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Obama plans to disarm America
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<blockquote data-quote="diesel96" data-source="post: 346644" data-attributes="member: 9859"><p>The common Republican claim that we currently face problems because Bill Clinton drastically cut back on the military:</p><p>Actually, most of the defense cutting to which Rep chicken hawks refers to Clinton and the Democrats, actually occurred during the administration of George H.W. Bush and the Republicans. Go figure.</p><p> </p><p>George H.W. Bush’s Department of Defense, run by Dick Cheney ironically, worked with Congress to reduce defense spending and shrink the Pentagon by 25 to 30%. Meanwhile, Clinton’s cuts in the military, while large, but nowhere close to 25 percent to 30 percent, more like 16 to 18%. The decline was one of those rare points of agreement between President Bill Clinton and Republicans like Newt Gingrich.</p><p> </p><p>Recently, when the Neo-con Conservatives hijacked the Republican party,</p><p>the argument that US needs the military superiority AT ANY EXPENSE to keep its No. 1 world power status, is logically un-republican-like. </p><p>That No. 1 status has always been acheived by a No.1 ECONOMIC status in the world, and in fact the economic dominence has been the very foundation of that military superiority, and in turn, the military superiority has helped keep America the economic authority in the world.</p><p> </p><p>We all agree "social entitlements" are a major concern. Your thread originally addressed disarming America, however you decided to spin it to social entitlements. So your "severe reading comprehension" comment was unjustified and immature.</p><p> </p><p> Assuming that Congress balks at such large tax hikes, it becomes more likely that discretionary spending will have to be substantially reduced to make room for those entitlements for the time being. Competition for scarce budget resources will become increasingly intense, and the big three entitlements will leave smaller and smaller crumbs for discretionary spending. Overall, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid spending increases are projected to squeeze out the entire non-defense discretionary budget by 2020, and the entire discretionary budget (including defense) by 2034.</p><p></p><p>The message is clear: If you prioritize spending on education, health research, veterans’ health care, homeland, security, defense or the environment – the single biggest threat to these programs is Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that within a decade, the big three entitlements will be growing $172 billion each year – which will be more than the entire combined budgets of the Departments of Education and Justice at that time. At that point, it will become difficult to maintain even a shell of current discretionary programs. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will swallow almost all of the tax dollars. (Source= The Budget Commitee-House of Reps)</p><p></p><p>While Congress top domestic priority should be reforming Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, they should also seize this opportunity to take a fresh look at discretionary spending growth. Besides cutting Defense, Corp welfare and the tax cuts for the rich, regulating healthcare cost and severing the head of drug pharmacueticals Co's and lobbiest greasing the palms of Washington Politicans. Other examples, education, housing, and transportation, are traditionally state and local functions run by the feds. Many of these federal programs currently force Americans to pay large taxes to Washington, which entails administrative costs, and then send the money right back to state and local governments with new strings attached. It may be more efficient, more democratic, and less costly to bypass the federal middleman and have taxpayers send the taxes for these programs directly to local governments who can tailor these programs to local needs. This would allow Congress to focus more on key national issues such as the social entitlement quagmire and national security. So for the time being, until we start reforming the big three, we need to get the ball rolling with our economy, trim the fat and pork bellys and reduce federal spending and healthcare cost instead of belly aching about it with inflated entitlement costs predictions that can be reduced dramatically and stop encouraging wasteful military spending than neccessary that saps our economy and nat'l debt. If you can come up with a plan for our seniors well being and reduce healthcare and Rx cost at the same time by privatization we all like to hear it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="diesel96, post: 346644, member: 9859"] The common Republican claim that we currently face problems because Bill Clinton drastically cut back on the military: Actually, most of the defense cutting to which Rep chicken hawks refers to Clinton and the Democrats, actually occurred during the administration of George H.W. Bush and the Republicans. Go figure. George H.W. Bush’s Department of Defense, run by Dick Cheney ironically, worked with Congress to reduce defense spending and shrink the Pentagon by 25 to 30%. Meanwhile, Clinton’s cuts in the military, while large, but nowhere close to 25 percent to 30 percent, more like 16 to 18%. The decline was one of those rare points of agreement between President Bill Clinton and Republicans like Newt Gingrich. Recently, when the Neo-con Conservatives hijacked the Republican party, the argument that US needs the military superiority AT ANY EXPENSE to keep its No. 1 world power status, is logically un-republican-like. That No. 1 status has always been acheived by a No.1 ECONOMIC status in the world, and in fact the economic dominence has been the very foundation of that military superiority, and in turn, the military superiority has helped keep America the economic authority in the world. We all agree "social entitlements" are a major concern. Your thread originally addressed disarming America, however you decided to spin it to social entitlements. So your "severe reading comprehension" comment was unjustified and immature. Assuming that Congress balks at such large tax hikes, it becomes more likely that discretionary spending will have to be substantially reduced to make room for those entitlements for the time being. Competition for scarce budget resources will become increasingly intense, and the big three entitlements will leave smaller and smaller crumbs for discretionary spending. Overall, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid spending increases are projected to squeeze out the entire non-defense discretionary budget by 2020, and the entire discretionary budget (including defense) by 2034. The message is clear: If you prioritize spending on education, health research, veterans’ health care, homeland, security, defense or the environment – the single biggest threat to these programs is Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that within a decade, the big three entitlements will be growing $172 billion each year – which will be more than the entire combined budgets of the Departments of Education and Justice at that time. At that point, it will become difficult to maintain even a shell of current discretionary programs. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will swallow almost all of the tax dollars. (Source= The Budget Commitee-House of Reps) While Congress top domestic priority should be reforming Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, they should also seize this opportunity to take a fresh look at discretionary spending growth. Besides cutting Defense, Corp welfare and the tax cuts for the rich, regulating healthcare cost and severing the head of drug pharmacueticals Co's and lobbiest greasing the palms of Washington Politicans. Other examples, education, housing, and transportation, are traditionally state and local functions run by the feds. Many of these federal programs currently force Americans to pay large taxes to Washington, which entails administrative costs, and then send the money right back to state and local governments with new strings attached. It may be more efficient, more democratic, and less costly to bypass the federal middleman and have taxpayers send the taxes for these programs directly to local governments who can tailor these programs to local needs. This would allow Congress to focus more on key national issues such as the social entitlement quagmire and national security. So for the time being, until we start reforming the big three, we need to get the ball rolling with our economy, trim the fat and pork bellys and reduce federal spending and healthcare cost instead of belly aching about it with inflated entitlement costs predictions that can be reduced dramatically and stop encouraging wasteful military spending than neccessary that saps our economy and nat'l debt. If you can come up with a plan for our seniors well being and reduce healthcare and Rx cost at the same time by privatization we all like to hear it. [/QUOTE]
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