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

To: Sam who wrote (64255)	4/3/2018 11:16:08 AM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 364309

>> but it is just as obvious that right wingers want to get rid of both SS and Medicare by privatizing The "public" forms of these programs, both of them, have failed, de facto. Because they have failed to be able to finance the programs they were designed to finance, even though taxes have increased repeatedly -- in 1983, massively (for SS). SS is supposed to be setting aside funds for future generations, and it is spending money as quickly as it comes in, and will be tapped out around 2030 (assuming it advances at least another $150 Billion to Disability Income trust). Medicare has failed in that it cannot approach market rates of reimbursements for procedures which has driven up costs overall. GWB tried to offer a private option on what amounts to 4% of SS tax revenue (the employee's share) in 2006. Even his own party did not support it, but had it been enacted SS would be in a very different place today fiscally. It is STILL the best way out of the mess. Medicare is the principal driver of health care costs within the private system, as it is blatantly obvious that it cannot coexist with the private system. Ultimately, we either have to privatize these publicly funded messes, or to make the entire system public. Given government's track record at managing large programs, it is a no-brainer.

To: Sam who wrote (64255)	4/3/2018 12:34:19 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 364309

but it is just as obvious that right wingers want to get rid of both SS and Medicare by privatizing them Unless you define "right wingers" very narrowly (and probably even if you do, unless your definition is both narrow and rather weird), that simply isn't true. Unfortunately most people, even most conservatives, want to keep spending more and more money in those areas. Even those who recognize the necessity for entitlement reform, most don't want full privatization, and many don't want any privatization. Privatization done right could be a good idea, but its unpopular. and want to downsize the Federal government into the military and a small judicial system. They effectively want to make the world safe for oligarchs. To the extent the US is anything that vaguely resembles an oligarchy (and it mostly isn't), bigger government increases the problem by giving the "oligarchs" more incentive to try to control government, and more power to apply with whatever level of control they do get. In any case most "right wingers" by all normal meanings of that term, don't actually want any such vast reduction in the government.