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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (261829)	4/18/2008 5:03:10 PM
From: geode00	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

"These figures are from an analysis of detailed tables in the “Analytical Perspectives” book of the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2009. The figures are federal funds, which do not include trust funds — such as Social Security — that are raised and spent separately from income taxes." ---- "*Analysts differ on how much of the debt stems from the military; other groups estimate 50% to 60%. We use 80% because we believe if there had been no military spending most (if not all) of the national debt would have been eliminated." ---------- Just a cursory look due to lack of time. It seems they are taking out SS from the total which is why the total outlays are less than the $3.1 T gross figure. The debt portion isn't about actual outlays but the outlays plus the rolling over of debt and the increase in total interest payments because the debt did not go away. That is an arguable issue as, I am quite sure, the Republicans would have managed to Tax & Steal even without a war. The war just made things easier for them. They aren't treating entitlements (SS is not an entitlement program, it is a mandatory insurance program, corporate welfare is, however, an entitlement program) as zero, they are treating them (I can't tell if they are treating all of them as such) as outside of the budget since they should be (SS is) self funding/self sustaining entities. In other words, the government should return to the Al Gore LOCKBOX theory of SS. "The government practice of combining trust and federal funds began during the Vietnam War, thus making the human needs portion of the budget seem larger and the military portion smaller."