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<p>Yup. Absolutely. You realize how much commerce travels to the United States by sea? Or how vital naval power is for military operations abroad? Or how the mere presence of a carrier battle group in someone’s backyard can send a powerful message, no bullets needed? Our navy is a beast, and is directly responsible for the security that most of us enjoy today.</p>
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<p>A retirement age of 72? Are you nuts? You realize that average life expectancy in the U.S. is only 78, right? Here’s your golden years, better enjoy them fast - before you die.</p>
<p>Paper-pushers might be fine in their late sixties. What about construction workers, janitors, cops, plumbers, loggers - people who actually, you know, labor? You think someone who’s 71 can work on an assembly line all day just like someone who’s 31? You’re delusional.</p>
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<p>Why are we in military operations abroad, anyway? Can you explain how invading and occupying Iraq has made us any safer?</p>
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<p>Nope. Social Security was never entitled to be the crutch that most people use it as today.</p>
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<p>Iraq? Is that it? What about Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Somali Coast, the Philippines, etc? But yeah, to answer your question, we are in military operations abroad because of a little thing called 9/11. Perhaps you missed it?</p>
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<p>This statement is so out-of-touch that it deserves to be repeated, in bold, as evidence - nay, proof - of the fact that its author is disconnected from the reality of life outside the richest 1% of America. You know, the people who work all their lives just enough to get by, who don’t have million-dollar trust funds with Goldman Sachs.</p>
<p>The reality of Social Security and Medicare is that many people would be on the streets without them, being too old to work and too poor to live. That’s what used to happen in America. Half of all seniors were impoverished in the 1930s. That didn’t mean they couldn’t afford cable TV - it meant they couldn’t afford food and shelter.</p>
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<p>Whatever you say, Chief. How much does the richest 1% make, anyways? A million? I’d love to be in that group. Fraid it ain’t so, though.</p>
<p>Norway seems to know how to do things</p>
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<p>We had pretty significant military expenditures before 9/11. Most of the places troops are stationed abroad have nothing to do with 9/11 (e.g. Iraq). The military had no power to prevent 9/11.</p>
<p>So enlighten me, Cuse. What was Social Security supposed to be?</p>
<p>^ Social Security was really just meant to be a supplement, not a complete retirement plan.</p>
<p>They wanted to make sure seniors had a supplement to purchase necessities.</p>
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<p>Our military spending was high in the 90’s because we were the sole superpower and we were pretty much in charge of holding the world together in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. History has shown that when we don’t get involved, things can go to hell in a handbasket pretty quickly. Nevertheless, we did cut military spending throughout the 1990s.</p>
<p>And why does everyone keep bringing up Iraq? That war is winding down now; our combat troops are out. We’ve been in Afghanistan much longer than we have been in Iraq, but no one seems to mention it when referring to our military policy. Why is that?</p>
<p>We also need to make large cuts into Foreign Aid.</p>
<p>If we would keep that money domestically it would be a nice boost to supplement our entitlements programs, certainly makes more sense than taking money from our own citizens wealth when they die.</p>
<p>People don’t understand that the Foreign Aid we spend doesn’t really benefit the people of the actual country, it usually just fills the pockets of the countries government, which are usually corrupt (we are talking about billions and billions of dollars). </p>
<p>I’m a pretty strict Republican (more Libertarian), but I agree our defense budget needs to be cut. I don’t want to cut R&D, but we need to close down overseas bases, and I’m not just talking about Iraq or Afganistan. We basically have city-state bases set up all over the world that I don’t think are necessarily needed anymore. If not a complete shut down, at least a major down sizing.</p>
<p>You can’t have an honest discussion about cutting the deficit without putting defense and entitlements on the table.</p>
<p>Honestly, I’m not sure if any of it matters any more. If we are truly past peak oil everything will crash regardless. Not just the US, but the entire world economy.</p>
<p>Poof, magic wand, no more foreign aid.</p>
<p>Congratulations, you just saved… one half of one percent of the budget. All of $20 billion. Plus, you ****ed off the AIPAC crowd, who want you thrown out of office for cutting off Israel’s cheap weapons supply.</p>
<p>The elephant in the room is our $800 billion defense budget. All attempts to deflect attention away from this fact will inevitably fail, because it’s a simple math problem. Everything else is a drop in the bucket by comparison.</p>
<p>^ Well, fine we can keep Foreign Aid, but you can’t have it both ways.</p>
<p>If we are financially supporting countries, I think that gives us the right to act with our military if our interests in those countries are being harmed.</p>
<p>I don’t know the exact numbers, but $20 billion per year over the next 10 years sounds like a pretty good cash flow we could inject into our entitlement programs. I know we can’t cut it all, but even if we cut it buy half, that’s still $10 billion per year. How many $1,500 Social Security checks would that pay each year? </p>
<p>Here is a graph of our federal spending for 2009. As you will see, Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid account for nearly 40% of our spending, and Defense accounted for 23%, which surprised me because I thought it would be much higher considering we are in two wars spanning nearly a decade.</p>
<p>If we draw down in both Afganistan and Iraq as planned, I assume the % of spending on Defense would dramatically drop, no? I’m not sure by how much, but eliminating two wars would have a huge affect…maybe to 15%?</p>
<p>We’d still be faced with entitlements eating up 40% of our budget, and that’s a number that will only dramatically increase as the baby boomers start hitting retirement age.</p>
<p>[File:U.S</a>. Federal Spending - FY 2007.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2007.png]File:U.S”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2007.png)</p>
<p>Defense = 782 Billion
Social Security = 678 Billion (will only go up)
Medicare/Medicaid = 676 Billion (will only go up)
Other = 607 Billion</p>
<p>Plus, we will have to factor in future cost due to ObamaCare, which will be enormous!</p>
<p>Another graph that shows the risks of our entitlement system.</p>
<p>As show, sometime between 2030-2040 our mandatory spending on entitlements will exceed government revenues.</p>
<p>We should wisely cut Defense spending, but that is an expenditure that will always be their to cut if necessary. We can’t do that with entitlements. We can never cut them, only push back age limits and increase taxes. It’s a beast that will only get more hungry!</p>
<p>[File:GAO</a> Slide.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GAO_Slide.png]File:GAO”>File:GAO Slide.png - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>BIGeastBEAST, you realize that “ObamaCare” reduces the deficit, right?</p>
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<p>[Estimate</a> of the Budgetary Effects of the Senate-Passed Health Bill](<a href=“http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=488]Estimate”>http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=488)</p>
<p>That’s because the spending cost of the bill is offset by new revenue (the excise tax on “high-end” health insurance) along with dramatic reductions in spending on Medicare and Medicaid, because more people would be be able to afford to buy their own insurance and not have to rely on those government programs. It gets people off welfare.</p>
<p>Now, I’m no great fan of “ObamaCare” because we really need a public option insurance plan. But it’s quite simply false to say it would increase the deficit.</p>
<p>^ I’ll believe it when I see.</p>
<p>I’m a bit perplexed why you didn’t mention any other points I listed, and decided to cherry pick a single sentence.</p>
<p>How much would a public option add to the deficit? Or is cutting the deficit not something you are really concerned about, as long as those entitlement checks keep getting cashed? Eventually the milk is going to dry up.</p>
<p>I don’t want to turn this into an ObamaCare debate, it’s pretty obvious (he’s even admitting it now) that it hurts businesses. It may generate revenue, but it’s also going to kill jobs…which will just lead to more entitlements. Not exactly a clean profit. Robbing from Peter to pay Paul.</p>
<p>If you agree with it on your own fundamental principles thats fine, if you think it’s worth the cost, fine…we can agree to disagree on that, but the business community has been pretty clear regarding it’s negative affects.</p>
<p>Plus, many argue that an excise tax on high end health insurance benefits is actually regressive to the middle class.</p>
<p>[An</a> Excise Tax On Health Insurance Benefits Is Middle Class Regressive | FDL Action](<a href=“http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/10/19/an-excise-tax-on-health-insurance-benefits-is-middle-class-regressive/]An”>http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/10/19/an-excise-tax-on-health-insurance-benefits-is-middle-class-regressive/)</p>
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<p>Which is why, as I said, I disagree with “ObamaCare.” Public option should be the way to go, not a mandate to purchase private insurance.</p>
<p>But you asserted that the bill would have an “enormous” future cost - a statement for which you have not the slightest shred of evidence, and which, in fact, is refuted by independent analysis.</p>
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<p>Because that sentence is completely false?</p>
<p>What, you think that if you throw enough baloney against the wall, I don’t get to pick and choose which bit of nonsense to attack first?</p>
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<p>Thus you admit to the evidence-free, logically-bankrupt nature of your argument.</p>
<p>I don’t consider collecting revenue by dramatically hurting businesses is what I consider real revenue. As I said, that’s just robbing Peter to pay Paul.</p>
<p>If this does lead to a public option, which is possible because companies can’t afford the new increases, that would increase our deficit in a huge manner.</p>
<p>Remember, that money comes from somewhere. I’d be much happier to let businesses keep that money and cut deficits a different way, RE: cuts in defense, foreign aid and entitlements.</p>
<p>Whistling past the graveyard.</p>
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<p>Your evidence that health care reform (which isn’t even implemented yet) is “dramatically hurting businesses” is… what, exactly?</p>
<p>I’d also like to add that I could be convinced to support temporary tax increases to help cut the deficit, as long as they government was also legitimately cutting spending at the same time.</p>
![http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2007.png]File:U.S](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2007.png%5DFile:U.S){kind=link}
![http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GAO_Slide.png]File:GAO](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GAO_Slide.png%5DFile:GAO){kind=link}
