Don't Blame America’s Debt Crisis on Social Security and Medicare..

[DemonMyst]

It’s the Military, Stupid!: Don't Blame America’s Debt Crisis on Social Security and Medicare (Especially on Memorial Day Weekend)

Amid all the nonsense and gobbledegook that has been written about banking industry and about the economic slump during the last four years of the global financial crisis, New York Times reporter Gretchen Morgenson has stood out both for the clarity of her analysis, and for her willingness to go after the guilty parties in the political and especially the banking system, naming names and calling it as she sees it.

So it was kind of disappointing--even shocking--to read her latest article reporting on a new “study” by Peterson Institute for International Economics Senior Fellow Joseph Gagnon, warning about the nation’s growing debt crisis.

The Peterson Institute, founded by Wall Street tycoon Peter Peterson, has long been gunning for the Social Security and Medicare systems, which he, and the rest of the Wall Street gang, see as unfairly competing with Wall Street for the assets of the public, and as destructive of the “free market.”

Peterson’s basic schtick is that the two critical support systems for the elderly and infirm are going to bankrupt the country as they pay out benefits that exceed what retirees paid into the system, and that the solution is to cut back on those benefits, increase the taxes collected, or better, to privatize both systems.

Given Peterson’s and his institute’s long-standing agenda to gut Social Security and Medicare, it’s not surprising that Gagnon, as a fellow there, would say the solution to the nation’s growing debt is to either raise taxes or cut those two hugely successful, critically important and broadly popular social programs.

Morgenson is too smart not to know better, and yet not once in her article did she look outside of Gagnon’s narrow definition of the problem at the real cause of the national debt: the country’s outlandish military budget and a decade of unfunded wars, which have been piling up debt at a rate of some $150 billion a year (and that’s just the principal!).

Don't Blame America’s Debt Crisis on Social Security and Medicare

Well?? Is this accurate?? Debate!!

 

[Jetboogieman]

Its a combination of everything.

And I'll also say, whilst fighting 2 wars and enacting medicare part (D) plus major tax cuts was a disaster for the deficit and the debt.

The long term fiscal challenge of the US is medicare and SS there's no getting around it, blaming the military spending, it is those things, the long term costs of those programs are so unbelievably high, it will bankrupt the US several times over if they keep going down this path.

Military spending must be cut as well, but its not the whole problem.

 

[Wiseone]

No drop of water causes the flood, its a combination of all of them. Some conservatives would have you believe its all the fault of socialized medicine, and that the military is blameless since its Constitutional spending. Well its certainly Constitutional but unfortunately that doesn't have anything to do with its costs, because it costs the same regardless. Same thing with many liberals, who think its all the fault of two wars and will say that they don't help people the way socialized medicine does, well unfortunately the cost has nothing to do with whether you help people or not, the cost is the same regardless.

 

[Temporal]

It's everything.

I don't get why conservatives attack entitlements yet always overlook the military.

I don't get why liberals attack the military and overlook entitlements.

Nothing is sacrosant anymore. Do you people understand what DEFAULTING on debt means? If we do, you'll wish you made the cuts to everything.

 

[Neomalthusian]

Outlays, 2011:

Dept. of Health and Social Services: $901 Billion
Social Security: $791 Billion
Defense: $718 Billion

Dept. of Agriculture: $132 Billion
Dept. of Veteran Affairs $123 Billion
Dept. of Labor: $116 Billion

Dept. of the Treasury: $93 Billion
Dept. of Transportation: $75 Billion
Dept. of Education: $71 Billion

Dept. of the State: $56 Billion
Dept. of Homeland Security: $54 Billion
Dept. of Housing/Urban Devel.: $47 Billion
Dept. of Justice: $31 Billion

Dept. of Energy: $31 Billion
NASA: $17 Billion
EPA: $9 Billion

SOURCE

Blame America's debt crisis on the above, starting with the largest expenditure.