cutting the budget

[scottw]

White House Budget Director Jack Lew penned a piece for the New York Times that let us all know the President made some “tough choices” when cutting an estimated $775 million from the 3.8 TRILLION dollar budget.

you just need to zoom in a bit to locate the "tough choices"

[justplugit]

LOL if it wasn't so ridiculous.

That's like stopping to go to Dunkin Donuts once a year for coffeee to
help cut the family budget.

[RIROCKHOUND]

Good point.

The right isn't doing much better. the proposed cuts by Cantor et al are just more of the same. keep cutting from 12% of the budget, leave defense and entitlements (88%) untouched...

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

Good point.

The right isn't doing much better. the proposed cuts by Cantor et al are just more of the same. keep cutting from 12% of the budget, leave defense and entitlements (88%) untouched...

You're saying that Eric Cantor has never suggested that entitlements need to be cut?

Oh please. Eric Cantor is one of the FEW politicians brave and honest enough to admit that real savings, real fiscal responsibility, can only come from addressing the other 88% of the budget that you mentioned. Namely, social security, medicare, and medicaid.

Every time a republican says that we need to fix social security, the democrats say that he hates old people. Every time a republican says medicare is going broke and needs to be overhauled, some lefty clown like Allen Grayson says that conservatives don't care about sick people.

NJ governor Chris Christie is saying the same things at the state level (that we need to reign in these entitlements), and he gets attacked mercilessly. His crime? He's the first politician in my generation that's being honest about these Ponzi schemes.

Cantor jabs at Reid on Social Security reform - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

Harry Reid, the Senate Democrat leader, does not think that social security is in trouble. And this idiot keeps getting re-elected, and re-elected, and re-elected...

I agree that many on the right are not "much" better, because they too are too concened with re-election (which is exactly why we need term limits). But how many Democrats are saying that current entitlements are un-sustainable? Not everyone is saying that, but of those who are, most are conservative, in my observation.

[buckman]

Can't we just level fund everything with no cuts and balance the budget over a period of time????

[scottw]

we've grown the budget and deficit spending to unsustainable proportions so now we're going to cap the budget for 5 years at those unsustainable proportions and the Obama voters will bitch at the Republicans for not making the cuts that they were promised by the Republicans when the Obama voters didn't vote for Republicans and the cuts that they were promised even as the guy that they voted for continues to propose new spending....get it?

if they do make any cuts they'll be called draconians drinking the blood out of little school children for each and every cut....


it's like a guy eating himself to obesity and then telling his doctor after he's been informed that he's about to have a heart attack any second, that he's capping his current eating levels for 5 years because he needs to maintain his 400 pounds and then his wife bitching to the doctor that the doctor is not doing enough

[RIROCKHOUND]

Except that in this case, the Dr (the right) is calling for wide-spread cuts to your diet because your at 400lbs and you're projected to weigh 600lbs, BUT you can only cut out your snacks, you can eat as much at the rest of your meals as you want.

[scottw]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

Except that in this case, the Dr (the right) is calling for wide-spread cuts to your diet because your at 400lbs and you're projected to weigh 600lbs, BUT you can only cut out your snacks, you can eat as much at the rest of your meals as you want.

like I said....blame the Doctor...and continue along with status quo fatso..........

how's that Chaffee(best man to lead us forward) budget coming?

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

Except that in this case, the Dr (the right) is calling for wide-spread cuts to your diet because your at 400lbs and you're projected to weigh 600lbs, BUT you can only cut out your snacks, you can eat as much at the rest of your meals as you want.

You keep suggesting that the right does not think we need to cut the big entitlement programs.

Here's an MSNBC kook suggesting that the left go after John Boehner and Mike Pence for suggesting we may need to raise the age at which we collect social security benefits.

Cenk Uygur: If the Democrats Have Any Sense They'll Make Social Security a Defining Issue for 2010 | Video Cafe

I could have posted a thousand links to liberal op-eds who claim that conservatives hate old people and sick people.

There is no specific plan (yet) to address the entitlements. But conservatives are the only ones talking baout it, and they always get attacked for their honesty. Heck, in the other thread, I mentioned switching pensions to 401(k)s and one of the retired cops said I therefore shouldn't call the police if I need help!! Is that productive dialogue?

[scottw]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

You keep suggesting that the right does not think we need to cut the big entitlement programs.

it's very dangerous to go after these goverment teats politically, remember the "Gingrich wants to let your entitlement wither on the vine" episode?....there is great power in having large portions of the electorate dependent on your various Ponzi schemes, particularly if you have no shame when it comes to riling up the dependents against those that you say threaten their place at the teat....it's about as low as you can go but it does work...

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by buckman

Can't we just level fund everything with no cuts and balance the budget over a period of time????

Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding "no". Here's why. Many of these entitlements involve retirement pensions and healthcare benefits to folks after they retire. That program worked great 30 years ago, when there were (1) way more workers paying into the plan then retirees taking money out, (2) retirees who didn't live that long, and (3) manageable medical costs.

The math has all changed, thanks to...

(1) a demographic tsunami called the baby Boomers. Starting January 1, 2011 TEN THOUSAND PEOPLE A DAY will become eligible for social security and medicare. That trend will continue for almost 20 years. SO the ratio of workers to retirees is decreasing rapidly, menaing not enough money going in and way too much coming out.

(2) retirees are living much, much longer, menaing they will need a whole lot more money.

(3) medical costs are soaring. Consider this staggering fact. Half of all medical expenses are incurred in the last 6 months of the average person's life. It's hard to grasp how much money the baby boomers will spend on healthcare in retirement.

This is not a problem Obama created, he did inherit this one. But it's also fair to say that conservatives have been the predominant voice of concern about the coming implosion.

The latest estimates of unfunded liabilities for social security and medicare are in the tens of trillions. The average estimate that I've seen is $40 trillion dollars. There are 300 million people living in the US. That means that every American needs to kick in an extra $133,333 to make these programs viable.

Just think about that number for a second.

[Chesapeake Bill]

The signs will stay up...that money was already allocated and given out. No new signs will be installed. There is still a lot of unallocated funds.

Cutting $100 billion seems like a lot but when you consider that the budget is $4 trillion the sum represents a paultry amount and focuses on easy targes. A good start yes, but perhaps the wrong target. No one had the guts to address the real issue...and it isn't the smaller programs or the employees...

[justplugit]

Originally Posted by Chesapeake Bill

Cutting $100 billion seems like a lot but when you consider that the budget is $4 trillion the sum represents a paultry amount and focuses on easy targes. A good start yes..

A $100 Billion in 7 months is not chump change but won't be the end if
the conservatives have their way.

Let's Go back to the 2.9 Trillion 2008 budget, now THAT would be a real good start.