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who are the "wrong people" that massive social programs enrich? Can you give an example? Most of federal spending is medicare, medicaid and social security; whi

by dkural 8y ago

who are the "wrong people" that massive social programs enrich? Can you give an example? Most of federal spending is medicare, medicaid and social security; which are immensely popular with voters of all kind.

bilbo0s 8y ago
>Most of federal spending is medicare, medicaid and social security... Well, there's also Defense, and then service payments on the debt. Those are the big 3 without question. So "the wrong people" must be in there somewhere? But the real reason we give more to the feds is because if we didn't it would be AWESOME for places like New York, Minnesota, Texas, Delaware, California etc, and TERRIBLE for places like Wisconsin, Alabama, South Carolina, and Florida.
- lg 8y ago
  and yet the first group of states votes in politicians that raise taxes and the second group votes in politicians that cut taxes?
  - zeckalpha 8y ago
    Those states also pay more to the federal government than they get back.
  - eigenstuff 8y ago
    That second group of states is half states in the black belt. Those state governments are bought and paid for and their people largely disenfranchised, same for much of Appalachia. (Like, c'mon, Mississippi is around 40% African American, you really think them electing Donald Trump reflects the true will of the people? Of course not!) They're run by shitty rich people with shitty agendas who are just out to further enrich themselves and have a vested interest in maintaining the power structures that be. That's why the South "votes against its own interests." It's literally a narrative invented by the coal industry so it could justify and get away with brutalizing West Virginia and leaving it far worse off than it was before. Coal owns WV all the way down to the school boards and sherrifs.
bradknowles 8y ago
Except the voters who don't need any of those things, and who feel that those programs should be eliminated in their entirety. Now, consider how the above is impacted in the wake of Citizens United where $1 == 1 vote, and Corporations are People Too.
AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> who are the "wrong people" that massive social programs enrich? Can you give an example? Most of federal spending is medicare, medicaid and social security; which are immensely popular with voters of all kind. If you ask people if they support the abstract idea of having a military so we're not invaded by foreign forces, or having a program to prevent the elderly from dying in the streets, they say yes. But then you ask them whether social security should send a larger check to a retired Jeff Bezos than a retired firefighter on a fixed income, or the government should spend billions of dollars on equipment the military itself says it doesn't need but the Congressman from the district which is getting the contract to build it says that it does, and the public support for that falls off pretty fast. And those "features" cause those programs to cost hundreds of billions of dollars more than they need to, which money could otherwise go to infrastructure and schools and tax cuts for the middle class, all of which are also immensely popular with voters of all kinds. But won't happen when the programs absorbing more than three quarters of the total budget are administered in a federal system where the Congressmen are rewarded for bringing home the pork and Florida is an important swing state full of retirees.
- therealdrag0 8y ago
  Military is like 15% of federal spending, social security and healthcare is 50+% of federal spending. I agree that there is military excess, but I'm skeptical that reducing it would make THAT much difference.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    The military used to be a significantly larger percentage of the budget than it is now, but it's not because the military is any smaller. It's because spending on retirees is exploding. Nobody really wants to admit this because the reason the costs are exploding is that there are so many more people over retirement age, which also means that there are more voters over retirement age, which makes it politically very difficult to do anything about it. But it's a serious problem -- how are we supposed to sustain spending more than half of the government budget on retirees? And the DoD and the VA are also considered separately, but let's not pretend they're unrelated. If you have twice as many soldiers today then you need twice the VA budget tomorrow.

by dkural 8y ago

bilbo0s 8y ago

>Most of federal spending is medicare, medicaid and social security... Well, there's also Defense, and then service payments on the debt. Those are the big 3 without question. So "the wrong people" must be in there somewhere? But the real reason we give more to the feds is because if we didn't it would be AWESOME for places like New York, Minnesota, Texas, Delaware, California etc, and TERRIBLE for places like Wisconsin, Alabama, South Carolina, and Florida.

lg 8y ago
and yet the first group of states votes in politicians that raise taxes and the second group votes in politicians that cut taxes?
- zeckalpha 8y ago
  Those states also pay more to the federal government than they get back.
- eigenstuff 8y ago
  That second group of states is half states in the black belt. Those state governments are bought and paid for and their people largely disenfranchised, same for much of Appalachia. (Like, c'mon, Mississippi is around 40% African American, you really think them electing Donald Trump reflects the true will of the people? Of course not!) They're run by shitty rich people with shitty agendas who are just out to further enrich themselves and have a vested interest in maintaining the power structures that be. That's why the South "votes against its own interests." It's literally a narrative invented by the coal industry so it could justify and get away with brutalizing West Virginia and leaving it far worse off than it was before. Coal owns WV all the way down to the school boards and sherrifs.

bradknowles 8y ago

Except the voters who don't need any of those things, and who feel that those programs should be eliminated in their entirety. Now, consider how the above is impacted in the wake of Citizens United where $1 == 1 vote, and Corporations are People Too.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

> who are the "wrong people" that massive social programs enrich? Can you give an example? Most of federal spending is medicare, medicaid and social security; which are immensely popular with voters of all kind. If you ask people if they support the abstract idea of having a military so we're not invaded by foreign forces, or having a program to prevent the elderly from dying in the streets, they say yes. But then you ask them whether social security should send a larger check to a retired Jeff Bezos than a retired firefighter on a fixed income, or the government should spend billions of dollars on equipment the military itself says it doesn't need but the Congressman from the district which is getting the contract to build it says that it does, and the public support for that falls off pretty fast. And those "features" cause those programs to cost hundreds of billions of dollars more than they need to, which money could otherwise go to infrastructure and schools and tax cuts for the middle class, all of which are also immensely popular with voters of all kinds. But won't happen when the programs absorbing more than three quarters of the total budget are administered in a federal system where the Congressmen are rewarded for bringing home the pork and Florida is an important swing state full of retirees.

therealdrag0 8y ago
Military is like 15% of federal spending, social security and healthcare is 50+% of federal spending. I agree that there is military excess, but I'm skeptical that reducing it would make THAT much difference.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  The military used to be a significantly larger percentage of the budget than it is now, but it's not because the military is any smaller. It's because spending on retirees is exploding. Nobody really wants to admit this because the reason the costs are exploding is that there are so many more people over retirement age, which also means that there are more voters over retirement age, which makes it politically very difficult to do anything about it. But it's a serious problem -- how are we supposed to sustain spending more than half of the government budget on retirees? And the DoD and the VA are also considered separately, but let's not pretend they're unrelated. If you have twice as many soldiers today then you need twice the VA budget tomorrow.