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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (217570)	2/5/2005 1:46:29 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573222

First of all, the great increase in deficit spending is directly attributable to the mad spending binge that Ron Reagan and his cronies went on when they started the massive buildup of the military after 1981. The biggest part of the spending increase under Reagan was non-military spending. This timing had absolutely nothing to do with the ending of the Viet Nam War. Yes Reagan's spending increases has nothing to do with the Vietnam War. All of which doesn't change the fact that "In nominal terms most of the debt has been since the end of the Vietnam War and during that period defense was always less then 41% of the budget." It is also true that "In nominal terms most of the debt has been since 1980 and during that period defense was always less then 41% of the budget", or In nominal terms most of the debt has been since 1964 and during that period defense was always less then 41% of the budget. You can pick a number of points where this statement is true. Picking one doesn't mean that the debt exploded at that point merely that it was larger after that point then before it. As to the calculation of Social Security surpluses, you seem to not be well informed. What you will find when you start to pay some attention to reality is that, historically speaking, the Social Security fund was truly in danger of going bankrupt in the early 1980s, and that there was a blue-ribbon commission formed, headed by Allan Greenspan, which had Congress raise the rates on payroll taxes from 9% to 12.4%, effective in 1983. This was a huge boost to the finances of Social Security which has run a surplus that currently amounts to about $1.4 Trillion. All of that is true, and pretty much irrelevant to anything I said. So, not only is it off the mark for you to suggest that a calculation of Social Security would show it to be responsible for part of the debt, in fact the exact opposite is the case. Social security SPENDING is responsible for a very large portion of the debt. Social security TAXES have decreased the debt. Social security spending is the largest part of our spending so it gets the largest part of current deficits if you are allocating deficits by current spending. The government could in theory create a "defense tax" that brought in more money than we spend on defense, while cutting the regular taxes the same amount. That would not mean that defense spending has not and doesn't continue to, contribute to the deficit. Tim