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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (40815)	2/2/2010 1:08:36 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

(Why should I 'imagine that'?) No particular need, except that imagining that is what the convesation was all about. I made a comment about how in a a hypothetical situation (one that isn't going to actually happen), congress would cancel the program right away. You expressed extremely strong doubt. Logically to express doubt about the specific statement you would have to imagine or consider the unlikely scenario that I talked about. Expressing doubt about my statement doesn't make any sense without first doing so. If you didn't want to do so, that's fine to, but then you can't properly evaluate the statement. You could say nothing, or respond with something like "who cares if that would happen in such a scenario, because the scenario isn't going to happen", or change the subject, but you can't reasonably say the statement is wrong without actually considering it. HOWEVER... if we do not adequately address our chronic federal deficits in these near-to-mid-range-years... then EVENTUALLY (however long 'eventually' takes), all of those dire scenarios that you posited will become inevitable Not exactly. Its very unlikely that all of that would have to be done to get a zero deficit, even with a delay before any change is made. Also a zero deficit isn't necessary (although continued deficits as large as what we have now compared to the size of the economy, are unsustainable, or at least unsustainable without a lot of harm being caused). But you are right that some large action will need to be done to reduce deficits if we are going to restore fiscal sanity, and that if we put it off for a long time than the action would have to be even larger. I would add that spending cuts are necessary. We can't reasonably increase taxes enough to cover all the planned spending.