Its Easy

[KUGRDON]

1.  Massive cuts to Social Security and Medicare accomplished through means testing which requires the diminution of assets, including recapture of transferred assets, to an agreed percentage of national mean net worth of individuals before assistance is made available.

2.  Transfer savings from #1 above to discretionary spending with emphasis on infrastructure and education.

 

Its time we stopped talking about meeting Republicans or Democrats halfway and solve the central problem.  No reason to spend so much on retirees and so little on the future.  We have met the enemy, and he is us.

[Mano]

How about cutting defense spending while we are at it?

[KUGRDON]

No problem with that other than the resulting unemployment, especially among young men of color.

[Mano]

No problem with that other than the resulting unemployment, especially among young men of color.

 

Because reducing enlistees is the only place to reduce defense.

[KUGRDON]

I'm not going to argue for increased defense expenditures, or even maintaining current levels of spending, but almost 25% of the defense budget is for personnel and housing.  Moreover, if operations, maintenance and procurement is reduced, that will have effects on private sector employment.  Bottom line, there is not that much in savings to be had once Obama's foolish and pointless escalation of the war on Afghanistan is shut down.

[Orange]

I'm not going to argue for increased defense expenditures, or even maintaining current levels of spending, but almost 25% of the defense budget is for personnel and housing.  Moreover, if operations, maintenance and procurement is reduced, that will have effects on private sector employment.  Bottom line, there is not that much in savings to be had once Obama's foolish and pointless escalation of the war on Afghanistan is shut down.

 

LMAO, I love your post-hoc, convenient summary of events in the VERY recent political past.

[KUGRDON]

If they were still available, I would link to the collegefanatics.com post in 2010 where I said the same thing before the escalation.  As for humor, I could post where stated you were against escalation in Afghanistan until Obama announced the escalation, then you were for it.  Which position are you taking now Roody?

[Mano]

So what has cost more, Obama's "escalation" or Bush starting and mismanaging of two wars??

[KUGRDON]

Of course, Bush.  Does that make you feel better about Obama?

[Mano]

Of course, Bush.  Does that make you feel better about Obama?

 

Yet Obama's escalation is what YOU chose to single out. Does that make you feel better about being a conservative?

[KUGRDON]

Obama's escalation is in today's defense budget which you brought into the discussion.

[Mano]

Obama's escalation is in today's defense budget which you brought into the discussion.

 

So are both wars.

[Mano]

And I brought up Defense because of the amount of money spent there, and (IMHO) because it has the most fat that can be trimmed - I did not assign blame to either party, plenty to go around.

[KUGRDON]

Not even close to having the most fat.  Defense spending is 4.7% of GDP and coming down as it should, entitlements are more than five times that now and are projected to be 100% of GDP by 2025 and 180% by 2035..  You can't get any more fat that Social Security funds going to pay for greens fees for retired lawyers.  Frankly, if entitlements are not reformed, it doesn't matter how the rest is spent.

[Orange]

Yet Obama's escalation is what YOU chose to single out. Does that make you feel better about being a conservative?

 

Precisely my point.  Bush began 2 different wars in the middle east, one with a purpose, one without.  Obama ended the war with no purpose and set out to finish the job WITH a purpose.

[Orange]

If they were still available, I would link to the collegefanatics.com post in 2010 where I said the same thing before the escalation.  As for humor, I could post where stated you were against escalation in Afghanistan until Obama announced the escalation, then you were for it.  Which position are you taking now Roody?

 

Actually, the position I took was to be for escalation until after the escalation resulted in a lot more deaths, and little in the way of progress.  It had nothing to do with allegiance to Obama, but rather an objective viewing of the facts as reported by media outlets.

[Orange]

Not even close to having the most fat.  Defense spending is 4.7% of GDP and coming down as it should, entitlements are more than five times that now and are projected to be 100% of GDP by 2025 and 180% by 2035..  You can't get any more fat that Social Security funds going to pay for greens fees for retired lawyers.  Frankly, if entitlements are not reformed, it doesn't matter how the rest is spent.

 

I disagree 100%.  We spend more on defense than something like the next 15 militaries combined, and almost all of them are allies.  Viewed in this light (and the framers' belief that a standing army was a bad idea), the defense has BY FAR the most fat.

 

I'm all for cutting SS for people who don't need it, but the seniors who are wealthy and healthy PALE in number compared to the millions who are not, and in fact need that SS check.  After you factor in the immense cost of means-testing, you're probably saving next to nothing.

[Quack 12]

What Don is conveniently leaving out of his equation is that veteran's services, including veteran's hospitals, the G.I. Bill, pensions, etc., etc., etc. are all lopped into his "entitlements" rant, and aren't part of what he calls "the defense budget." It's a convenient way to make defense spending seem lower than it is, when in fact the sum total of the cost of our military and all of its consequences probably approaches 40 percent of the national budget. 

 

SS spending is roughly equal to "defense spending" (not including all of the horrors it causes that are subsidized by "entitlements") and both are slightly smaller than medicare and medicaid spending, but you won't hear Don complaining that millionaire lawyers are getting facelifts paid by medicaid.

[KUGRDON]

you won't hear Don complaining that millionaire lawyers are getting facelifts paid by medicaid.

 

Dude, that is exactly what I am proposing be eliminated. . .means testing so there are no SS, Medicare or Medicaid (if that currently is possible) paid to people who have substantial income or assets, and to address Orange, this testing should penetrate far below millionaire status.  The program should be designed so that the average person exhausts their assets on living and medical expenses prior to death, rather than passing assets on to their heirs while the younger generation at large foots the bill for their SS and Medical care.  My 78 year old stepmother, retired military, just passed away with an estate of over $2 million.  Neither she, nor my father, ever had an income greater than that of a Master Chief Petty Officer in the USN, and and neither had worked a day since the 1980s, but just lived frugally.  In her later years she had alzheimers and received significant SS and Medicare benefits on top of the military pension earned in her own right and the survivor and life insurance benefits derived from my father's earlier passing.  There is no reason for the government to have subsidized her later years through SS and MC for the exclusive benefit of myself and the other heirs.  Basically, you guys, most notably the younger of you, handed me, and each of her other heirs, another $200 grand each by providing her with entitlements.

 

In lieu of means testing, a lien, in favor of the federal government, could be created on the assets of anyone who receives SS and Medicare benefits to the extent of all or part of those benefits so that old folks are not forced to sell their homes prior to death but still provide for payment of their own expenses through liquidation of assets following death.

 

Moreover, in a discussion of cutting the defense budget, military pensions and veterans health care benefits are pretty much irrelevant because they are not going to be cut.  I support cutting the military budget, I just don't see the amounts available through doing so as close to solving the problem of the growth of entitlements and diminishing spending on the young.  In fact, cutting the defense budget by definition cuts the amount spent on the young.  I'd prefer an expansion of the military and spending on military housing, wages and benefits for military personnel and their families to escalating growth in food stamps and Medicaid.

 

Most troubling about this discussion is the fact that so many are hopelessly unable to discern a proposal so antithetical to my interests and to the interests of those like me which clearly benefits those who are younger, less fortunate and less white than me.  If non-defense discretionary spending is to be materially increased, spending on entitlements must be decreased.  Its easy.

[Nakedmolerat]

2.  Transfer savings from #1 above to discretionary spending with emphasis on infrastructure and education.

Unfortunately, here's why neither of these will ever happen, regardless of where the cuts come from (defense or SS): Those two things aren't considered immediately profitable. Both have profit built in for the future, but not right now. Status quo provides profitability now, which is why it's the status quo.

 

As far as infrastructure goes, I would love to see the entire country with beautiful roads, lined with flowers and trees and manicured grass. This would solve the supposed "unemployment issue" involved in reducing the defense. Let those guys make our country look like one giant gated community.