[Hindsite]

Head in the sand, again, @Hindsite ?

House GOP 2019 budget calls for deep Medicare, Medicaid spending cuts

No. I am not worried, because I am sure that is just another budgetary maneuver. Trump wants funding for the wall and for Medicare.

[Godstud]

I'm sorry, @Hindsite. I forgot what cultists were like. Carry on.

[Hindsite]

I'm sorry, @Hindsite. I forgot what cultists were like. Carry on.

You just don't understand the workings in Congress. Poor fella.

[Godstud]

I just won't drink your kool-aid.

[Stormsmith]

I am sure there is no plan to end either Medicare or Medicaid. That is just another one of the scare tactics of the Democrats.

Proof please of both claims.

[jimjam]

If Trump and the billionaire fascists who bankroll the Republicans succeed in destroying the last supports for America’s enfeebled middle class, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid ,not only will the bottom 90 percent of Americans suffer, but what little democracy we have left in this republic will evaporate.

[Hindsite]

If Trump and the billionaire fascists who bankroll the Republicans succeed in destroying the last supports for America’s enfeebled middle class, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid ,not only will the bottom 90 percent of Americans suffer, but what little democracy we have left in this republic will evaporate.

This is pure hysterical scare tactics by the Democrats and it isn't even Halloween yet.
Lighten up.

[Godstud]

[Zag Edit: Rule 2]

[One Degree]

Proof please of both claims.

Asking for proof of a negative? Shame.

[Stormsmith]

No it isnt. It's sensible.

[jimjam]

This is pure hysterical scare tactics by the Democrats and it isn't even Halloween yet.
Lighten up.

Considering that your hero seems to be ok with slicing up "fake news" reporters into body parts, this seemed rather sedate.

[Pants-of-dog]

The USA should be expanding Medicare to cover all citizens.

I have no idea why US conservatives are so opposed to public health care.

[SpecialOlympian]

The USA should be expanding Medicare to cover all citizens.

I have no idea why US conservatives are so opposed to public health care.

Because every penny spent on Medicare can be put back into a rich donor's pocket.

It is pretty cool that old guys like 1° and Hindsite are cheering on a party that explicitly wants to kill them.

[One Degree]

Because every penny spent on Medicare can be put back into a rich donor's pocket.

It is pretty cool that old guys like 1° and Hindsite are cheering on a party that explicitly wants to kill them.

Age probably plays a part. I was brought up to be the ‘provider’. We seemed to have shifted to a lot of people being brought up to see themselves as ‘deserving recipients’. My pride came from providing for my family, not cheating on my taxes, and donating locally. I don’t see myself as ‘deserving’ of anything. My kids are all well off, but they know not to offer me much more than a free meal.

[Stormsmith]

Everyone everywhere in your age group, and maybe more, was brought up to be a provider, but everone understood the need for firemen, police, public schooling, armies etc. America has buckets of publicly owned hospitals. Healthcare is an extension of these services that you need but cannot afford to do as individuals. And the sheer madness is you're paying twice as much to do so.

[One Degree]

Everyone everywhere in your age group, and maybe more, was brought up to be a provider, but everone understood the need for firemen, police, public schooling, armies etc. America has buckets of publicly owned hospitals. Healthcare is an extension of these services that you need but cannot afford to do as individuals. And the sheer madness is you're paying twice as much to do so.

I am all for community health care. I just don’t want the federal government running it. Currently, I object to them paying an army of bureaucrats to choose who is worthy of our combined assistance. Easiest way to cut cost is to eliminate the feds. Their idiocy and corruption raises the cost of everything they touch.
I just asked my doctor why I needed ultra sounds when I then had to get CT scans and I suspected he already knew that. His answer was Medicare would not pay for the latter without the former. Stupid waste.

[jimjam]

Trump’s policies have dramatically increased the deficit trajectory. In January 2017, CBO forecast that the budget deficit in 2018 would be $487 billion if Obama policies were continued by Trump. However, due to Trump’s tax cuts and additional spending, the budget deficit in 2018 was $782 billion, an increase of $295 billion or 60% relative to the Obama baseline.

In January 2017, CBO also forecast the sum of budget deficits (debt additions) for 2018-2027 at $9.4 trillion. In April 2018, CBO updated that forecast, revising their forecast debt addition upward to $13.7 trillion, a $4.3 trillion or 46% increase, assuming current policies continue.

In other words, Trump’s policies added 60% to the 2018 deficit, and 46% to the 10-year forecast debt increase.

Social Security has brought in about $3 trillion more in revenue than has been paid out for that program, so claims it has driven the deficit to this point are entirely backward. We can remove the cap on the payroll tax (currently $128,400) thus raising taxes on the top 6% of wage earners, to bring in $200 billion/year (1% GDP) and cover 70% of the shortfall for the next 75 years. Raising the payroll tax rate about 1% would cover the remainder.

Republicans lie and say income tax cuts pay for themselves to convince people to support a tax cuts for the rich (upward redistribution) economic strategy. We're better off raising taxes on the rich to pay for college and healthcare.

[One Degree]

Healthcare and education were both affordable up till the feds stepped in to ‘make it better’. Why do you keep looking to the feds to solve problems they created? The solution to anything is to get it out of their hands first.
I am sure many watched our Senators in action during the Kavanaugh hearings. Why expect those lying, vindictive, corrupt idiots to solve anything? Congress is broken. They can’t even fix themselves.

[Zagadka]

Which is totally why the US spends more per capita for worse treatment than the rest of the developed world, right?

[blackjack21]

Personally, as I have said, I would be bankrupt or dead without SS and Medicare.

You do realize that Medicare funds go straight into the healthcare system, not into your pocket, right? Medicare is their way of getting that next billion dollars. You may not realize it, but that's what they are doing. Medicare is what made health care costs skyrocket well past the rate of inflation from its inception. You should be thanking young workers for your healthcare, because that's who's paying for it. It is not any cheaper.

And it is true that if social security was dismantled today, all the people who were depending on it and who have paid into it would suffer more than if social security was not dismantled.

Nobody "pays into" Social Security. It is pay-as-you-go. There is no actual account with all the money you've paid in Social Security taxes. Every dollar of it is already spent. You are ultimately relying on the next generation of workers to pay for you.

Actually, it is unreasonable to assume that the care of the elderly will always improve, no matter what budget changes are made.

As robots replace human workers, it will continue to improve.

Do you have any evidence that would indicate that Trump and his administration are planning to replace the money they steal from social security?

Social Security doesn't have any money. There is nothing to steal.

:lol: He's already doing it.

Hindsite is talking about Social Security retirement benefits. SSDI should be slashed. There are way too many people on it who are not disabled at all. We need to prosecute fraudulent doctors and patients and put them in jail.

Do you know you can qualify for alcoholism, drug addiction, and mental disorder?

Yep. Smoke meth and all your teeth fall out, and the government comes with more money. Live responsibly and obey the law and the government comes and takes your money. SSDI is not the way to handle that sort of thing. It is just a scam.

If it wasn't for Medicare, not this trump of god crap, I would be bankrupt.

However, you don't care about the cost of Medicare and the tax burden it places on everyone else. As long as you get yours, you don't have to care. The health system still gets their billions, and will until the country cannot afford it anymore--and we're basically there now.

People bought and paid for Medicaid and for their SS.

No. They did not. They accepted higher taxes, with the promise that in the future other people would face high taxes to pay them benefits. Neither Social Security or Medicare are insurance or contracts. It is strictly pay-as-you-go.

If Trump and the billionaire fascists who bankroll the Republicans succeed in destroying the last supports for America’s enfeebled middle class, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid ,not only will the bottom 90 percent of Americans suffer, but what little democracy we have left in this republic will evaporate.

What's hurt the middle class is free trade. Trump is the ONLY politician that has proposed not running massive trade deficits with communist dictatorships and shipping all of our manufacturing jobs offshore. The reason Social Security and Medicare are in trouble is because American workers don't have those jobs anymore in a pay-as-you-go system, and the Chinese slave laborers do not have to pay FICA taxes.

The USA should be expanding Medicare to cover all citizens.

I have no idea why US conservatives are so opposed to public health care.

Medicare is already nearly broke. There is no way we could afford it until we start doing things like making sure Americans pay the same or less for American-made pharmaceuticals than any other countries who buy them. Right now, we subsidize the world. We need to stop that. Trump has talked about that too.

However, due to Trump’s tax cuts and additional spending, the budget deficit in 2018 was $782 billion, an increase of $295 billion or 60% relative to the Obama baseline.

Deficits have to be weighed against GDP growth. Obama added more debt than all previous presidents combined, and you were just fine with it, so I'm not too convinced you are upset with Trump's budget.

Republicans lie and say income tax cuts pay for themselves to convince people to support a tax cuts for the rich (upward redistribution) economic strategy. We're better off raising taxes on the rich to pay for college and healthcare.

No. We are not. We are better of deregulating healthcare and forcing competition to drive prices down. We are better off with an investment tax credit to automate healthcare service delivery everywhere possible. We are better off automating college and university courses with online class, using physical resources for labs, hand-on work and test taking only--driving the cost of education through the floor. We are most definitely not better off directing taxes to bloated 19th Century style bureaucracies that could not stand on their own without government regulations and oligarchy protecting them.

Healthcare and education were both affordable up till the feds stepped in to ‘make it better’. Why do you keep looking to the feds to solve problems they created?

Some people need to find someone to blame for their own problems, and consequently are relieved from actually having to arrive at a solution. I figured out how the higher education system worked when I was working on B2B e-commerce in higher ed. I learned how the American Council on Education, the College Board, the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, etc. actually worked. With that knowledge, I was able to complete a 4-year accredited bachelors degree in about 18 months, with a 4.0 GPA and summa cum laude honors. You can definitely take a more relaxed approach than I did, as I would feel nausea at the mere sight of a text book after that experience. The higher education system today is a lot like monasteries before the Reformation--they control tons of real estate and capital, but it is so poorly and inefficiently allocated. We need a Henry VIII type figure to stamp them out, seize their assets, put the slothful pseudo-intellects to the sword and arrive at a substantially more efficient system with life-long learning.

Why expect those lying, vindictive, corrupt idiots to solve anything?

They can't. The government is designed for a world that no longer exists.