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Politics : The Trump Presidency -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (3645)	12/27/2016 12:48:12 PM
From: Alex MG	1 Recommendation Recommended By bentway Respond to of 355081

>>Only a strong president like Trump can solve these problems. LMAO! yeah, more tax cuts for him and his billionaire buddies what a plan! conservative logic: Less revenue equals more revenue Less is more War is peace Freedom is slavery Ignorance is strength Hail Trump!

To: i-node who wrote (3645)	12/27/2016 1:26:58 PM
From: Sam	1 Recommendation Recommended By Alex MG Respond to of 355081

CBO, under both the current director and under Doug Elmendorf, has stated to Congress that our current deficit trajectory is "unsustainable." This position first appeared after the Obama deficits, slated to begin in a couple years, and to continue into perpetuity, became apparent. Actually the idea that the deficit trajectory was "unsustainable" first appeared during the huge deficits run up by the Reagan administration, due to their reckless tax cuts. The budget was brought under control through the tax increases of the Bush41 and Clinton administrations. It became unsustainable again under the Bush43 admin, which refused to fund its wars and instead passed unnecessary tax cuts. As Steve said, SS has generated a huge surplus over the past 30 years, something that was deliberately done in order to fund the projected payments for the Baby Boomer generation. But the govt used those funds for general funds over the years, replacing them with IOUs. When you say that SS is the "cause" of the debt, you are saying that those IOUs are not legitimate, that the govt doesn't "really" owe future SS recipients that money. Those IOUs should be considered the same as cash, and would be so considered if the Bush admin hadn't been so irresponsible. Instead, after passing his tax cuts and making sure that there would be huge deficits, Bush ran around the country after his reelection with his empty safe, trying to privatize SS, claiming that there was no money. He was the guy who made sure that that would be the case. It may be true that Medicare--as opposed to SS-- is a cause of unsustainable debt. But one big reason for that is that we have by far the expensive medical system in the world, and refuse to take steps to make it less expensive. One obvious step would be to allow the govt to negotiate drug pricing. Another obvious step would be to follow the Mayo Clinic and a few others' lead and put doctors on salary, like the rest of the world does, rather than fee for service, which would reduce the number of unnecessary procedures and tests. But yeah, I know, we are getting into weeds here that have already been fruitlessly discussed. These are the ONLY causes of the unsustainable deficit. The cause of unsustainable debt is the fact that American politicians -- mostly but not entirely the Republicans -- have been unwilling to raise enough revenue to fund the things that most Americans want their government to do. Or to fund the wars that the Bush admin wanted to wage. And the reason for that refusal is the Rs have been guided by Reaganism, the "Guv'ment is the problem" and the Starve the Beast mentality that insists that starving the govt of funds is the only way to reduce govt to what they consider to be its "proper" size -- but they rarely actually come out and say what that "size" is or what those functions are, because they know that most Americans will disagree with it. So by loading the govt with debt, they figure that Americans will "see" that things like SS and Medicare are "unaffordable". It is nonsense. Sorry, I was "verbose" again. I can't do this anymore, I am just repeating obvious things that will just be denied without reason.