To: Steve Lokness who wrote (31935 ) 8/31/2017 12:36:41 PM From: i-node Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 361669 >> Good! Maybe you are coming around. You oppose the Trump increases then. If there is a requirement that the military budget be temporarily increased I can accept that; we have been at war for 16 years now, and coming off a liberal president who I can imagine allowed the military to become depleted (as Carter did, following Vietnam in the 70s). But the military budget concerns me far less than SS, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare, because the military budget is a drop in the bucket over the demands for money these programs are producing. The CBO has stated these programs, plus interest on the debt, make our budget untenable going forward. The military was excluded from that, and the CBO director actually stated that all other programs besides the entitlements actually REDUCE the deficit in coming years (meaning, military and other programs will actually grow at a SLOWER pace over the next ten years than they are now, effectively reducing the budget over what it would have been). But the health care & SS programs are disasters because they are broke. The tax increases required to sustain these programs would place such burdens on the middle AND lower earning classes that they cannot be solved with that. You are ideologically committed to the notion that these programs are not broke when they are. I am unwilling to argue this point with you further unless you're willing to do the reading to understand the issue. I don't mind pointing out facts, but these things are not really arguable. They are what they are. If you want to sign on with the Sanders crowd then that's on you.