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

To: combjelly who wrote (613589)	5/29/2011 1:54:08 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578731

"The US government has no contractual obligation" Sure it does. Nice out of context quote. Sure the US government has contractual obligations. Its also true that The US government has no contractual obligations, and no legal debt owed under the entitlement programs. It also has things like SSI, Medicare, military pay and other budgeted promises. Which are not contractual obligations. As for your other comments, I've said multiple times that I don't think we should keep the current debt limit. The spending cut (and an actual cut this time, not just a reduction in spending growth that gets called a cut) would be far to large for such a quick cut. Large transitions should be done over time, not immediately unless its absolutely necessary. I'm just pointing out that none of these cuts would amount to a default.

To: combjelly who wrote (613589)	5/29/2011 2:05:15 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578731

Which is the whole problem. Assume that you are right, not very likely given your track record but what the heck. Above and beyond the interest payments, the US has enough income to pay maybe 65% of the rest. Where do you cut? Military pay? Elders on SSI? Medicare? Medicaid? I guess in your world, it is ok for old folks to get tossed out of nursing homes, denied medication, being made unable to buy food? Or military families losing all they have because they have a loved one serving the country? That's the ticket. They just haven't sacrificed enough... You miss the bigger point. What does this say about government's inability to keep the commitments it makes? Why on earth would we entrust government with anything so critical as funding our health care? Why did we do that in the first place? Government is the problem here, NOT the solution. When Medicare/Medicaid were created, it infused the health care economy with a kind of permanent aberration that prevents that economy from functioning correctly. The only real solution now is privatization, where competitive forces can operate to control costs as it has with Medicare Part D. Yet, the democrats don't want that, EITHER. Unfortunately, for the Democrats, politics trumps fiscal responsibility. Nothing new in that, however.