There were millions more veterans crippled and maimed in WWII. Did that result in huge increases in the debt, even adjusted for inflation? Your 40 trillion estimate is silly. I can't take you seriously because you keep referring to the 19 trillion as the deficit. Social Security is spending more than it's taking in but in 2032, or sooner most likely, if nothing is done, it will only have the deductions from paychecks and employers' matching funds to pay for it. According to the SS website that'll pay, if I remember right, about 77% of promised payouts and will continue until the 2080's. It's a self sustaining program that isn't adding to the debt. Obama in his first term did things like give $500 million to one company(which just happened to give him large campaign contributions). When he came into office the debt was at $9 trillion. Bush jr. spent plenty too, but let's not act like Obama was so wise and careful. They are running us into the ground, and believing that it can continue like this with no serious repercussions is naive.
retired benefits major hike
- Thread starter fedupforsure
- Start date
If we don't enact policies that will allow American business to grow we'll have no choice but implement austerity. Better to suffer some hardship than the wholesale slaughter that will happen if the American Dollar is no longer the world's reserve currency.
slowdriver
Well-Known Member
That ship sailed long ago, despite what fox news tells you cutting corporate taxes will only exacerbate the debt problem, creating low wage jobs doesn't help anything, if you don't make enough to pay taxes, ain't globalism a b*tch. Meanwhile, the war drums keep getting louder, as the economy stalls, and the government gets desperate for debt, I mean growth.
40 trillion over 40 years in CBO estimate. The cost of providing for those veterans will not go down. You guys can carp all you want about the entitlement fueled deficit but you will still be going downtown to sign up foe S.S. Medicare, disability and every other entitlement program you qualify just like everybody else but in many cases you'll starve if you don't because on average 62% of all baby boomers have less than $ 50,000 sat aside for refirement. You guys are all clearly worried about your retirement income security. So what do you think should be done about? Elimnate those programs all together? If so where do we start?
It will be fine
Well-Known Member
Refirement. I like that term. So old you keep getting fired and are forced out of the workforce.
Mr.It will be fine.There will come a time when finding a guy able to get a medical card, can pass a drug test ,willing to come to work everyday and willing to put in an honest day's work for what you contractor's are willing to pay will be so scarce that you will be overjoyed to put him on the payroll and you won't care if he's 21 or 71
You can't sign up for programs that are no longer available. That's the problem, we can't continue to spend, spend, spend as if there will never be eventual consequences. I know everyone hates corporations but we need jobs. If corporations and the wealthy have opportunities to increase their profits and wealth by investing their money, and create jobs in doing so, then the better for all of us. You aren't going to get a job from a poor man. We need jobs, not gov't aid. We need a strong economy that will support various programs that are good for all of us. You have to have the strong economy first, generating taxes that pay for everything. Spending what you don't have will eventually lead to collapse.
Programs that are not available? What happened to them? Right they were legislated out of existance. Now which programs do you think should be elimated in order to balance the budget? Remember 94% of the tax savings generated by the Bush tax cuts benefited just 3% of the population and that 3% were expected to use those savings to expand the economy. So why are we not booming? Simple . They didn't do anything with the money except put it into hedge funds that did little except stock speculation like Mitt Romney or buy companies shut them down then liquidate their assets for cash. Corporations exist to benefit their stock holders and the spin doctors whose job it is to create the most positive corporate image possible . A task that keeps getting harder as corporations become ever more shrewd , ruthless unprincipled and as we saw in the 2008 recession determined to privatize the profits but publicize the losses.
You're never going to get rid of corporations. We need jobs, not gov't handouts. Get more people working, get more economic activity, and you'll get more gov't revenue. Put companies into a position where they compete for workers, that raises pay. By the way, this is exactly what John friend. Kennedy advocated. The world didn't start and end with Bush.
P.S., I'm not advocating ending anything. Improve the economy to pay for things. Continuing to borrow and increase the debt will ultimately lead to financial collapse.
If you are not calling for the ending of any program. Then you're only other choice is to raises taxes. It has been 32 years since the Social security and Medicare tax has been raised. Futhermore the is no tax on incomes above about $118,000. Why not raise that?Discretionary government spending has been cut to nearly zero as it is
So where do you want to start cutting? School lunch programs? Head start? Meals on wheels?
So where do you want to start cutting? School lunch programs? Head start? Meals on wheels?
Brownslave688
You want a toe? I can get you a toe.
Uh because that 118k has just about doubled in the last 20 years. How about we don't double down on something that doesn't work.
slowdriver
Well-Known Member
What jobs? Low paying service sector jobs that produce nothing? Our manufacturing base is gone thanks to free trade, the glory days of the good paying post world war 2 united states manufacturing industry has fizzled out since the world rebuilt itself after ww2. Like it or not government spending is the economy now, look around next time you go to Walmart, and imagine if none of those people got handouts, there wouldn't be an economy without them. it may sound crazy and it is, but our joke economy depends entirely on the perpetual expansion of debt, there is no upper limit to the debt, look at japan exceeding 1 quadrillion yen in debt and counting, and it can't be stopped, it will just continue being monetized and expanded, it's amazing how long it can continue...
As crazy as he sounds at times Donald Trump is touting tariffs to force manufacturers back onshore. It will take a lot to turn things around, but to just accept things as they are now and say that's our only option is giving up and letting the people who got us here win. If you think we're all wage slaves now wait until we are taxed even more to pay for all the people who aren't working for various reasons as well as to service the ever growing debt.
You guys can go on carping about it for as long as you want. But still you have offered no specifics about how to solve the debt problem. It's just bitch bitch bitch. But in the end you will still apply for those benefits. And one fact still remains .The federal debt/deficit as a percentage of the nation's GDP is the lowest since World War II. As for Walmart, it's a well known fact that people working in those kind of places earn so little that many of them are receiving entitlement program benefits in order to survive. As for bringing back the manufacturing base. Couldn't agree more. But how many fire brick yards clay pipe plants and tanneries do you think will return? The development of new and better replacemnt products rendered what they made obsolete.
There are numerous cuts that could be made and numerous corrections that can be made and everyon knows it.
Seemingly never ending unemployment- it could start there. Most brilliant concept ever is paying people not to work for years on end and constant extensions. How about reforming health care and govt contracts when a pill costs $.10 to the public but through the hospital it costs $20 or a cable would cost us $14 but through military contract $1400. A ton could be done but it won't.
I know I will never see a social security check or many other entitlement programs and am not counting on signing up for any of them.
Seemingly never ending unemployment- it could start there. Most brilliant concept ever is paying people not to work for years on end and constant extensions. How about reforming health care and govt contracts when a pill costs $.10 to the public but through the hospital it costs $20 or a cable would cost us $14 but through military contract $1400. A ton could be done but it won't.
I know I will never see a social security check or many other entitlement programs and am not counting on signing up for any of them.
slowdriver
Well-Known Member
Trust me, I'm with you, government needs to shrink, problem is, it's too late, we built a system that can't collapse, almost ponzi like, it would take tax revenue with it, same as if your income declines, but you still have a huge credit card payment, not good.
Tarrifs are exactly what we need, but will start a trade war, and weimar-esk inflation as chinas reserves flow back into our country while simultaneously driving bond yields to the moon, plus our lack of a manufacturing base would cause the prices of goods to soar. Also, imports are how we finance our government spending, when you buy a TV made in China those dollars go overseas to the PBOC, which in turn prints yuan to pay the factory that made the TV in local currency, and holds those US dollars in reserve by buying US Treasury bonds, so everytime you buy chinese, or any country, you finance US government spending.
Manufacturing was at its prime after WW2 because most of the world was in ruble, the US was the only remaining industrial nation capable of producing and exporting, which created massive wealth, along with unions which created the so called middle class, we will never see those days again. China the largest manufacturing economy in the world pays the "employees" next to nothing, I guess maybe they should work harder, or learn a trade lol.
I don't hate business, or think they are evil, the simple fact is the sole purpose of a business is to maximize wealth, at all costs including its employees, country, and environment. Rules need to balance it out, or the system collapses, much like monopoly which was based off the sherman act, and designed to show what happens when wealth is consolidated in too few hands, the game can either end, you can borrow from the bank, like we do in this country right now, or balance it out, call it socialism if you want, but the game cannot end.
Speaking as a Democrat and proud of it, I would have no problems giving Donald Trump a term in the White House. But, that's the whole problem. He does not yet realize just how limited the powers of the American presidency in the 21st century are If elected and he goes cocking off to the Russians, the Iranians, the French, the Chinese, etc in the same manner that he speaks to we Americans, they will in no uncertain terms show him what the bear has been doing in the woods lately. Caught between his bombastic remarks and the world of the 21st century his political base will collapse quickly and completely and the result will be a single term. He's an out of control carnival barker who has the potential to do irreparable damage to the nation. But next year the nation may decide to take the chance.
It's the highest, not the lowest. WWII was about the free world's survival, they had to spend the money. And soon the debt now will surpass what they spent then in real dollars. You just don't seem to get that soon there just won't be money for a lot of things and we'll have to do without. As for manufacturing how about cars, furniture, clothes, etc? And a major step in the right direction is getting a fiscally responsible administration in the White House.
Can't be worse than the radical liberal Muslim sympathizer we have now.
