Core Imposter
Deity
- Joined
- May 13, 2011
- Messages
- 4,534
I think we should means test Social Security and Medicare. Once upon a time the idea for SS was that it was insurance against growing older before you were unable to provide for yourself. It really was. Most of you aren't old enough to remember that this was the image of the program in the minds of the majority of Americans.
Of course in order to maintain that that sort of program retirement ages should have been raised with the increasing lifespans and the money should have been placed somewhere the Congress couldn't raid it, perhaps an infrastructure bank that could have been administered by the governors. Instead too many people have counted on it as a primary retirement program.
We have to cut something somewhere. If government spending created prosperity we would all be rich. It doesn't. Means testing is going to be necessary and we need to begin to phase it in. In both programs.
People will feel betrayed by their government and rightly so. But raising the retirement ages and adjusting the COLA will fall hard on those who have worked hard labor jobs and need the money sooner and it is too hard on the poor and unfortunate.
On the military side we must permanently cut the spending levels and change our foreign policy to one of engagement rather than of intervention. Not isolation but our allies in NATO and around the world must bear more weight in terms of standing forces and foreign aid.
America must shred the illusion that we have limitless pockets and power.
Corruption and waste have become entrenched as the attitude toward them has become one of apathy and submission. We must become ruthless in rooting them out and work together as a nation to reestablish moral and ethical standards that have eroded in the haze of partisan warfare.
We must embrace the reality that we can't have our ponies free, and, that there are and will be consequences to the choices that we make. Simply cutting the rate of projected budget increases is not going to cut it in a world where America has to actually compete tooth and nail with everyone else.
We have to get lean and mean. Spending is the problem. If you look at the adjusted metrics of revenues and spending its clear that it is the spending that has gotten out of control. The reason is clear. The centuries old restraint upon Congressional spending was rooted in two factors. One, the necessity of doing a real budget and two, the partisan warfare over spending priorities.
Modern economics has blown the lid off those restraints with the corrupt and nonsensical concept that America can endlessly spend and borrow without consequence, printing money without care. This is leading us to catastrophe. Not crisis as we saw in 2007-8, but a disaster without repair. We must turn away from the path of the damned.
Of course in order to maintain that that sort of program retirement ages should have been raised with the increasing lifespans and the money should have been placed somewhere the Congress couldn't raid it, perhaps an infrastructure bank that could have been administered by the governors. Instead too many people have counted on it as a primary retirement program.
We have to cut something somewhere. If government spending created prosperity we would all be rich. It doesn't. Means testing is going to be necessary and we need to begin to phase it in. In both programs.
People will feel betrayed by their government and rightly so. But raising the retirement ages and adjusting the COLA will fall hard on those who have worked hard labor jobs and need the money sooner and it is too hard on the poor and unfortunate.
On the military side we must permanently cut the spending levels and change our foreign policy to one of engagement rather than of intervention. Not isolation but our allies in NATO and around the world must bear more weight in terms of standing forces and foreign aid.
America must shred the illusion that we have limitless pockets and power.
Corruption and waste have become entrenched as the attitude toward them has become one of apathy and submission. We must become ruthless in rooting them out and work together as a nation to reestablish moral and ethical standards that have eroded in the haze of partisan warfare.
We must embrace the reality that we can't have our ponies free, and, that there are and will be consequences to the choices that we make. Simply cutting the rate of projected budget increases is not going to cut it in a world where America has to actually compete tooth and nail with everyone else.
We have to get lean and mean. Spending is the problem. If you look at the adjusted metrics of revenues and spending its clear that it is the spending that has gotten out of control. The reason is clear. The centuries old restraint upon Congressional spending was rooted in two factors. One, the necessity of doing a real budget and two, the partisan warfare over spending priorities.
Modern economics has blown the lid off those restraints with the corrupt and nonsensical concept that America can endlessly spend and borrow without consequence, printing money without care. This is leading us to catastrophe. Not crisis as we saw in 2007-8, but a disaster without repair. We must turn away from the path of the damned.
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