Townhall.com -- federal spending is out of control, so we need to..

[TexasLawyer]

We need to get rid of social security, Medicaid, hot lunch program, etc... because they are just too darned expensive.

Insufficiently draconian cuts
Tony Blankley (archive)

February 16, 2005


<snip>

Unfortunately, like every effort at controlling federal spending in the last quarter century (except for the House Republican effort of fiscal 1995-1996), President Bush's cuts, even if they are fully enacted, won't make any measurable difference to the level of federal debt for our children. He is proposing to reduce non-military, non-entitlement spending of about $400 billion by about $20 billion.

And he will have hell to pay from an outraged public if he gets even that, because federal spending programs are lovingly and carefully named to induce maximum, if ignorant, public support: children's hot lunches, Head Start, etc. Often more effort goes into naming a spending program than writing it. If the name is sufficiently adorable, no politician will have the nerve to cut it.

<snip>

Two sentences from the 2004 Annual Report of the Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees explains why every word and every cut being talked about this season in Washington won't make any appreciable difference

"The annual cost of Social Security benefits represents 4.3 percent of Gross Domestic Product today and is projected to rise to 6.6 percent of GDP in 2078 ... Medicare's annual costs are currently 2.7 percent of GDP … and will reach almost 14 percent of GDP in 2078."
In other words, today, those two programs alone account for the use of about 7 percent of all goods and service in the United States ($900 billion out of a GDP of about $12 trillion), which is about 36 percent of the federal budget of $2.5 trillion.

By the time today's toddlers are retiring, those two programs will need 20 percent of America's total domestic economic output, which, if the federal budget remains in the same proportion with our GDP, would be 100 percent (not the current 36 percent) of the federal budget. In other words, those two programs, alone, would take up the entire federal budget. There would be nothing for Education, Medicaid, Defense, CIA, Agriculture, FBI, other pensions and entitlements. Nothing for all the rest of the federal government and budget.

And it could well be worse than that. As medical science advances to ever more wonderful capabilities, its costs go up. Currently, they are going up at over 10 percent a year -- for all medical services in both public and private sectors. Throw in the impending, if expensive, miracles of genetic medicine, and the sky's the limit.

Certainly President Bush's cuts should be passed. They should be doubled or tripled and then passed -- but they won't be, because the politicians of both parties are but the willing slaves to a public that collectively wants more than it can produce.

<snip>

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/tonyblankley/tb20050216.shtml

[Fenris]

1. Tony Blankley is a servant of Satan.

Ask him. He'll tell you.

[TexasLawyer]

2. I'll take your word for it.

I believe it after reading his article. He sounds like a pig.

[AntiCoup2K4]

3. Don't insult Satan like that!

:evilfrown:


Blankley's a servant of Moon.

[prairierose]

5. that's correct.....

The Washington Time is owned by the Moonies. I've gotten so I can't even watch the McLaughlin report anymore coz Blankley's on it all the time

:puke:

[MAlibdem]

4. Fuck that SHIT.

"In other words, today, those two programs alone account for the use of about 7 percent of all goods and service in the United States ($900 billion out of a GDP of about $12 trillion), which is about 36 percent of the federal budget of $2.5 trillion."

Doesn't it make sense that 7 percent of GDP would go to subsidize workers who are too old to work? One has to think that they've earned it. This isn't Animal Farm, we aren't going to send our worn-out old workers to the glue factory, are we?

[TexasLawyer]

7. Also, we're paying into the SS system, BIG TIME

Bushco economic advisor Gregory Mankiw says we can't have our Social Security "free lunch" any more. But, ahem!! I've been paying into the SS system my entire working life to support today's retirees. Some day, it will be my turn to retire. I didn't contribute all that money to SS for the hell of it. And it is NOT a free lunch, despite how SS is characterized by Bushco.

[vpigrad]

6. Spending isn't the problem!

There's a lot of things we're not spending enough on! Instead, the amount coming in should be increased to help pay for the things we have to have. It's simple responsibility. When you spend more than you bring in and you can't spend less (and in fact, need to spend much more), you have to bring in more.