Then cut other areas.
How much of Social Security and Medicare do you propose to cut?
None. I paid for mine. For decades.
1 Like
None. There’s many, many, many other wasteful programs to cut.
Or do you prefer national bankruptcy?
The point is, if you completely zero out all non-mandatory (i.e., discretionary) spending, including all defense spending, you still will be running at a deficit. The great bulk of what’s left (non-discretionary (or mandatory)) spending is Social Security and Medicare.
Allowing the public debt of the US to be questioned would be the surest route to “bankruptcy,” as it would increase borrowing costs for both current and future debt.
No, you were paying for the people collecting it during that time.
Infinite deficit spending looks to be the only answer.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the U.S. federal budget deficit ballooned to $1.1 trillion over the first half of the 2023 fiscal year. That’s an increase of $430 billion from the same period in 2022.
All of which wage earners contributed to.during their working years. Benefits paid to recipients should not be a debt to the goobermint they have already collected the money. But we know the billions perhaps trillions of dollars collected are spent on other “discretionary” spending. Just ask the LBJ administration legacy. They raided the Social Security coffers to finance the “Great Society” welfare expansion.
As a retiree, sort of I still work, I just love hearing from the elected bull ■■■■ artists SS benefits could be reduced or “run out of money”? 
Not only did the goobermint garnish my wages for nearly 50 years with SS & Medicare withholdings, they still do with my post retirement gig!
As far as debt ceiling goes, unless Congress gets its fiscal house in order and reduces spending? The conversation is pointless and nothing but politics; the people will continue to pay unmercifully.
2 Likes
Thanks Joe.
2 Likes
Let’s just keep spending at the 2019 level for the next couple of years and see what happens. Practice austerity with foreign aid for a start.
2 Likes
The debt ceiling is a room full of drunks swearing the next round will be their last,
2 Likes
Who told you that?
Wrong. They paid for theirs.
1 Like
Somebody who spent their entire life in government probably doesn’t know what “money” is.
1 Like
The most fascinating part of this is that Trump has steered the conversation almost completely away from cutting Medicare and Social Security.
That means we would have to really cut defense spending to make any sort of debt in the deficit.
Weird.
Good. Cut it.
1 Like
Tell McCarthy. That used to be a complete no go. I’m pretty certain it still is. And if those big three (defense, SS and Medicare) are out, there is very little to really cut that is at all meaningful for cutting spending significantly.
I did.
Balderdash. There’s a ton of stuff to cut.
1 Like
It won’t make a significant dent. That’s why we have been fighting over SS and Medicare for generations now.
Of course it will. Freeze spending levels at 2019 like somebody said.
Freezing spending is just a dumb back of the napkin way of avoiding looking at what is being cut. This is what is plaguing McCarthy and the GOP right now. When you get into the weeds of it, cutting is complicated and messy and no one really wants to deal with it.
