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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: skinowski who wrote (438043)	7/30/2011 12:49:57 PM
From: Sr K	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793924

>> The degree of demagoguery out there is disturbing.<< That's why those who argue we have to pay down the debt are out of touch. We have to reduce the deficit and reduce it again and again, and a long time from now, see where we stand. Even if we have a balanced budget starting in 2017, and for every year after that, we have to increase the debt ceiling between now and then, and because of fluctuations of revenue during the year we may still need to borrow seasonally until the peak months of revenues.

To: skinowski who wrote (438043)	7/30/2011 1:39:28 PM
From: Zakrosian	1 Recommendation Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 793924

The strangest thing and the paradox and irony of the entire issue is that apparently there is no need - and no one is proposing - to cut even a single dime. Simply a moderate decrease in the projected INCREASES may balance the budget in a few years. On the large scale, it sounds simple, but the problem comes in putting that into practice. Most of the increase in the budget will come in the form of entitlements for seniors, who are a growing portion of the population. So the only way to reduce the increases in the short term would be to decrease the payments to individuals - whether it be means testing SS, medical rationing (death panel?) for Medicare, etc. Longer term, we could move in the direction of privatizing social security. But I don't see any of those ideas getting much support from the right or left, so default could be inevitable at some point.