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Social security shouldn't be in this conversation. It's not an entitlement. I've paid into that all my life. Well, at least for 40 years.
Say what you will about our current administration. The federal agencies are doing some scrambling to justify their budgets. They're not just getting handouts. They're being scrutinized. The Pentagon is having their first real audit in probably forever.
It goes without saying all spending is being scrutinized, as it should be. Taxpayers should demand transparency in federal spending. Good stewardship. We have to budget our own spending. The government should budget the spending they do with our money.
Social security shouldn't be in this conversation. It's not an entitlement. I've paid into that all my life. Well, at least for 40 years.
Say what you will about our current administration. The federal agencies are doing some scrambling to justify their budgets. They're not just getting handouts. They're being scrutinized. The Pentagon is having their first real audit in probably forever.
It goes without saying all spending is being scrutinized, as it should be. Taxpayers should demand transparency in federal spending. Good stewardship. We have to budget our own spending. The government should budget the spending they do with our money.
Agree with everything you said except the first two sentences.
Social Security MUST be in the conversation. Maybe not for cuts to existing retirees, but certainly for other areas such as gradual raising of the full retirement age.
Social security is an entitlement.
I've paid into it for 31 years myself, so I hear what you are saying. And I expect to get my social security money back. But when you are 20 trillion dollars in debt --- everything is on the table for discussion.
The problem with saying so is that the term is either a dry economic word or an explosive four-letter fightin' word. As long as you mean it's "an entitlement" in social/economic terms, fine. If, like the OP, mean it as "money flushed down the drain from my pocket for worthless people who will waste it and not be appreciative anyway"... not-fine.
We really need a neutral meta-language for these discussions.
The problem with saying so is that the term is either a dry economic word or an explosive four-letter fightin' word. As long as you mean it's "an entitlement" in social/economic terms, fine. If, like the OP, mean it as "money flushed down the drain from my pocket for worthless people who will waste it and not be appreciative anyway"... not-fine.
We really need a neutral meta-language for these discussions.
It's a government spending social program, therefore it's an entitlement.
There is an old Ten Years After Song that had this as a line:
"Tax the Rich,
Feed the Poor,
Till there is rich no more."
So what happens if there are rich no more? Who do you tax?
No, we have a graduated/progressive tax system where the rich already pay more. Sure you can raise taxes on them and we can get into that debate but the intention here is to NOT keep people on the entitlement programs, but to improve there economic position in life so the no longer have to be on an entitlement program. Taxing the rich to give them more entitlements will not help decrease entitlements, nor is it healthy for an economy or an individual for citizens to be dependent on the government.
No the best way to control entitlements is via addressing the cost and addressing the qualifications. We also have to dig into the detail of what is entitlements. The vast majority is SS and HealthCare. The cost - Medical costs - one of the biggest contributors. Nothing yet has addressed the cost of medical care in our country. The Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) did not do anything to address the "affordability" of medical care, in only passed on the cost as yet another entitlement program.
The other biggest contributor is social security - OASDI OK a political hot topic. That is funded to a certain degree so I will leave that alone.
...but the intention here is to NOT keep people on the entitlement programs, but to improve there economic position in life so the no longer have to be on an entitlement program.
So... we need a crash program to make old people young again, disabled people functional again and sick people well again? So they can all go back to productive, self-supporting jobs until the moment they die or join the class wealthy enough not to work?
It's a conservative republican myth that someone is living the high life eating lobster everyday on public assistance. One of my neighbors is on disability and lives off of $700 a month. Could you imagine living on that? $700 is a small pittance compared to what we spend on useless interventions in foreign countries designed just to pad the wallets of the defense companies. I'd rather see than $700 go to help someone rather than killing more children in the middle east. The military is one of the biggest welfare programs of them all, and the conservatives have no qualms about it.
So... we need a crash program to make old people young again, disabled people functional again and sick people well again? So they can all go back to productive, self-supporting jobs until the moment they die or join the class wealthy enough not to work?
And about those jobs...
So...you stopped reading at that sentence?
My main point is that the majority of entitlements are not what we think they are - welfare, etc. But Medical and SS old age benifits. Thus the topic of discussion should be really directed into that direction.
I would like a crash program to improve peoples attention span.
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