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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (143751)	6/17/2014 12:55:05 AM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

>> If you want to look at the numbers now, then why is it that you did not care to look at the numbers during the two wars? Because the cost of a war should be the slightest consideration in whether a nation goes to war or not, unless it was a question of whether we could conceivably run out of borrowing ability for the war. You spend what you have to to fight a war. Budget should never enter in. FDR didn't worry about the cost of WWII. LBJ and JFK didn't worry about the cost of Vietnam. You just do it. And secondly, because the cost of the wars is relatively little compared with big programs like SS, Medicare, and Obamacare. >> So what we are saying now, shut up, get out of our way, we will fight to survive and to restore our nation's past glory and make all these programs solvent again. When you use the term "solvent" (or insolvent) without knowing its meaning, it leads to confusion. You can have cash solvency, which both SS and Medicare are today, then there is balance sheet solvency, which neither program has been for decades. These programs cannot be made balance sheet solvent. SS could be, with a huge tax increase, but then we couldn't fund Medicare. The number of dollars required is far too large to make them balance sheet solvent, and that is why government conveniently ignores the accrued past service costs. Because if they didn't, they would have to admit the programs are hopeless broke. Putting the balance sheet of the Medicare trust on a proper accrual accounting basis is simple, and requires one journal entry. You increase liabilities by some 50-100 Trillion, and decrease the fund balance (into deficit) by the same amount. Then you have a proper accounting. No one can pay that 50-100 trillion. Not going to happen. It is inconceivable these shortfalls can be made up. That is what Elmendorf referred to when he said the "deficit is unsustainable." >> Do you consider education an investment or do you consider it as an expense. War is an expense, SS and Medicare is an investment. War is an expense. SS is an expense. Medicare is an expense. Federal education expenditures are expenses. The person acquiring the education MIGHT choose to call it an investment but unfortunately, most are not today. When government spends money it is almost always an expense in that it seldom generates a return on the money spent. There are exceptions but those you listed are not exceptions. One of the greatest disservices the Democrats have done was when, in 1992 at the hands of James Carville, the word "spending" was replaced by "investment". Because most of the American public has been confused about it ever since.