We go to the SS recipients, and tell them “You are getting massive cuts, but that is OK, the Blue Angels will keep flying!”
Remember, we have SS people on FR saying we need sell our national parks to China to pay them off. Politically, how well will that work?
The military is going to be scaled back. Massively. We have been playing world policeman to long, and just like Great Britain before us, can't keep doing it. The reality is that both military spending and entitlements will be cut.
And if 40 to 50% of all that I spend is done on credit, I am broke. There is no money. If you did that in your household, you would rapidly come to the conclusion that you need to scale back your lifestyle. Including the “little perks and frills”. We have been spending like madmen for 60 years, and we have to stop.
I know that you are emotionally connected to the subject, but would you be defending a study on the sexual habits of Mexican tree slugs as “Just a little bit, not really that much money?”
No.
The way it should be approached is realize that Social Security is a tax, it was a tax, and it always has been a tax.
There is no "trust fund" and people are not receiving "their money." On this point Gov Rick Perry was correct - it is a Ponzi scheme whereby the current recipients are bankrupting the country through excessive taxes and through debt.
The reality is that both military spending and entitlements will be cut.
Really? That "reality" isn't happening right now, is it? Entitlements were not even 'on the table' when the Joint Resolution Committee walked into the room.
Will Entitlements be on the table in the future? Will they be scaled back? Will the Cost of Living raises be readjusted so that the programs don't bankrupt our nation even faster than they are now?
I doubt it. Entitlements are political payoffs for votes - and I have seen very few politicians want to tackle them.
I only see them ending or being scaled back after a complete global economic collapse - which ironically now seems more and more likely and less the meanderings of the doomsday prophets of yesteryear. The European economies are collapsing because of Entitlements, and our economy is as well.
If I were to assign "moral equivalency" to Entitlements, I would do it this way. The first people who should be in line disabled veterans and retired military. After that, would be the rest, including Social Security and Medicaid. But, I acknowledge that at least (most) Social Security recipients paid their taxes while working, and had not the system been corrupted and raided in the past the program would not be the train wreck that it is. But, it is still a tax Ponzi scheme, no matter how you slice it. Bringing up the rear would be the perpetual welfare lazy collecting their AFDC, Section 8 housing, EBT cards, day care, subsidized utilities, and the rest. Dead last would be illegal aliens who suck off the welfare and Social Security system. There is no money.
Talking to you is like talking to a wall on this subject. First of all, there is a hell of alot of money involved in this. To the tune of Trillions. There is money - lot's of it borrowed, and the rest of it confiscated via taxation. But there is money, and it is being spent like a water hose. Democrats and most of those getting the checks in their ATM accounts want to see that money rolling in. And that's just our current payouts. There are also about 60 Trillion in unfunded liabilities, but that is another conversation. But there is money all right. Lots of it. And the Fed is printing it by the metric ton.
What you need to realize is that our priorities cannot be paying out thousands of dollars per year to people because those voters "want it."
I can almost guarantee you one thing (given human history, evil in the world, and our sinfulness as human beings): there is going to be another terrible war in our lifetime. A real war. You go to war with what you have. And here is the rub - our military will be expected to work magic in the opening days and weeks of that war, and the American people are going to be in for one hell of a wake up call. Because we are not 1/2 the military (in equipment, numbers, bases, weapons, and infrastructure) today than we were when Reagan was President.
We are going to get shellacked in the next war, and when the people cry and ask "How could this happen?!" - I am going to tell them to look at their Entitlement Direct Deposit slip.