4 ms·

how else would we go into deeper debt? the budget deficit and debt is not going to grow on it's own.

by brixon 7y ago

mcintyre1994 7y ago
Sure it will - that's the joy of compound interest :)
maxxxxx 7y ago
You can easily achieve this with tax cuts....
tomohawk 7y ago
Entitlement programs dwarf military spending. https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-the-Federal-US-budget-is-spent-on-welfare-spending-and-entitlement-programs https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-the-Federal-US-budg...
- lutorm 7y ago
  They're called "entitlement" because people explicitly pay into them and then the government has to pay those benefits. That's not relevant if you're talking about the discretionary budget.
  - tomohawk 7y ago
    I'm kinda surprised that anyone still believes this, although politicians do say it all the time. What actually happens is that people pay a tax. The tax goes towards covering people who are currently receiving payouts. The collected tax does not cover the payouts and has not for quite a while. In other words, you're not "paying in" to anything, other than that if you pay the tax for 3 years, you're eligible to receive benefits. And the payouts are a really bad investment if you are a Gen Xer or younger. You're going to get a lot less out than you put in. It was a really great deal for the WW2 gen, as they paid in hardly anything and got decades of payouts.
    - lutorm 7y ago
      Sure, it's not the same dollars that I pay in that I'll be getting in the future. That doesn't change the fact that these these taxes have to go into the SS trust fund and is not part of the discretionary budget. When people say things like "the government spends most of its money on entitlement programs" like it's a bad thing, they're completely misrepresenting the situation. If they weren't spending the tax that's explicitly supposed to fund social security on social security, that would be a bigger story because that would be fraud.

how else would we go into deeper debt? the budget deficit and debt is not going to grow on it's own.

by brixon 7y ago

how else would we go into deeper debt? the budget deficit and debt is not going to grow on it's own.

mcintyre1994 7y ago

Sure it will - that's the joy of compound interest :)

maxxxxx 7y ago

You can easily achieve this with tax cuts....

tomohawk 7y ago

Entitlement programs dwarf military spending. https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-the-Federal-US-budget-is-spent-on-welfare-spending-and-entitlement-programs https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-the-Federal-US-budg...

lutorm 7y ago
They're called "entitlement" because people explicitly pay into them and then the government has to pay those benefits. That's not relevant if you're talking about the discretionary budget.
- tomohawk 7y ago
  I'm kinda surprised that anyone still believes this, although politicians do say it all the time. What actually happens is that people pay a tax. The tax goes towards covering people who are currently receiving payouts. The collected tax does not cover the payouts and has not for quite a while. In other words, you're not "paying in" to anything, other than that if you pay the tax for 3 years, you're eligible to receive benefits. And the payouts are a really bad investment if you are a Gen Xer or younger. You're going to get a lot less out than you put in. It was a really great deal for the WW2 gen, as they paid in hardly anything and got decades of payouts.
  - lutorm 7y ago
    Sure, it's not the same dollars that I pay in that I'll be getting in the future. That doesn't change the fact that these these taxes have to go into the SS trust fund and is not part of the discretionary budget. When people say things like "the government spends most of its money on entitlement programs" like it's a bad thing, they're completely misrepresenting the situation. If they weren't spending the tax that's explicitly supposed to fund social security on social security, that would be a bigger story because that would be fraud.