Quote from piezoe:
Why are we talking about cutting items that are not related to over expenditure? Shouldn't we first find the cause of the deficits and cut those budget items? Entitlements are not the cause of the deficits , so why cut them?
There are only two budget items that are responsible for the entire deficit. The spending on these items is way out of whack with the rest of the industrialized world.
The items are medical costs and defense spending. Medical care is 100% too high priced in the USA. Let's cut it in half. That will save 1.4 Trillion dollars per year. I don't know the best way to do that, but I do know a way. All we have to do is mimic the medical care system in any other industrialized country. Let's choose from among the systems in these other countries, and pick the one we like best. There is 14 trillion over ten years. And the best thing is we should end up with better care.
We spend almost as much on defense as the rest of the world combined, even though we haven't been attacked by another country for 71 years!
Let's cut our defense spending down to the point were we only spend ten times per capita what other industrialized nations spend. There is 0.425 Trillion per year or 4.25 Trillion over ten years.
With only those two items we are looking at a savings of 18Trillion over ten years.
That's all we have to do folks. Then we don't have to raise anyone's taxes, and we don't have to touch entitlements. And the national debt will vanish in a decade or two. There is plenty of money in the government sector already, but it is being wasted. Medical and Defense costs are correlated as cause and effect with deficits and the national debt, therefore that's where the focus for cuts should be!
We'll be forced to make big cuts in these areas eventually regardless. Let's get on with it.
It's true that Entitlement funding is projected solvent for Medicare for a another decade, and for SS, at until 2045(?).
This is based on projected cash flows from taxes and the current trust funds (held almost principally in T-Bills, which for some, is a central issue). But Medicare expenses are mandatory expenditures, that is, the Executive branch can't exercise budgetary discretion (although they can tinker around the edges, by administration of billing, prevent fraud, deny frivolous claims, etc) Demographic projections show Medicare expenses ballooning beyond funding capacity into tens of trillions over the next 50 years, and Social Security to a lesser extent. This is why entitlement reform ought to begin to be structured now. We may not have to cut expenses at the present, but we must lay down a framework to rein in expenses over the long run. And it will probably have to include more efficient healthcare delivery, greater preventive healthcare, the slowing of the rate of growth of medical costs, and lastly, a sober assessment of what the entitlement programs will be able to do and should do for future generations of retirees, a frank discussion over what is reasonable healthcare and retirement expenses, and what is a reasonable and economically viable revenue sourcing from the working generations.
A forward thinking adult would not wait to consider their children's' college expenses until the eve of their high school graduation. We have to multiply that mentality across the fabric of the country.
Entitlement spending will have to shrink in the future versus projections simply because it will have to: there won't be the money to maintain the current status quo so better tackle it now.
lastly, I agree Piezoe, the budget has to be attacked with a good sized machete.
