Peter Suderman on Discusses Fake Budget Cuts on Freedom Watch

[VIVANOVACHICAGO]

Take churches OFF WELFARE

[Itugen88]

Paul/Napolitano 2012!!!

[SuperNache]

We need to cut spending by about 10%GDP if we are going to start paying down the debt. We/re at about 25% and revenues are down to 14% because of the recession. It's usually at about 18%, but even a Balanced Budget Amendment capping spending at 18% won't pay down the debt because Congress will spend every dime it can before it makes payments on anything but interest on the debt.

[SuperNache]

Not to say shouldn't pass a Balanced Budget Amendment. That's a great start, but we need to go even deeper than that.

[Jumpinsnakes]

Come on suderman you know that medicare gets the same results for cheaper than current insurance premiums. And don't talk about closing tax loopholes and decreasing the defense budget which has tripled in 10 years....right.

[almostcapecod]

Whats really funny is when the commentators at Faux that get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year have their own companies write their own books cause Murdoch owns Harper Collins so their set for life and then complain that Social Security may not be there for THEM.Like they need it,if they take it it just really proves how greedy little scum bags they really are

[whatnameisavailablee]

if the gov't being involved with public health were the issue then France should be having the same issues, no?

[MiranUT]

@whatnameisavailablee Yes. And now France has more upward mobility that the USA! What very few people are saying is the spending is going towards war. Even the trillion/year they mention when the wars are brought up is just the tip of the iceberg. Now they can save and keep the 19-year-old veggies alive after suffering head injuries from pizza bombs. Interesting how more soldiers "live" yet the civilian death toll is 90% in "modern" war! But I digress.

[wadams19]

@whatnameisavailablee Do you not remember the riots that swept through France when they were scaling by their social services?

[curtisls87]

@Loathomar, I'm not sure how you can say that, because SS is not the only entitlement program (and is actually not an entitlement program, but tha't debate for another time). Medicare and Medicaid are entitlements programs and come straight out of the federal budget. These are huge costs that are paid directly by taxes, not by FICA.

[Loathomar]

@curtisls87 BS, The FICA is a total Social Security tax 12.4% of wages, and the total Medicare tax 2.9% (combined employee/employer). I am not sure about Medicaid. So, at best you have Medicaid coming out of taxes. I am hoping you are just ignorant and not a complete liar.

[americanbandwidth]

@Loathomar I believe You both are saying the same thing, Curtis87 is saying that it's a ponzi scheme and set up to fail.

You are pointing out, and rightly so, That FICA is the tax he spoke of.

I am sure he was just mistaken.

You both misunderstand one another and agree, I too agree....if that's not confusing enough I'm going to go read the tax code now.

What happened to Al Gore Mortis and the Social Security Lock Box?

"Lies Lies Lies Yeah" - Not just an 80's song and Barry Soetoro's Favorite.

[Loathomar]

@americanbandwidth SS has ~$2.5T in it's trust fund, or so the SS trust fund says, and that is why we could get to ~2037 without changing the system but it would be a horable idea because if we wanted to balance SS in 2037 and we had not changed anything before hand we would either need to raise SS tax by 22% or low SS payments by 22%. Neither are very good, though I would thing both sides will need to change. We will likely need to increase the full SS retirement age to 69 or 70 and...

[Loathomar]

Significantly increase the SS cap of $106,800 and perhaps even a 1% increase in the SS tax rate (from 12.4% to 13.4% which would be a 9% increase). This would be a reasonable way to balance SS, but is has still done nothing to balance the budget in the next ten or even 20 years. SS did not get us into this mess and while it may need changes, it is not going to get us out. It is simply ideological BS, for those who are will to drink the coolaid.

[americanbandwidth]

@Loathomar Pay Attention here people.

This man is saying things You have to pay for in most cases.

[curtisls87]

@Loathomar

Please consider being a bit more polite in your responses. It would, appreciated. Having said that, please note that FICA is a tax, whether we call it that or not. The courts have clearly said that there is no compulsion on the the government to actually pay SS benefits to anyone (it can refuse to pay SS). Additionally, when we pay FICA now, it is used immediately to pay benefits now. Additionally, the cost of these three programs is approximately 60% of the total federal budget.

[Loathomar]

@curtisls87 2010 Federal Budget; $3.553T. SS - $695, medicare - $453B, Medicaid - $290B. Total - $1.438T. $1.438T/$3.553T = 0.405 or 40.5%. Math is hard... right? FICA is a tax that pays for "entitlement' services now and has money left over which goes to the SS trust fund. A fund worth $2.6 trillion. This has been build up since 1987, the last time SS was really changed. It averages out the SS has ran a $100B surplus for the last 23 years where are the general government ran a $400B lose.

[Vegemighty]

Instead of a debt ceiling, can we have a spending ceiling instead?

[CountArtha]

@Vegemighty We did. Cut, Cap and Balance went down in the Senate.

[Terje1337]

@Vegemighty In the future: If we dont raise the spending ceiling we cant pay our bills!

[MooseOfReason]

@Terje1337 Some of those bills aren't worth paying. John Stossel pointed out that we can cut $475 billion from military spending and still provide a strong national defense.

[Terje1337]

@MooseOfReason Read the first comment. This one was a parody

[robertmike57]

Reason why you Koch whores are complaining is because you're scared to death that you'll pay more in taxes.

[nogivenogets1]

@robertmike57 this money wont be coming from taxes it will come from the fed. i'd be more worried about the devaluation of the dollar.

[almostcapecod]

@robertmike57 Especially when most Koch like whores are paying 15% capital gains tax and getting most and more back through loop holes with their hack accountants and the average guy pays several times that no loop holes and no expensive hack accountant to fudge the figures, lucky if we can afford H&R Block.

[PissedFechtmeister]

@almostcapecod The average person pays a 12% federal income tax (people in the bottom half only pay 3%). The top 5% are paying an average 23%. You Progressives should probably look at some facts before spouting off about the alleged breaks that the rich get.

[almostcapecod]

@PissedFechtmeister How is a hedge fund manager taxed ?

[PissedFechtmeister]

@almostcapecod He's taxed via the sweet deal Democrats gave him.

[almostcapecod]

@PissedFechtmeister In 2003 the rate was reduced to 15%.Now who was president that gave them that sweet deal.

[Loathomar]

@PissedFechtmeister And when you add the fact that the top 400 richest pay 17.5% taxes, where the bottom 50% pay 3% federal, on average, and 12.3% to FICA it comes out the the richest 400 american's pay a whole of 2.2% higher taxes on there 10s or 100s of millions then those earning 40k a year. Really, the people that pay the highest rates are not those earning millions but those earn $150k-200k, as they are still earn most of there money from wages and pay almost full FICA.

[TheStrazy]

"Funny math" the act of counting money that isnt there as "savings", Also Spending money that you have to borrow and moving it into the Plus column.

[Loathomar]

The whole "entitlements are the problem" is such BS. We are currently 14.3 trillion in debt and NONE of that has come from entitlement spending. In the last 2 years, it is true that entitlement spending has out passed entitlement taxes slightly in 2010, but then the total government spending was by about 33%. It we where to take all the interest payments paid for non-entitlement spending, it would be more then enough to make SS solvent well past 2060, if not for ever.

[Harbinger631]

@Loathomar Medicare, Medicaid, and pensions eat state and federal budgets now, and will do so exponentially higher in the future due to an aging population. Entitlements are the problem.

[Loathomar]

@Harbinger631 I agree that some point in the future SS will be a problem but it is not the reason we are $14T in debt at all and if we did not have the $14T in debt we could easily fund the gap for at least another 50 years. The $164B we are paying for interest would be a 23% increase to SS, that would be the total difference between the revenue and cost when SS runs out of funds in 2037. SS may need to be changed so we dont have a 22% short fall in 27 years, but it is not the real problem.

[Harbinger631]

@Loathomar Where in my post did I mention anything about Social Security? My post was about entitlements as a whole, specifically Medicare, Medicaid, and pensions. You said that it is BC to think that entitlements are the problem, when the reality is that the three things I mentioned eat the majority of state and federal budgets.

[Loathomar]

@Harbinger631 Oh, right cause talking about pensions even slightly relevant to the raising of the national debt ceiling... If this was a discussion about state budgets, it would be an issue, but its not and they two subject are unrelated. Medicare is still fully funded by it's FICA taxes and will be for the next ten years. This can not be said about the other, non-entitlement sections of government. If entitlements where run like the rest of government they would be trillions in debt already.

[loszhor]

Washington using funny math!? LIES I SAY, LIES!

[tlazaroff]

@loszhor Funny math? I never learned that in school. :)