Judged now by loyalty to a political leader? No disagreement accepted.

[JDPriestly]

111. The money for Social Security is in the Social Security trust fund. It is there. It will be enough

for a long time.

What we don't have enough money for is are overextended military and its wasteful programs.

The average American recipient of Social Security receives between $1200 and $1300 per month. If we cannot afford benefits at that amount for our seniors, and if we don't pay that small amount in benefits for seniors, then we have no business fighting wars and intervening around the world.

$1200 or $1300 is a lot of money if you live in Nigeria or India, but it really does not go far if you live in the US and have to pay American prices for utilities, rent, insurance, healthcare (and Medicare is not free, not at all. You still have lots of expenses.), taxes, eat and dress warmly in the winter.

If we have to cut expenditures, we should cut our military budgets.

We are not doing that well in Afghanistan. The sooner we are out the better. It's a shame our military could not have done a better job there. Maybe reducing the military budget will make them more efficient.

Why are we paying Pakistan to patrol its own borders at this time. They hid Bin Laden or at least could not locate him for years when he was literally living in a good-sized compound not far from a major Pakistani military base. And we pay them????

We do not need to have such a large presence in some areas of Europe. Time to close some bases and save some money.

We need to have a total review of our military budget. If we make it leaner, we will be able to take care of our children and their schools, our elderly and encourage the private sector to create jobs that do not rely on government contracts.

It's so easy for private industry to just get no-bid military contracts or even competitive military contracts. The pay is certain. Then the companies that get those contracts turn around and complain about spending money on Social Security, education, Medicare, veterans' benefits, food stamps, etc.

This is completely perverse. Sorry, I cannot be "nice" about it. What I would like to hear is an argument as strong as mine that focuses as much as I do on the policy.

Those who complain about the bitter language and caustic style of those of us who feel we are being betrayed are attacking us as people rather than attacking our logic, our arguments. I think that proves the weakness of the basis for the support of the chained CPI.

Those who post these "we must support Obama no matter what" posts are simply avoiding having to admit that they cannot defend the policies that Obama has offered as "compromises" and which are not compromises but are sell-outs.

There simply is no accurate, "nice" language for a sell-out. It isn't a compromise. We go over the fiscal cliff and return to the tax levels of the Clinton era. Seems fair to me as one who loyally paid them without complaining.