>Who's against eliminating acid rain and river pollution? Sounds like yet another straw man by the left.
Lots of conservative Republicans a couple of decades ago. It ain't a straw man.
>Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are the primary reasons why the budget deficit is over $1 trillion and will stay that way for the forseeable future.
No, the budget deficit is so high because we've cut taxes so much over the last 30 years, continued to increase military expenditures, and because we're in a nasty recession where suddenly several percent of the potential working population isn't paying taxes because they don't have jobs.
>Social Security is now in the red, four years earlier than predicted. (So much for the reliability of the CBO.)
fiscalhighroad.org
The Social Security program faces a relatively small seventy-five-year budget shortfall, currently estimated by the Congressional Budget Office at 0.38 percent of GDP. The shortfall figure is so small and the margin of error so large that the program is effectively close to balance. The economic assumptions used to produce that figure include a low rate of GDP growth, and slow wage growth. If wage growth were to return to the postwar trend relative to productivity growth, Social Security would be in perpetual surplus. Even if it turns out that the projected deficit is real, very small modifications in the system's tax collections or payout formulas could return the system to surplus. Social Security is not in crisis, and relatively minor adjustments to the payroll tax, would ensure the program's long-term fiscal soundness and benefits for future generations.
>We'll need to pay for all of this. The bill has already come due for state governments, especially NY and CA. What happens when the bill comes due for the federal government?
We raise taxes or deficit spend. The federal government prints its own money.
>Besides, you think that China, for example, burdens itself with a "carbon tax"? No freakin' way.
So what?
-Z |
