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Everyone knows that the U.S. budget is being devoured by entitlements. Everyone also knows that of the Big Three - Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security - Social Security is the most solvable.
Back-of-an-envelope solvable: Raise the retirement age, tweak the indexing formula (from wage inflation to price inflation) and means-test so that Warren Buffett's check gets redirected to a senior in need.
The relative ease of the fix is what makes the Obama administration's Social Security strategy so shocking. The new line from the White House is: no need to fix it because there is no problem. As Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew wrote in USA Today just a few weeks ago, the trust fund is solvent until 2037. Therefore, Social Security is now off the table in debt-reduction talks.
Everyone knows that the U.S. budget is being devoured by entitlements. Everyone also knows that of the Big Three - Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security - Social Security is the most solvable.
Actually, those are not the big three. That's actually just two.
The big three includes one discretionary spending item; defense.
Everyone knows that the U.S. budget is being devoured by entitlements. Everyone also knows that of the Big Three - Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security - Social Security is the most solvable.
Back-of-an-envelope solvable: Raise the retirement age, tweak the indexing formula (from wage inflation to price inflation) and means-test so that Warren Buffett's check gets redirected to a senior in need.
The relative ease of the fix is what makes the Obama administration's Social Security strategy so shocking. The new line from the White House is: no need to fix it because there is no problem. As Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew wrote in USA Today just a few weeks ago, the trust fund is solvent until 2037. Therefore, Social Security is now off the table in debt-reduction talks.
Easy enough to solve. Slash the military budget, bring our troops home which would save us tons of money and lives. Use that money to keep entitlements afloat while changes are put in place to preserve some of the entitlements for future generations.
Course you can't convince the party of war, the dems, about that. You could before Obama got in office but since then the dems have become spineless. Richard Steele was right, when he said what a lot of the repubs were afraid to say, this is Obamas war now.
Reform SS immediately. Offer one time payouts to people who are 55 and over. Privatize SS as they did in Chile. Reform Medicare so that those who can afford to pay more , contribute more. Send the rest to VA hospitals.
Reform the government by eliminating some Departments like the Education Department. Eliminate overlapping agencies within other departments. Stop the golden retirement packages and have all employees contribute to their health care just as the prvate sector does. Privatize many government services. Make private companies compete for goevrenment services.
Bring home all the troops from abroad and sell the US bases. Quit and transfer the UN to Geneva and sell the East river property to the highest bidder. Quit NATO because those people don't like us and they can defend themselves anyway. End all foreign aid until we decide who is in our best interest and who isn't in this world.
The US can be non interventionist without being isolationist. The more free trade we have the better off we will be because free trade creates jobs. The US can supply other countries with high end products while they can supply low end products. In other words, we can sell them one $100 dollar widget while they can sell us 100 1$ widegets. Free trade and true free markets will create a boom in this country. We have tried regulated capitialism and it has created the society we have today. So if you are happy with what we have today, vote status quo, if you don't like it, vote Libertarian.
Did I miss something? Did the dems bring our troops home to protect our borders like the Constitution says?
I dunno I've been busy trying to figure out what Obama the Conqueror wants to do in Libya.
Conclusion
Regardless of the intentions of its supporters, the proposed minimum-wage legislation cannot achieve their stated goal of raising the real income of the poor to a more livable level. Indeed, it is an extremely shortsighted policy that can only breed destruction, by eliminating the jobs of those who need work most: the poor, the young, and those suffering from discrimination.
What has been touted as a matter of basic economic justice turns out to be a self-serving issue for many of its supporters. If the minimum wage is increased, labor unions and their influential friends in Congress will make big gains. Unfortunately, everyone else will lose.
In the long run, however, such policies will hurt every-one. As unemployment increases, business becomes more and more unproductive, and the overall quality of life declines, all Americans will suffer.
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