People really don’t get it. The debt is so huge that the only solution to it is to not pay vast sums of money to people to whom it is owed. Ultimately that is what will happen, voluntarily or not, be it through default or monetization of the debt.
Which is why this thing will end in war.
No
It’s a rhetorical question, right?
No.
This guy blathers-on about the “Bush tax cuts”.
The Bush tax cuts expired.
They’re the Obama tax cuts now.
No.
Next question.
These articles that fret over how we can or can’t fix this kinda crack me up.
Imagine two men training to jump the grand canyon. One trains by sitting in front of the TV stuffing himself with beer and hot dogs while he watches football. The other takes steroids and works out vigorously on the gym and track and even has a professional trainer.
So, which one will successfully make the jump? Answer? Neither. It’s hopeless if they are depending solely on their human strength.
Likewise with this issue. We are at the point where we have spent our way into such oblivion that severe austerity or printing like Zimbabwe and spending like a drunken sailor will have the same result: collapse and world war.
Get used to it.
The smart people are using whatever they have to buy or make a parachute so it won’t hurt so much when they hit the bottom of the canyon.
No.
Let’s start with a reform of the public employee retirement systems at all levels of government. Why are these people retiring after 20 years of being overpaid and underworked with 80% of their salaries. Let’s start there.
Can we prevent a fiscal collapse by reforming entitlements?
That is the first question we need to ask. I am not sure of the answer. We may be so far gone with what we currently owe that even by reforming entitlements to lessen or stop the amount we borrow, fiscal collapse may be inevitable.
Can we reform entitlements?
This is the next question. As pointed out, even conservative folks here balk at reforming certain entitlements. I see a lot of people worried about the fiscal situation, but not a lot of folks, particularly in Congress, worried enough to do what has to be done to implement true reform.
Therefore, despite the answers to the first two questions, they are probably rendered moot by the answer to the last.
$500 billion - almost 1/2 of the annual deficit - could be elimintated by eliminating welfare.
A 40-year old on welfare should be cut off before an 80-year old on social security sees their meager check reduced.
We should stop giving Federal grants - billions - to Solyndra’s etc.
Here’s the bottom line. Since social security is a separate payroll deduction and the stated purpose of that deduction is to fund social security, then social security and the rest of Federal spending are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.
People need to understand that they’re saps if they’re ok with cutting social security before everything else has been cut to the bone first.
Wake up, your Congressman is laughing behind your back.
For the first $108,000 (not sure if it’s the current number) of your W-2 wages - every year - over 12% of that has been getting paid into the social security trust fund.
Think about that - 12% of your gross pay.
12%, dedicated to you receiving social security when you retire - not for any other purpose.
Yet YOUR Congressman has been taking the surplus for the past half century and spending it on junk, spreading it around, to get people to vote for him. Whether it’s building projects, roads or welfare, whatever, he’s been spending the surplus and laughing at the rube taxpayers.
Now that the annual surplus is disappearing.................
Instead of keeping the social security benefit payments going according to the deal THEY made, they’re planning on cutting the payments. And they’ll keep the withholdings coming out of paychecks - and undoubtedly INCREASE them !