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What is the Dem plan to make our entitlement programs sustainable?

jhmd2000

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Given that everyone concedes these programs are on a collision course with insolvency (and could very well bring down the government as a whole unless we fix them), what's the plan to save them (if not Ryan's)?

In this question I am going to assume--safely---that many of you never gave Ryan's plan a chance b/c, well, it came from a Republican. Fine. What's the counterproposal?

Of course, the Dems could refuse to take anything other than a short-sighted, political posture, run against system-salvaging reform, and hope that our country doesn't crash on their watch. I hope they can put their country before their party and at least offer a serious attempt at saving the system from itself.
 
here's an idea, decrease defense spending and raise taxes.
 
yeah remember in the 90s when we had budget surpluses and no wars and high taxes. man those were the days.
 
yeah remember in the 90s when we had budget surpluses and no wars and high taxes. man those were the days.

Yeah, and we also were in the midst of one of the greatest economic booms in our nation's history. Anybody can have a great fiscal policy when the economy is going gangbusters. Cutting government spending/raising taxes in this economic environment is asking for trouble.

Also, you are deluding yourself if you think simply cutting defense is going to balance the budget in the long run. Defense spending is direct investment which directly stimulates the economy and creates jobs. Entitlement spending goes directly into old people's savings accounts and causes an increase in inflation.
 
Cutting taxes will destroy the country. It's just that simple.

We need the top brackets to back up to where they were under Clinton, cut defense, means test SS and Medicare.
 
Cutting taxes will destroy the country. It's just that simple.

We need the top brackets to back up to where they were under Clinton, cut defense, means test SS and Medicare.

Have anything to back that up? Cutting taxes would put us more in debt. That would not destroy the country. What will is decreasing net consumption. Increasing the recessionary gap in a time like this will only serve to stunt the growth of the economy for the next few decades. That's when debt starts to become a problem.
 
http://www.slate.com/id/2291054/

Take it from the number crunchers at the CBO. Look at the first chart here, and check the "primary deficit" in 2019. The number is positive. The deficit does not exist. There's a technicality, granted: The primary deficit is the difference between spending and revenue. The total deficit, the number more commonly cited as "the deficit," includes mandatory interest payments on the country's debt. Even so, the total fiscal gap is a whisper, not a shout—about 3 percent of GDP, which is what economists say is healthy for an advanced economy.

So how does doing nothing actually return the budget to health? The answer is that doing nothing allows all kinds of fiscal changes that politicians generally abhor to take effect automatically. First, doing nothing means the Bush tax cuts would expire, as scheduled, at the end of next year. That would cause a moderately progressive tax hike, and one that hits most families, including the middle class. The top marginal rate would rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, and some tax benefits for investment income would disappear. Additionally, a patch to keep the alternative minimum tax from hitting 20 million or so families would end. Second, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Obama's health care law, would proceed without getting repealed or defunded. The CBO believes that the plan would bend health care's cost curve downward, wrestling the rate of health care inflation back toward the general rate of inflation. Third, doing nothing would mean that Medicare starts paying doctors low, low rates. Congress would not pass anymore of the regular "doc fixes" that keep reimbursements high. Nothing else happens. Almost magically, everything evens out.
 
Im not for cutting government spending, I am for raising taxes on the wealthy and even the middle class, and cutting defense spending but improving social programs.
 
Im not for cutting government spending, I am for raising taxes on the wealthy and even the middle class, and cutting defense spending but improving social programs.

Defense spending and entitlement spending have very different effects on the economy. If you want to cut defense, then you need to reinvest it in infrastructure or other areas where consumers have a higher likelihood of directly investing or consuming. Either that, or cut taxes. Generally speaking, people who receive social security rarely spend it. This does very little to improve economic conditions. Granted, it does improve the overall well being of the lower and middle classes, which makes it worth it, but there needs to be serious reform. The obvious ones are:

1. We need to cut off social security eligibility at a certain income level. There is no reason why super rich people need to be getting SS checks.

2. The retirement age needs to be indexed to life expectancy. This will fix the solvency issues, and lessen the political fallout every time the retirement age needs to be raised.
 
Generally speaking, people who receive social security rarely spend it.

Same goes for the upper class who get tax cuts. They just put the money back into finance systems and don't spend it.

By raising their taxes (or removing the existing tax cuts), you can create more jobs when you put that money toward social programs, as well as benefit the impoverished.
 
Same goes for the upper class who get tax cuts. They just put the money back into finance systems and don't spend it.

By raising their taxes (or removing the existing tax cuts), you can create more jobs when you put that money toward social programs, as well as benefit the impoverished.

Money that goes into the finance system is being spent, just not by the investors. People who are rich can afford to make riskier investments, and thereby spur growth. People who are not rich typically make low risk investments or buy federal or municipal bonds. Again, there is a difference. This type of investment does not spur economic growth. Investment in the stock market or mutual funds does.
 
Agreed. Return taxes to sustainable levels for a world economic superpower, and cut our military budget by something like 25%-33%.

Why won't the Dems run on this in a clearly articulated manner?
 
because no one wants to run on a platform of raising taxes. I wish Obama had called the repubs bluff on the bush tax breaks and just let them run out.
 
The deal is we have to figure out how to keep government spending under about 18% of gdp because historically it doesn't matter what tax rates are, the feds get between 15-20% of gdp in tax receipts.
 
because no one wants to run on a platform of raising taxes. I wish Obama had called the repubs bluff on the bush tax breaks and just let them run out.

So just let the country go bankrupt?

I appreciate and understand the need to cut defense and raise taxes, but that's knee-jerk, ad hominem stuff. It won't come close to solving our problem. Put your brain on this problem: we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem, and BY FAR the biggest leak in our balloon is entitlements.

Our generation needs to get its head out of its ass and get a handle on the ancients: they might have built this country, but they're (with the help of their doctors) canabalizing it on the way out of the door.
 
More abortions.

While I'm sure your post was somewhat in jest, a corollary to that idea is what would solve the problem. Paid voluntary sterilizations would solve a huge amount of our entitlement, crime, prison, immigration, healthcare, and educational problems, with a resulting automatic correction to the budget.
 
That is because, by and large, the hard work of fixing the fat part of the budget has already happened—through health care reform. The Social Security crisis you sometimes hear about is essentially a myth. The trust fund will run out in 2037, "at which point tax income would be sufficient to pay about 75 percent of scheduled benefits through 2084." Full Social Security solvency would require only about 0.7 percent of GDP, which you can get to by exposing income above $107,000 to the payroll tax. There is no debt crisis, either, as long as the U.S.'s lenders remain confident in the country. The crisis lies in spiraling health care costs. The Obama health care reform bill might not work, but it does contain programs that could turn the tide over time.
 
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