Speaking to a crowd at the annual convention of the Federalist Society, an influential organization of conservative and libertarian lawyers, McConnell is among friends. They are happy to hear him declare, "Americans want less government, less spending and less debt."
Then the senator tells them what his party is going to do to bring the runaway federal budget under control. "We will vote to freeze and cut discretionary spending," he vows.
What is important is not so much what is said but what is omitted. The four biggest items in the federal budget are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and defense. And those programs escape any mention from McConnell.
They make up about 60 percent of the federal budget. Domestic discretionary outlays, by contrast, account for only about 16 percent. If Republicans focus entirely on those, they will be sending a clear and quite believable message: We're not serious.
It is tempting to think the Tea Partiers will force the party to finally live up to their promises of frugality. But the evidence suggests they are engaged in a task akin to plowing the sea.
Republicans have had chance after chance to be serious about government spending, and they've blown it every time, meaning the only choices we've ever had at the polls have been bigger government or slightly smaller bigger government. I think this really is the GOP's
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Nah. This is a Lucy/Charlie Brown football situation.
The federal budget includes what? Are there several budgets or just one? In 1984 Congress passed legislation making it illegal to pass a unified budget. This meant that there is a General Budget that is supported by general revenues such as estate taxes, income taxes, corporate taxes, excise taxes, gift taxes and excludes all FICA taxes.
There is the Social Security budget composed of two separate dedicated taxes (10.6% and 1.8%) that pay for SS-DI and SS-OASI.
There is the Medicare budget composed of 2.9% payroll tax, 25% of the program paid by beneficiaries in premiums, co-pay and deductible and 25% from General revenues.
Pretty straight forward, three distinct budgets and dedicated tax revenues for each budget. General revenues can not by law be use to pay Social Security benefits just as Social Security taxes cannot be used to pay for general budget items. Social Security by law cannot borrow money!
Medicare cannot by law cannot borrow money and mathematically is legislatively limited to a maximum budget of 5.8% of payroll!
The $1.6 Trillion deficit in 2010 was not caused by Social Security or Medicare, but by general budget items. Yet, the commission as well as the Federalist Society present that Social Security and Medicare must be rained in to fix the deficit. This is so far from the truth, that is no different than the Bernie Maddoff con. Pay no attention to the idiots presenting the budget numbers for they speak with fork tongue.
The only way to fix the "National Deficit" is to fix the general budget and its dedicated taxes. To fix the inequities of Social Security is impossible because the money that boomers have paid in all these years has gone to pay benefits to previous cohorts. This is the definition of a ponzi scheme. How do you do you compensate boomers for the excessive taxes they have paid and lower benefits being proposed without placing the burden on some other cohort? The answer is you cannot. It is no different in trying to get a thief who has robbed you and spent all your money. You can never be compensated.
Medicare and Social Security will implode upon themselves and have no direct affect on the deficit unless congress decides once again to pass something akin to the Earned Income Tax Credit or the Make Work Pay act, both compensate workers for high FICA taxes using General Revenues.
To me the first thing that needs to be done is to look at three separate budgets, not one unified budget.