"why are liberals so stupid always wanted to tax us to take care of these old worthless retirees?"
Isn't that a logical fallacy? You are trying to divert attention away from the important topic at hand, in order to draw a nasty caricature that highlights the preconceived opinions you have regarding me and my ideas. This is a good example of taking a very serious, meritorious argument and twisting it so much that it resembles an evil, nazi-fueled piece of propaganda.
No, it is not a logical fallacy. You made a direct statement about there being far more retirees than individuals working to support them. Followed by a statement:
...how do liberals think we can simply tax our way out of the problem
So, I'm not misrepresenting your position, also, the focus of my argument in the preceding paragraph wasn't the statement about liberals and retirees, it was the re-iteration of a direct question to you. What aspects of medicare would you like to cut? Why?
This is completely reasonable question to be asking considering the title of this thread is: "WHEN are we going to CUT medicare?". When followed by the OP however:
Does anyone deny that Medicare WILL bankrupt this country if we do not make drastic cuts?
I guess you weren't looking to get into a substantive debate on medicare and how we could reduce it, but instead to get validation for a common notion that medicare is costly and may possible lead us to financial issues in the future.
In answering the OP directly, I would say, yes I deny that Medicare will bankrupt this country. My reasoning for this, is, before becoming bankrupt, I can only assume that we would probably cut these entitlements dramatically to stave off financial ruin. However, I have no proof of this, nor do I have a crystal ball to see what happens in the future. I would prefer, rather than debating about what will happen outside of our control in the future. To debate about what we can do to fix what is wrong now, so that it does not cause these problems in the future. With that said, let's continue.
Just because conservatives and libertarians (mostly libertarians) believe that INDIVIDUALS (you were discussing the value placed on each individual human) are far more capable of spending, investing, and saving their money versus the political busybodies does not mean that we want to throw old people out in the street. That is a nasty caricature that I do not appreciate.
I apologize for offending you with my caricature. However, everything you have said points to that. At least in the short term. If we were to cut SS, and medicare tomorrow. There will be a lot of dead elderly citizens. This is not hypothesis or conjecture. These people do not have retirement savings, and do not have a capacity to re-enter the workforce, some of them at least. Now, if we implemented a system where we are going to eliminate SS for everyone who is currently under the age of 30. Giving those individuals 35 years to save money for their end of life, I could get behind that. Still, there are people that live their entire life barely scraping by. What do we do with them at their end-of-life? You spoke to the generosity of people toward their family and neighbors, are you expecting a relative, or a relative stranger (neighbor) to come to the rescue for the remaining years of these individuals lives? What if these neighbors and immediate family members have also scraped by all their life, such as is the situation in many low income communities, then who takes care of them? Nobody?
I believe in the power of average people to make a life for themselves, a life which includes being able to save for their retirement. I myself at 23 years old have already been contributing to my 401k for over a year, significantly, and have absolutely no faith in getting SS at my end of life. But, I also recognize that not everyone has the same level of financial stability as myself. There will be some people who simply cannot survive and prepare for retirement (low income families, the working poor). Once again, what do we do with those people?
This conversation so far has remained restricted to people who have a capacity to fend for themselves. What do you feel about providing medicare to the children of these low income families? Their parents cannot afford to pay for their health care when they get sick, chicken pox, or broken bones. Nor can they afford to pay for private health insurance. I know, b/c I came from a low income family. I either didn't go to the hospital, or I went to the ER, since it is illegal for them to refuse treatment. Then, we simply didn't pay the bill. My parents had 0 income it was not as if they could do anything about it. This sort of behavior by low income patients makes the cost of competent peoples health care rise. Since, someone has to pay for this care in the end. Beyond children, who can probably remain resilient to most of the illnesses they incur without serious medical care. What do you feel about the disabled, who not only take up a portion of medicare, but also of SS. These people do not have a capacity to fend for themselves, often have weak immune systems, and will often times never contribute to society. What do you propose we do with them?
But, how much value do you place on each individual if YOU think each individual is not smart enough to spend money, not smart enough to invest money, and not smart enough to save money? Do you also think each individual is not smart enough to handle decisions regarding their own body? How much value do YOU place on each individual if you believe there should be a strong central authority distributing largesse at the expense of a minority, instead of favoring classic bottom-up, grassroot development?
Please see above on what I feel about individuals. How can you have classic bottom-up grassroot development, when all of the wealth is held by those at the top. I believe the statistic is something like 35% of Americas wealth is held by the top 1% of its population, or something along those lines. Would you be happier if the bottom 99% of the population spend more to support these programs?
You've said everything that they (the politicians) say, but yet if you were in power, where would YOU make the cuts? I'm for an equal cut, across the board. What about you? You've acknowledged the waste and mis-management. Now, please explain where you would like to cut some of this waste.
You're for an equal cut to what? To medicare? Such as everyone get's capped at X amount of dollars per year, or something like that?
I would love to say where I would make the cuts, but, I do not have the budgetary knowledge to see where the waste is clearly. I would definitely look to our largest portions of the budget first. Medicare, Social Security, and Defense Spending. Once I got a more granular look at these individual budgets, I could make an educated choice on what to cut, where to cut it, and why I feel it should be cut. Maybe it should be our responsibility as citizens to review our federal budget in detail and know where we're spending our money. That way we can make more educated appeals to our representatives about where to cut, instead of off the cuff remarks about what should be cut, because of what we're read in the news, or heard from others.
As for the military, I am all in favor of a reduction. But to JUST cut the military by half and leave everything else intact will not do enough to solve the problems of the unfunded liabilities. Ultimately, you'd rather sacrifice physical safety (one of the fundamental purposes of government, according to the constitution) instead of grand entitlements (which ARE NOT, by any means, a role for the federal government).
If we were to cut the military budget in half it would go along way, but considering it is only barely the largest portion of our budget. I agree that ONLY cutting defense is not the answer. But, knowing that the US military budget is nearly 15 times larger than the military budget of ANY other country, shows there has to be some areas where we can save money there. Half of our military budget is still 9 times larger than the next largest military budget. I don't think this would be a sacrifice to our physical safety. Where does it state that entitlements are not the role of the federal government? At the time that this country was founded there was no need for entitlements. There was so much opportunity, and so little health, nobody thought anything about entitlements at that point. The life expectancy in those days was more than 30 years less than it is today. The last thing they were thinking about was Social Security for the elderly.
There is no place for entitlement programs, unless you're willing to go all the way. Is universal health care an entitlement? Social Security? Food? Shelter? Perhaps we should raise taxes to buy every citizen his or her own home. Perhaps we should raise taxes in order to completely subsidize everyone's gas, electric, and water payments. Perhaps we should raise taxes to provide everyone with homeowner's insurance in order to protect their beloved home (that we again built with taxpayer money). Isn't that a "right?" Is clothing a right? Shall we raise taxes in order to distribute a clothing allowance to each and every citizen. It goes BEYOND levels of poverty and "how much they can afford." Why should rich people PAY for something that is a "right." If the government says it is a right, then it would be immoral to allow businesses to charge people for their homes, their electricity, their water, their gas, their clothing, their food, their...
(This quote had to be shortened because I exceeded the 13000 character limit)
Any rational person will say that human beings also need a certain amount of entertainment in order to live a comfortable life. Is entertainment a "right" or an "entitlement?" Should televisions and cable/satellite be free? People will often argue that access to the Internet is a right. So, let's write up the act that will prevent Verizon or Time Warner from charging us for what is "rightfully" ours. No, I'd rather not view these materialistic possessions as rights, no matter how much we need them to survive. Instead, I believe we have the right to pursue happiness, but we should not be guaranteed happiness by people who think it necessary.
This is absurd to extrapolate to this degree. Our entitlement programs are about a right to live. Not a right to live comfortably. If you want to live comfortably you need to work hard and earn it, just as it should be. No one has ever, or will ever suggest that it is the right of all Americans that they be provided with all basic necessities free of charge regardless of individual affluence. There will never be a need to extend entitlements to ALL citizens. Most citizens earn a living and are happy to do so. There are a minority of citizens who do not, possibly cannot, or are not particularly successful at doing so. These are the citizens that require entitlements. If it were up to me I wouldn't call them entitlement programs at all. They should more likely be called Charity programs. Since, in reality, it's really what they are. I don't know where government has stated that it is a right that all citizens be provided with these things. Though I wouldn't put it past politicians to make those types of bold claims to sell their products.
I believe that people in times of hardship deserve a helping hand to keep on their feet. I also believe this should be a limited hand. I am a proponent of limited charity. However, I do not have a solution to what to do with the people that even after receiving their limited charity, still cannot get on their feet. Should we just let them die? Maybe that is the solution, I am not able to answer that question right now. It would probably help with the worlds overpopulation issues. Maybe, if we take away the entitlements, the people using them will pick themselves up out of the gutters by their bootstraps and get back to doing productive, value-added work, to survive. However, with an unemployment rate of what it is today, for the average uneducated person getting into the work force, this probably isn't a likely possibility. Maybe instead of subsidizing all of these other programs we only subsidize people to get a college/trade school education. There are relevant statistics that college educated individuals can earn a decent living wage. But, what do we do with those that cannot make it through college, or are too far along in their life to learn a new trade?
