about how much was actually spent on the wars, even at it's height, it was barely 3% of our budget, it never hit 4%. Not to excuse it, as many know I was always against the wars. But does that matter one bit? does it get me off the hook for having to pay for them? Nope. Same reason I was against all these 'must' have trillion dollar programs we just borrowed for, in the name of the 44 million uninsured Americans. well, see we borrowed and spent the trillion, and years later, here we are with still 40+ million uninsured. Oh yeah, forgot not wanting to borrow trillions makes me a racist. Bottom line is this..... that amount spent on those wars is going to be dwarfed by the interest payments on our debt. Let that sink in for a moment. Interest Costs Poised to Surpass Defense and Nondefense Discretionary Spending in 2021, which at the rate we are going, probably means 2020, maybe 2019. Consider, in 2008, we were projected interest payments wouldn't surpass military spending until 2030. That's the cost of Obamacare. and much as our society's 'hearts of gold' who constantly want to spend more always in the name of the poor, and imagining it will in the end be taken one way or another from those who they think have more than enough..... it is those same 'gold hearted intentions' that actually are going to screw everybody 9 years ahead of schedule. In the name of helping everyone, we are going to step right up to that golden goose that lays an egg of pure gold everyday, and we are going to slice that once in a century goose right down the belly, because just think of all the gold we can get if we just slice open where the gold keeps coming from!
And another thing I think is important to consider, that is the opinions of the next generation who is carrying our load.... you think I am 'pissed' about paying into social security every week, knowing damn well it won't be there when I retire? How do you think the next generation is going to feel about all us old fucks who spent them into slavery? How do you think they are going to look at us as they pass us on the street? or see our court with groceries in it, wondering if we are working, as they carry a basket with 5 boxes of mac n cheese for the week? heck, at that point there will be no such thing as retirement for people like us...just a fantasy to dwell on about how we used to think about working our brains out, just to get us through every back breaking week. It seems to be universally true, ya don't know what ya got, til it's gone. That's why I posted this song, look at the lyrics.
I made it a point in my younger life to always talk to old people who lived through the depression, to ask them what it was like to live through it. More than one talked about the crowds waiting by train tracks in the hopes some potatoes might fall off, and if they were lucky they would get one. How they did not have any water, and collected the ice of the tracks to bring home and melt for them to drink, and how some days that was all they had was water and some moldy bread.
Last night I watched Alexandria Pelosi's HBO documentary (yes, that pelosi) it was called Citizen USA and it was about people who legally immigrate to the USA. At one point they started asking recently sworn in Americans what is the one thing they still have not gotten used to. Hands down, almost all of them said 'I can't get used to how much Americans complain. It's crazy! They have it so good, yet they are constantly complaining! They have no idea what they have and how good even the poor among them have it!' One fella noted how just having water was something he needed to go get 4-5 times a day, and he was sooooooo thankful for his water faucet that provided clean water. I wondered how he would take it, listening to other people constantly complaining about how they have a human right to free MRI scans and free state of the art health care, free college, free food, free shelter. no matter how much is 'free' it's never enough, no matter what ill is 'cured' they complain just as much about the next thing if not more so. There is nothing more addicting and nothing as self destructive to the human soul as free shit.
I don't let myself off the hook either. I'd can honestly tell everyone right here and now 'hey, every person I have ever met in my life has heard about it from me, has been just a tad bit more educated on the issues even if they don't like what they hear or even believe it. What, so I spent thousands of hours of my free time and even at some jobs talking about these exact issues. Whether you want to admit it or not, if there is one thing I have been consistent and steadfast about in my time here since 2008-2009, it's been fiscal responsibility, and on EVERY front. But I know I could have done so much more, I know there is so much more to do in so many more ways. Even if how I spent all this time trying to make people understand just how unfair it is to charge up everything onto the next generation, many times while it was claimed to be in the very name of fairness, even if only it's something I can print out to show I am not the one for them to blame, that I did fight for them, and that I did point out how these people are just creating debt slaves in the future, while some of them the entire time blew it out the other side of their ass guilt-libeling others for slavery, and as bas as slave holders.
And btw I was able to figure the one way I could help prevent some of the slavery even if only one person at a time through the underground phatroad...and that is by identifying the only thing worse that a society like ours going broke. And that is a society full of people who do not know who to blame, full of people who will follow any person who says they have 'the solution' and is strong enough to get that message out, who will all too gladly got and 'get' the person the leader says need to 'pay their debts', who will take the mantra of 'gettin their skin in the game' literally. And what that is a society that is without truth.
Without truth, fear has before and can again easily become just a decimal point away from 'justifiable' violence. I understand the more People who know the truth, the fewer People can be sheepled. Without truth about why the currency is worthless, 25% of every dollar workers earn is strictly for interest on our debt, and government finally sees that inevitable day government marked 'account overdrawn' and the credit rating cannot be cut any lower and when we finally realize we never mined our vast resources of coal and did not set aside national parks out of goodness and respect for nature and not because of environmentalism, but because we leveraged it out to get even deeper in debt and as we see the holders of that debt come take that land as collateral and truly fistfuck open-pit strip mine your backyard and this entire land with no concern at all for environmentalism or the human rights we went broke over supplying and our children get paid a cup of rice a day to do it an even more dependent society is virtually guaranteed to delve into madness.
From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.
It's like they have no idea whatsoever what is going on, bragging about how great it is how they do't need to know, it's about what they feel is right, it's about their 'intentions'
We are in the dependency stage, and while we have blown off 'debt is slavery' all our lives, the next generation will not have the luxury. And being we made them slaves to our demands, guess who is today's modern slave auctioneers, cowardly offering up those too young to understand, robbing them of all opportunity, condemning them to living only for others, and not themselves? It's no different than forcing them onto the cotton fields. No different at all.
thegreekdog wrote:I can't tell whether the OP contemplates all entitlement spending or just entitlement spending on poor and/or middle class individuals.
I did see there is a proposal to reform the food stamp initiative.
Just guessing, but I would bet food stamps take up less than 1% of USA budget, probably far less.
Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare take up 65%, going on 100% (all entitlements)
How are you defining "entitlements?" I should have asked this first.
PLAYER57832 wrote:You know what REALLY should not be a choice? To pay people less than it takes them to live upon!
A lovely argument. Unfortunately, it is an irrational one based on emotions and not on either logic or reason.
Effectively income is based on supply and demand as well as skill and lesser skill. The supply and demand is obvious; the more workers are looking for work, the less companies need to pay them because paying them less weeds out the potential pool. Conversely, if there are few available workers, their lack of supply causes companies to bid up their wages to attract the necessary workers before they go to the competition. The skill and demand is less obvious. Why should you hire this kid with little experience? Because he will work for less than the person with more experience and once he is trained he can become a loyal worker who knows the system better than the person with experience in some other system. But mostly because he will work less.
So let's look at that minimum wage law. It was designed to combat, the later. Non union minorities were migrating to union states. Because they were minorities (which was a major status change from "chattel slavery" a generation or two before) no one really liked them much. But they were willing to work for less so they could at least get SOMETHING. Unions objected. They wanted their members to have the easy road. After all this was the GREAT DEPRESSION. Can't have our members be replaced by a bunch of ... well it's no longer polite to use what they called them back then. So they established the minimum wage laws to keep minorities unemployed.
And that is what it does best. African American Youth unemployment is still the biggest sector unemployment number in the nation.
The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29-year-old African-Americans is 20.8 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 16.4 percent (NSA).
Moreover you just can't wave a magic wand and have wages go above cost of living. Where do you think that money comes from? Contrary to popular opinion, real companies (not the mega companies, they basically do squat in terms of employment) don't sit around with tons of cash. Most of the companies that are potential sources of significant employment (small businesses) are probably running on short term debt. If you raise the cost of their employees they have to pass it on. As a direct result, raising the wages results in a direct increase to the cost of living. It doesn't help and often hurts.
And while everyone "hates the rich" you can't really tax the rich. Anyone who says they want to tax the rich is lying; they want to tax the middle class, the ones who are actually supporting the economy in the first place. If you try to tax the rich they will avoid the tax or in the case of France, flat out leave. Taxes as a true means of revenue distribution never works because everyone hates taxes.
(Now on the other hand, if you could con people into giving their money away, then everyone would be better. Charity, they say, gladdens the heart of the giver. People who might not otherwise give a dime in taxes might give millions because they want to see their friend succeed on Celebrity Apprentice. But I'll stop here as this isn't a discussion on the role of government in charity.)
The only real solution is not to raise the bridge (wages) but to lower the river (cost of living). And you would be surprised at how much government regulation has resulted in the current level of the cost of living; the most liberal the area, the higher the cost of living.
thegreekdog wrote:I can't tell whether the OP contemplates all entitlement spending or just entitlement spending on poor and/or middle class individuals.
I did see there is a proposal to reform the food stamp initiative.
Just guessing, but I would bet food stamps take up less than 1% of USA budget, probably far less.
Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare take up 65%, going on 100% (all entitlements)
How are you defining "entitlements?" I should have asked this first.
I was kind of making the point it doesn't matter what 'we' define entitlements as, it only matters what the government defines them as. However, I would say the definition is any money benefit or service the government provides by law that depends on other people to pay for. the government definition is; An individual's right to receive a value or benefit provided by law.
I said earlier but I understand you may not have read that long ass post, if government took what I pay into social security and saved it in an account which I draw upon at a later date, that would be a savings I could draw money from and not an entitlement. But, since the government can't manage a can of soup, it's the fact that others are entitled to a portion of yours, mine, and every other workers paycheck, by law.
thegreekdog wrote:I can't tell whether the OP contemplates all entitlement spending or just entitlement spending on poor and/or middle class individuals.
I did see there is a proposal to reform the food stamp initiative.
Just guessing, but I would bet food stamps take up less than 1% of USA budget, probably far less.
Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare take up 65%, going on 100% (all entitlements)
How are you defining "entitlements?" I should have asked this first.
I was kind of making the point it doesn't matter what 'we' define entitlements as, it only matters what the government defines them as. However, I would say the definition is any money benefit or service the government provides by law that depends on other people to pay for. the government definition is; An individual's right to receive a value or benefit provided by law.
I said earlier but I understand you may not have read that long ass post, if government took what I pay into social security and saved it in an account which I draw upon at a later date, that would be a savings I could draw money from and not an entitlement. But, since the government can't manage a can of soup, it's the fact that others are entitled to a portion of yours, mine, and every other workers paycheck, by law.
Yeah, so I guess my question is whether there are other things that are more important to focus on. Social security, for example, is something everyone is supposed to get. On the other hand, something like contracts to build B52 bombers that aren't necessary is not something that everyone is supposed to get.
To put it another way, I'd like to start with pork, then move to defense, then focus on the entitlements that the opening post mentions.
thegreekdog wrote:Yeah, so I guess my question is whether there are other things that are more important to focus on. Social security, for example, is something everyone is supposed to get. On the other hand, something like contracts to build B52 bombers that aren't necessary is not something that everyone is supposed to get.
To put it another way, I'd like to start with pork, then move to defense, then focus on the entitlements that the opening post mentions.
' and now they are waiting for me and you and 7 others to earn it for them every hour of every day. See, we 'owe' it to them....That's what makes it an entitlement. The way it should be?? what to call these programs is without a doubt the least amount of our worries, it's what kind of programs the government and at least some folks have created and helped create, and what the government does with the money, and it's what it is to the government, which is an unfunded liability. 
