Washington Post - The Deficit Hawks' Attack on Our Entitlements (Representatives, illegal)

[NewToCA]

Interesting article in today's Washington Post, basically claiming that representatives who are concerned about Social Security and Medicare costs being/going out of control are using the current economic "crisis" as an excuse to reign in these programs:

With the enactment of a large economic stimulus package, fiscal conservatives are using the temporary deficit increase to attack a perennial target - Social Security and Medicare...The overall bottom line? The economy we bequeath to our children has everything to do with getting growth back on track and almost nothing to do with imagined future deficits.

Robert Kuttner - Deficit Hawks Target Social Security, Medicare Again - washingtonpost.com


On the other hand, we have ex-GAO chief David Walker claiming the future growth in program cost is going to be unsupportable:

Meeting our long-term fiscal challenge will require (1) significant entitlement reform to change the path of those programs; (2) reprioritizing, restructuring and constraining other spending programs; and (3) more revenues—hopefully through a reformed tax system.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07389t.pdf



Kind of interesting contrast between the sentiments, one believes it is a root cause problem needing to be reformed while the other views it more as a happenstance due to a lack of willingness to make adequate overall economic public investments.

[Huckleberry3911948]

the government acts much like a beast, he is going to eat, even if its you.
taxes and spending cuts are guna happen, expense and income should balance, its a national disease. spending what you dont have.

i can forgive attempts to balance the budget, what i dont like is our government outlawing self defense, breaking its own laws, (illegal immigration and "free trade") and encouraging criminals to sue us when they break in our homes (personal injury law suits).

[BigJon3475]

The governors meeting they had yesterday on C-Span had the Bush admin Health and Human services. One of the comments that struck me was when he was talking about medicare and medicaid running out of money in 2019 if something is not done. But he said those estimates did not include this "stimulus plan" which could make that deadline come up to 3 years sooner. He basically said in as little as 8 years away if something is not done to reform the system it fails.