I realize we call them entitlements, but people aren’t really entitled to them. I mean, they can’t sue to get them should we overturn the laws, can they? I never understood why we pretend like some laws are considered to be locked in. They can’t tie the hands of future legislators, in my opinion.
There is the matter of national prestige and repudiation if obligations. Whatever we have already borrowed we are obliged to pay back. We gave repudiated debt before, and on a massive scale, contrary to what most people seem to beloved. It was called going off the gold standard. But I’m not advocating that. Pay outstanding debt.
What I do advocate is repudiation of “unfunded liabilities.” These are liabilities why? Because the law says we have to oat them. What if we change the law before they’re due? Does that violate some principle of which I am not aware? Because as far as I’m concerned past laws cannot bind the future. We can simply change the law before it comes due. And this is not a matter of “we owe it to ourselves.” We don’t owe it yet, really. They do not constitute a contract, nor even a promise.
One Congress cannot have an irrevocable claim on the pockets of future generations merely because a law they passed happens to perpetuate itself. It can for what it borrows, because that is a real debt. But not what people decades after passage of Medicare, etc., thought maybe they’d get, you know, if the money was there.
but Congress and all govt in this country anyway will not want to “violate” another congress’s work...but what they really mean is they really don’t want to change anything...they’ll look glum and talk a good game but most politicians really love the govt to own and run everything..