Re: Obama Spending Lowest In 60 Years
It's a future estimated cost. Lots of those vets are still in the service, and we don't know what their impact is going to be on the VA when they leave, or even when they will leave - if DOD cuts continue as they are, and the personnel draw down goes into full effect, that will push more vets out quicker, and the VA's load will become heavier faster.
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Indirect and delayed costs
According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report published in October 2007, the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost taxpayers a total of $2.4 trillion dollars by 2017 when counting the huge interest costs because combat is being financed with borrowed money. The CBO estimated that of the $2.4 trillion long-term price tag for the war, about $1.9 trillion of that would be spent on Iraq, or $6,300 per U.S. citizen.[10][11]
Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist of the World Bank and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, has stated the total costs of the Iraq War on the US economy will be three trillion dollars in a moderate scenario, and possibly more in the most recent published study, published in March 2008.[12] Stiglitz has stated: "The figure we arrive at is more than $3 trillion. Our calculations are based on conservative assumptions...Needless to say, this number represents the cost only to the United States. It does not reflect the enormous cost to the rest of the world, or to Iraq."[12]
The extended combat and equipment loss have placed a severe financial strain on the U.S Army, causing the elimination of non-essential expenses such as travel and civilian hiring."
Financial cost of the Iraq War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
" Social Security is not at all responsible for the federal deficit. Just the opposite. Until last year, Social Security took in more payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits. It invested the surpluses in Treasury bills -- in effect, lending them to the rest of the government.
But now Social Security has started to pay out more than it takes in. So to keep it going, it collects only what the rest of the government is obligated to pay it. This will keep it fully solvent for the next 26 years."
"The answer is Greenspan's commission failed to predict how much income would become concentrated at the top. Remember, the Social Security payroll tax applies only to earnings up to a certain ceiling that rises with inflation. That ceiling is now $106,800.
Back in 1983, the ceiling was set so the Social Security payroll tax would hit 90 percent of total income covered by Social Security. Today, though, the Social Security payroll tax hits only about 84 percent of total income.
It went from 90 percent to 84 percent because income inequality has widened. Now a much larger portion of total income goes to the top -- almost twice the share they got back then.
If we want to return to 90 percent,
the ceiling on income subject to the Social Security tax would need to be raised to $180,000. Do that and Social Security's long-term problem is solved."
How to fix Social Security | Marketplace.org
:roll: we've been over this about a gajillion times. SS is running a deficit since last year. The Trust Fund calling in IOU's to the General Fund is about as much of a "surplus" as you have a "surplus" when you draw money out on a credit card and spend it from your wallet. Your ad-sourcinem continues to be a failure as they were quoting the Social Security Board of Trustees :lamo
"Redemption of trust fund assets from the General Fund of the Treasury will provide the resources needed to offset the annual cash-flow deficits. Since these redemptions will be less than interest earnings through 2020, nominal trust fund balances will continue to grow. The trust fund ratio, which indicates the number of years of program cost that could be financed solely with current trust fund reserves, peaked in 2008, declined through 2011, and is expected to decline further in future years. After 2020, Treasury will redeem trust fund assets in amounts that exceed interest earnings until exhaustion of trust fund reserves in 2033, three years earlier than projected last year. "
Trustees Report Summary
That is incorrect - there are several good ways. Then, yes, there is also the bad way - switch to government provision and government rationing. However, that's not going to effect Medicare's future unfunded liability either, unless you intend to extend severe rationing to that program, as well.
"Health care costs in Australia are only 8% of GDP and everyone is covered, while in the U.S., they amount to 15% of GDP and many remain uncovered."
australia
The GOP makes no such proposal - in fact, it is the Obama administration that is proposing a "flat" cut in benefits via the IPAB. The GOP is proposing a Progressive cut in benefits, with our wealthy having more benefits cut in order to ensure that we can continue to protect our low-income seniors.
"The plan does not “preserve” Medicare—it ends Medicare as we know it.
Even if something called “Medicare” still exists under the Republican plan, it will
provide less protection and cost more than the program we have today.
Calling something “Medicare” does not make it Medicare. A vehicle that’s
missing wheels, brakes, and doors is not a “car,” no matter what a salesman
calls it.
The plan raises beneficiaries’ out-of-pocket costs.
The amount of the voucher will not keep up with increases in health care costs.
Over time, the voucher will buy less and less coverage, and the beneficiaries will
have to either pay more or go without care.
The plan relies on costly private insurance companies.
Private plans in Medicare have always, on average, cost more, not less, than the
traditional Medicare program to deliver the same care.
Private health insurance companies have higher administrative costs than
Medicare and must pay for marketing, salaries, advertising, and profits.
Private insurance companies’ poor track record in controlling Medicare costs
suggests that premium support will not be able to save money without passing
costs onto beneficiaries.
The plan puts current beneficiaries at risk, too.
Even if the premium support proposal is phased in and traditional Medicare
remains an option in the future, current beneficiaries will face higher costs.
Healthier and wealthier beneficiaries will likely leave traditional Medicare for
cheaper private plans that provide less protection because they can afford to
pay additional out-of-pocket costs themselves.
Higher-cost patients will remain in traditional Medicare, thereby pushing up
Medicare premiums for everyone left in the program. Higher premiums would
encourage more people to leave traditional Medicare, increasing Medicare’s
costs further."
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:eRFnzUh6IlgJ:familiesusa2.org/assets/pdfs/budget-battle/Medicare-Premium-Support.pdf+GOP+plan+to+shift+heatlth+care+cost+to+those+least+able+to+afford+them&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgC6gIngiso6cwTKDtMh5GJmpoW5j-TopYvOkISOsv1bBLrs00WbZMwn82AEtNsMEPaxIF1Pp3XKdKpbxyw0QPt0mK4bVqco4Nkev3lZFadZMyZtBu2uA-pZPODwrGlf3G8yqqA&sig=AHIEtbS2Ig-9bJziZe-Z-VZHUuG9Nviklw
However, that is neither here nor there - the point remains that if you want to count future estimated liabilities, SS and Medicare/Medicaid continue to dwarf military spending in general and on the wars in particular. Everyone from Barack Obama to Bill Clinton to Paul Ryan to the CBO, the IMF, and the World Bank have stated that our current entitlements are unsustainable, and that it is impossible to tax enough to pay for them.
Thats right, we will need to raise the FICA cap to 180,000 and upgrade our health care system as every industrialized country on the the planet has done.
the US military has a global role that is matched by no other nation, and furthermore, US military spending is currently near historical lows, while Medicare is skyrocketing.
I am aware of the role the US military plays in establish US hegemony that benefit the wealthy. I'm tired of paying to finance greater wealth by the 1%.
"Empire is a relationship, formal or informal, in which one state controls the effective political sovereignty of another political society. It can be achieved by force, by political collaboration, by economic, social, or cultural dependence. Imperialism is simply the process or policy of establishing or maintaining an empire."
--Michael Doyle, Empires
Defense isn't driving us off a fiscal cliff - the entitlements are. Furthermore, our economy is utterly dependent upon free global trade, which in turn is dependent upon the security guarantee provided by a forward-deployed US military in particular the US Navy. You slash defense, you pull the military back. You pull the military back, the world regionalizes into blocs. The world regionalizes into blocs, the US economy crashes and revenues sink far below the "savings" generated by the defense cuts. It's a penny wise and pound foolish way of cutting off our nose to spite our face.
MIlitary costs (past and present) are the biggest part of our national debt. Social security has not added one dime to our national debt. If fact it was so successful it loaned money for other other government uses, so that the rich could get tax cuts. Now some don't have the good sense to ask the rich to give up their tax cuts to repay the money borrowed from SS. If you want to provide a military to increase the wealth of the 1%, you pay for it.
This would be the President who gave us Solyndra and studies on robot bees, yes? Whose allies in the Senate defended the Cowboy Poetry Contests?
You talk about peanuts to distract from the trillions of dollars of national debt to make the rich richer.
The president has created more clean energy jobs than any president in history. His opponent doesn't believe there is enough evidence of AGW to take any actions.
LIke I said, it is an easy choice for me.