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I had a look at your source material
here
I think that your source has not fully interpreted the material that they got from the Congressional Budget Office
here

There are 2 observations that can be made from the CBO data that were left out on allegromedia that I think are relevant to this discussion.

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer (not poorer relative to the rich but absolutely poorer.)
see CBO stats in the table named 'Average Pretax Family Income (In 1995 dollars)' (compare highest quintile to lowest quintile, 1977 to 1999[projected] )

While the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, the tax burden on the wealthiest is decreasing over time.
see CBO stats in the table named 'Effective Total Federal Tax Rate (In percent)' (examine the tax burden for the top 1% from 1977 to 1999 [projected] )

Here's an easy way to make the problem obvious even intuitively. When tax cuts create a deficit, the extra money you "save" isn't being given to you by the government anymore. It's being given to you by say, a chinese banker.

You have got to be kidding me! Is this what they're teaching in economics courses now? When you have more money due to a tax cut, you're not being given the money by anyone. You're just keeping more of your own money! How do you figure a Chinese bank is giving me money?

I'm not saying gov't spending isn't a problem, but neither the deficit nor the total debt is exceptionally high right now as a percentage of gdp

Your taxes are not lower. The Bush administration has failed to cut spending to pay their tax cuts ...

Seriously though, I understand that we'll eventually have to "pay the piper", but the situation may not be as dire as you believe. Table 2 of this document shows that the debt as a percentage of gdp is not exceptionally high right now.

And I think an economist would also tell you that a growing economy will increase tax revenue without a tax rate increase and that at least in theory a tax rate cut could spark economic growth and actually increase tax revenue. (I don't have enough evidence to say that happened with this tax cut, but according to the cob data we took in more in 2005 than 2004).

1) Don't confuse Deficit with Debt.
2) Take a look at Debt held by the Public, not including Intragovernmental Holdings.

For the lazy (from your very own site):

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpdodt.htm

scroll down to the bottom. Notice a trend during the Clinton years?

Here's another one for you:

http://www.cbo.gov/budget/historical.pdf

People like you are the reason this country treats money like a dot-com most of the time.

The reality is that Clinton cut the same deal with Greenspan that greenspan had with bush (I will lower the interest rate if you lower the deficit). Clinton, like poppa bush, complied and paid attention to gov. deficits.

Which view you choose to take is semantics. Personally, I define "Federal spending" as "how do they spend the money they take from me and my employer." So I would include SS and medical programs in my view of the Federal budget. Some people like to argue that SS and medical programs give money directly back to citizens. But then you open up all sorts of arguments about direct economic effects and indirect economic effects. It's really not worth arguing about since it's highly unlikely said argument will change anyone's minds. The numbers are all there once you add the SS, medicare, and medicaid figures. Just interpret them as you please.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the total US Federal Budget for 2006 was projected to be approximately $2,507 Billion. Of that, defense is $438 Billion, Social Security is $540 Billion, Medicare is $380 Billion, and Medicaid is $193 Billion. Social welfare dwarfs military spending now, and it will skyrocket over the next 30 years or so as the US baby boom generation is starting to retire.

Still, $438 Billion is all weapons, right? Well... no. Depending on the year, Defense spending, is about 23% for personnel (pay, benefits), 31% for operations and maintenance (fuel & parts), and 15% for R&D. Procurement is a stunning 18%. That is about 3% of the total Federal budget. But not even all of that 3% goes to buying weapons. A sizable chunk of it goes to ship building for the Navy, for example. Another chunk goes to buying ammo. There are plenty of other things, like fire fighting equipment, periscopes, and pollution control equipment, night vision gear, and construction equipment.

The Federal budget also doesn't include state income taxes for which an even smaller percentage is going to go for defense related expenses. City and county taxes don't contribute anything either.

Overall, a minute percentage of American taxes goes to new weapons.

(I guess protest signs wouldn't look so scary if they complained that the US spent 1.6% of its Federal budget on weapons.)

You really might want to read This first... 64% of total sounds more than just a bit too big of a number, 'mano. (the site you supplied may explain why... I'm not Bush's greatest fan or anything, but man - propaganda is propaganda, no matter what side you view it from)

/P

If the government didn't force companies to pay social security taxes, do you really think they'd pass it on to the employees? That 7.5% isn't money taken away from you, it is money taken away from them.

Besides, the effective tax rate quoted by the poster, actually taken from this report (pdf warning), not this one, takes social security into account (see table, page 3).

I wonder what type of turnout it will be when the UHF/VHF Bands go to auction. Even though the transition to all digital was to be completed this year. Completing the Transition to Digital Television ... It doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon. We need to get away from 2.4ghz - way to crowded. Local ISPs are running freq. hoping on the full band, with illegal boosting ( >1watt) and claim otherwise when we complain about too much noise on a particular channel. Give me more freq!

From Wikipedia:

An accumulated deficit over several years (or centuries) is referred to as the government debt. Often, a certain part of spending is dedicated to paying of debt with certain maturity, which can be refinanced by issuing new government bonds. That is, a fiscal deficit leads to an increase in an entity's debt to others. A deficit is a flow. And a debt is a stock. Debt is essentially an accumulated flow of deficits.

The current national Debt is on the order of 8.3 trillion. The projected 2005 budget deficit was about $362 billion. Using the projections in the given link, the additional acculated debt since the beginning of the Iraq war has been 1.214 trillion (not counting the 2006 projections).

http://www.techlawjournal.com/cong108/ippa/2004100 7notes.asp [techlawjournal.com]
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5989&sequence =0 [cbo.gov]

Could it be "H.R. 2391
Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2004
As reported by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on October 7, 2004"?

If it is, take a careful look at titles V and VI. Both look good on the surface.

Please, someone give us more information than the above. I flew off the handle and called my congressman halfway through RTFAing, got asked for a bill number, and couldn't find anything that supported the article. Any ideas on what to tell 'em to look out for? Where is this bill, what if anything has changed since the senate version, etc? Please, give me more stuff before I call my work-area congressman.

PS: People, call your local offices and email your congressmen/congresswomen when someone gives us some usable information. Call the local office, and you'll be the only one talking to his local staff about this issue, and they're probably more likely to pass things up the chain than the DC staff.

(Note: IANA congressional staffer, just someone that trusts local folk more than DC interns and lawyers.)

http://www.techlawjournal.com/cong108/ippa/2004100 7notes.asp
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5989&sequence =0

Could it be "H.R. 2391
Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2004
As reported by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on October 7, 2004"? If it is, take a careful look at titles V and VI. Both look good on the surface.

I flew off the handle and called my congressman halfway through RTFAing, got asked for a bill number, and couldn't find anything that supported the article. Any ideas on what to tell 'em to look out for?

PS: People, call your local offices and email your congressmen/congresswomen when someone gives us some usable information. Call the local office, and you'll be the only one talking to his local staff about this issue, and they're probably more likely to pass things up the chain than the DC staff.

(Note: IANA congressional staffer, just someone that trusts local folk more than DC interns and lawyers.)

So if we're developing lasers that shoot down missiles "half a world away" why on earth are we also developing a missile defense system that uses other missiles to shoot down incoming ballistics?

The airborne laser is a boost-phase system for in-theater (it can only hit things above its horizon). The "missile defense" you are thinking of, using ground-based interceptors and radars, is also boost-phase, but is typically conceived as being located much farther away, using long-range interceptors.

There are also ideas to provide mid-course and terminal defenses. The hope is that anything that gets through one layer will get caught by the next one.

Not being a big fan of NASA's big spending and HUGE blunders (losing 40% of the shuttle fleet to accidents isn't a particularly good record; crashing probes into Mars due to units conversion is so freshman), I'd prefer that Congress starts cutting 10% per year from NASA until they get their act together. It's time they realize that they're not going to get billions to go to Europa, put humans on the ISS for negligible gain, and return to the moon for the sake of being there. The mentality of NASA needs a major makeover: start acting like an agency with a limited budget and getting the best bang for the buck. Show the public more of this (e.g., Voyager, Hubble), and we may be more inclined to support the agency.

Unfortunately, nobody in Congress wants to fry the big fish when it comes to deficit woes: entitlements. Sadly, chopping NASA is a drop in the bucket by comparison. FYI, the CBO predicts that "Mandatory spending" (entitlements) will increase from $1.3T in 2005 to $2.5T by 2016, while discretionary spending (NASA, defense, highways, etc) over the same period will only increase from $968B to $1.2T. Yes, the accuracy can be questioned, but it's a datapoint, nonetheless. Source: CBO Budget Projections

This seems to indicate that income tax makes up at least a plurality of revenue.

While you may have a 10th amendment argument, the Constitution that SCOTUS uses does not include a 10th amendment, so good luck with that one. Further, "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States" has been interpretted to include education. Art I, Sec. 8.

In any case, education is roughly 2% of spending.

Some quotes from the President's speech announcing the end of major combat operations in Iraq:

• We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We're bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous.
• The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done.
• Our mission continues. Al Qaeda is wounded, not destroyed. The scattered cells of the terrorist network still operate in many nations, and we know from daily intelligence that they continue to plot against free people.

CBO has no basis for estimating other costs that might be associated with a conflict with Iraq such as the costs for coalition war fighting, reconstruction or foreign aid that the United States might choose to extend after a conflict ends, or assistance to casualties, including those that might result from the enemy's use of weapons of mass destruction.

Though admittedly they had no idea how expensive post-war operations in Iraq would be, this clearly shows they anticipated significant and difficult to estimate costs after the initial fighting, which Congress and the White House were aware of before use of force was authorized.

If anyone is guilty of not anticipating the mess in Iraq, it is the American public. I believe the President's words and actions clearly show that he had a pretty good idea of how difficult Iraq would be, but that he thought it would be worth the sacrifice. That may be more disturbing to people than the idea that it was mere miscalculation, but I believe that a few more years will show whether he was right.

According to the CBO, effective total Federal tax rates on the lowest 20 million income earners (avg. income $14,800) is 4.8%, and the next lowest 20 million income earners (avg. income $34,100) have an effective Federal tax rate of 9.8%. This is a total of Federal taxes including payroll and excise taxes. Income taxes for both of these quintiles is actually negative because of the Earned Income Tax Credit.

The top 20 million income households (avg. income $180,500) pay 25% effective total Federal Tax rate. The top 1% of income earning households pay a 31.4% effective total Federal tax rate.

Yeah, but how many billions is their currently-used chunk of spectrum worth on the open market?

It's generally sold at auction so the price isn't known until it's sold. Contrary to the statement elsethread, the $2B number is not an esimate of the value of this spectrum, but an (approximate) number from a previous auction. Unfortunately, the most recent projection I've found from the congressional budget office is quite old, but here is a more recent analysis from a decidedly interested (though hardly impartial) party.

A budget surplus is not the same as national debt, smart guy. http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1821&sequence =0 this shows the annual budget. In 2004 we had a 412 billion dollar deficit. Needless to say, an $8 trillion budget deficit would pretty much do us in, since our GDP in 2004 was on the order of $11 trillion.

LK

Check out the Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005. Its goal appears to be to threaten and endanger species. It was initiated by Richard Pombo (R-Cal), who is well known for his support of miners and loggers as well as his fight against the spotted owl.

• Sierra Club
• Biological Diversity
• Plant Societies

Or, if you don't like the House version, how about Collaboration and Recovery of Endangered Species Act (S. 2110) in the Senate, initiated by Mike Crapo (R-ID). The Republicans definitely seem to be consistent.

• Biological Diversity

The proof of increased lifespan (and not just lack of infant mortality) is the potential crisis in pensions in the western world. People were expected to live only 5-10 years after retirement. People now routinely live 20-25 years and some even 30 or more.

Correct in principle, but not in the details. Over the last 100 years, life expectancy at age 65 in the US has been increasing at a linear rate of about one month per year. Other industrialized countries may have rates of increase somewhat higher or lower than that. Compared to someone starting to draw Social Security in 1940, today's retiree at age 65 has an expected "years to live" that's only about six years longer, not 15. Studies done in the early years of Social Security included this effect -- the 1940 forecasts of how long people would live in the 1990s were almost exactly correct. A bigger effect on pension economics is the fraction of the population that reaches retirement age. Industrialized countries are safer places than they were 100, or even 50, years ago. Fewer people die in their 40s and 50s. While more people live long enough to claim SS benefits, those same people also make contributions for many more years.

The SS "crisis" in the US is overstated. An interesting place to start is the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office's "A 125-Year Picture of the Federal Government's Share of the Economy, 1950 to 2075", which can be found online here. Using today's benefit formulas, SS expenses as a fraction of the national economy are predicted to stabilize at just over 6% of GDP (Figure 2 summarizes this nicely). I claim that we can afford this. According to this study, by 2075, by far the largest single component of the federal budget will be interest on the debt.

Essentially the whole manned space program, in its current incarnation, is technical corporate welfare. Most (not all, but most) research could be conducted by robotic craft for cheaper. However, it is "manned spaceflight" that sells to the public (with the exception of a few high-profile robotic craft, such as the MERs), and allows space programs to get the money that they need for real science**.

The question is, however: would it be better that money be thrown at shuttle/ISS, or some other manned program, and if so, what? If you think the cost overruns on a space station in LEO are high, wait till you see the cost overruns on a Mars mission. Did you like Apollo? In modern dollars, it cost an average of $13.5b/yr (NASA's current entire annual budget is $16.2b/yr). The space shuttle currently gets about $750m/yr spent on it, half of that is general and applied research (i.e., some applies only to the shuttle, some applies to rocketry in general), the other half operations, and even if you assume that the shuttle is *twice* as expensive to operate as other launch vehicles (an overestimate), you're looking at a surcharge to the public of under $200m-$600m/yr (depending on how much of the research money you count). Shuttle development, spread over its expected lifespan, totals about $1b/yr (also in modern dollars). As for ISS, it's about $3b/yr over its expected lifespan, although we don't pay that entire tab; also note that about half of the research that goes on in ISS is privately funded.

Think a Mars mission will come this cheap when all is said and done? Not the slightest chance. It'll overrun worse than ISS. ISS overruns are largely due to things that we thought would be easy turning out to be much more difficult. Well, there is *far* more potential for that on a Mars mission, where you can't just pop up a resupply vehicle.

If one cares about getting real science and technological advancements done, they should give the public what they want for as cheaply as possible. I think the CEV may be a good step in that; the Moon/Mars mission isn't, really, although it does make a nice inspiring thing to tell your grandchildren about. ;)

For anyone curious about where NASA plans to spend their money, this page has some interesting charts.

** - There are important things that are developed by the manned programs, to be sure - in fact, these often tend to have the most direct impacts here on earth (simple, portable medical equipment; water treatment; etc). Also, technologies that do eventually allow a long-term human presence in space at affordable prices will take a lot of pratice to get right - look at how difficult it's been to make a long-term usable water electrolysis system that works in space, for example (and "refining" processes don't get much easier than water electrolysis - just wait until we try all of the steps needed to produce, say, aluminum offworld). In general, however, as far as gathering knowledge goes, robotic craft are far, far more cost efficient.

But if our debt to income ratio (currently 50%! Nationwide we spend $150 for every $100 we earn!)

Source? That seems implausibly high. The median income is something like $35k, I find it difficult to believe that the median spending is $50k.

This first table shows the Apollo Budget over its entire lifespan, including, at the bottom, the percentage Apollo made of the entire NASA budget:
Apollo Budget

Make sure you convert the numbers given into 2005 dollars:
Inflation

This link give the entire budgeting report from last year for NASA. About halfway down, you'll find Figure 1-1 : the second graph has the numbers calculated in terms of 2005 dollars. While these numbers don't explicitly separate manned spaceflight from robotic missions, there's a table near the bottom that does.
Current Budget

To answer your question, at the height of Apollo, NASA was running at $26 billion 2005 dollars, while today they're running at about $16 billion. We have launches on a regular basis, and are monitoring not only the new stuff (like Cassini around Saturn), but also the stuff launched in the 60's (like certain Moon experiments, the Voyager satellites, etc). In short, NASA is *far* more efficient now than they could possibly have been back then. We're doing much more science for far less money.

If you look about halfway down, you'll see that the budget of the CEV is far outweighed by NASA's other activities, as well as being less than the amount budgeted for the Space Shuttle.

"The short time we've been in Iraq so far has accrued 192B$ in direct costs (and this doesn't count things like the economic recession from the uncertainty leading up to it, the effects of the oil shortage afterwards, the economic loss of the removal of so many reserves, etc). This also doesn't count the rapid DOD growth, which is not included; we now spend half of the world's total military spending."

Bullshit-- The "recession" was there when Clinton was in office and 9/11 made it worse, that had NOTHING to do with the War. The economy is quite good or haven't you noticed it (assumes you live in the USA).

Oil Shortage? So the shortage from Katrina and instability in places like Nigeria and the threats from Venezuala and the fact the rest of the Persian Gulf is pumping at the max already is a result of the War? How about the fact that CHINA grew 6% last year, and that takes energy (oil).

Economic Loss from Reservist? Don't you know BY LAW these guys have to be given their jobs back? The unemployment rate is 4.9% and the economy is growing, totally contrary to your "gloom and doom"

DOD growth has been occuring but it is part of a cycle, the last 10-12 yrs the DOD SHRANK. So that shortfall in weapons systems has to be made up if we want to continue as the sole superpower.

I doubt we spend 50% of the defense budget of the world as noboy knows how much the Chinese spend and that is a BIG number.

Umm..GWB DID cut taxes during a war and the economhy is doing well, more than paying for the war.

Like I said the $50M they needed in NO could have been found somewhere out of SOME budget. I need to dig a little deeper but I bet they were other COE projects that got full funds, why, I dont know perhaps they were considered higher priority?

As for spending..go see http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1944&sequence =0
Which shows total Social Program spending in the USA in 2004 of 191B not counting Meidcare of 176B and Medicaid of $265B. The Defense Spending which includes the War was 486B. Social programs outspend DOD by over $100B. Regardless of what other want to say, the war costs are NOT off the books, they have to be paid and the numbers from the CBO show the full costs allocated to the DOD. In the FY06 Budget a supplemental "plus-up" of $75B is allocated to the DOD for the War on Terror (Iraq & Afghanistan will get 90% of this money).

One of the continual options the OMB lists at budget is to stop subsidizing insurance on repeatedly flooded properties at a cost of a couple hundred million every year.

See http://www.cbo.gov/bo2003/bo2003_showhit1.cfm?inde x=450-05

You're right, they have started trying to charge more realistic estimates of insurance recently, but they still have all those grandfathered structures that they subsizide.

They also keep rebuilding destroyed structures. That's the real loss, when they let people build their newly re-insured structure in the same place the last one got washed away and get the same insurance again.

One of the continual options the OMB lists at budget is to stop subsidizing insurance on repeatedly flooded properties at a cost of a couple hundred million every year.

See http://www.cbo.gov/bo2003/bo2003_showhit1.cfm?inde x=450-05

You're right, they have started trying to charge more realistic estimates of insurance recently, but they still have all those grandfathered structures that they subsizide.

They also keep rebuilding destroyed structures. That's the real loss, when they let people build their newly re-insured structure in the same place the last one got washed away and get the same insurance again.

If you're really interested, you can see exactly what NASA's budget entails for the Space Shuttle here:
A Budgetary Analysis of NASA's New Vision for Space Exploration
The link for the next five years is the interesting one:
NASA's Current Five-Year Plan and Extended Budget Projection
You can see how the funding for the shuttle is decreased fairly quickly while the funding for the Crew Exploration Vehicle increases. The main reason the shuttle hasn't already been dismantled is because of our commitment to the International Space Station. The Russian Progress ship is okay, but can only ferry a couple people at once. In order to fully staff the ISS, the Space Shuttle is required.

If you're really interested, you can see exactly what NASA's budget entails for the Space Shuttle here:
A Budgetary Analysis of NASA's New Vision for Space Exploration
The link for the next five years is the interesting one:
NASA's Current Five-Year Plan and Extended Budget Projection
You can see how the funding for the shuttle is decreased fairly quickly while the funding for the Crew Exploration Vehicle increases. The main reason the shuttle hasn't already been dismantled is because of our commitment to the International Space Station. The Russian Progress ship is okay, but can only ferry a couple people at once. In order to fully staff the ISS, the Space Shuttle is required.

The link for the next five years is the interesting one:
NASA's Current Five-Year Plan and Extended Budget Projection

About halfway down is a comparison of the 2004 and 2005 budgets. You can see that the increase is only $292 million, a small fraction of the overall budget. If you compare NASA's current funding with the funding from the Apollo Era (adjusting for inflation) you'll see that the funding levels are on a very similar footing. Of course in those days NASA's funding was about 4% of the federal budget, while today NASA is significantly less than 1%.

The point, however, is that this program is not increasing NASA's funding by much at all, which is its main selling point. That's why Bush Sr.'s plan failed miserably; it would have required about a 33% increase in NASA's funding. So yes, it's a very long range plan, but most analysts believe it has a very high chance of success.

The link for the next five years is the interesting one:
NASA's Current Five-Year Plan and Extended Budget Projection

About halfway down is a comparison of the 2004 and 2005 budgets. You can see that the increase is only $292 million, a small fraction of the overall budget. If you compare NASA's current funding with the funding from the Apollo Era (adjusting for inflation) you'll see that the funding levels are on a very similar footing. Of course in those days NASA's funding was about 4% of the federal budget, while today NASA is significantly less than 1%.

The point, however, is that this program is not increasing NASA's funding by much at all, which is its main selling point. That's why Bush Sr.'s plan failed miserably; it would have required about a 33% increase in NASA's funding. So yes, it's a very long range plan, but most analysts believe it has a very high chance of success.

The national deficit is at around 7 trillion dollars.

OK... sure, if we add in interest on the debt ($160.2 billion out of a $1880.1 billion in revenue in 2004 according to CBO: http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1821&sequence =0 )
you get another 8% or so. Even taking my original 27% number (and I SOOO agree with you about BATF and DEA being things that should be cut) that would only bring us to %35 of revenue at the federal level.

At the state level I pay sales taxes in the neighborhood of 6.25% ( the localities can layer on another 2%, but I'm willing to count that into local fire and police and roads even though I suspect it's paying for other things).

Look at it this way. The government services I use from the federal government are:

• Highways (paid for by the gas tax)
• Defense ( 24.1% of federal outlays)

• State roads (paid for by state gas tax)

• Local roads (paid for by property tax)
• Police, Fire, etc (paid for by local property tax

I don't see how NY taxing a TN resident is all that different...

Just looked it up, and spending percent of GDP has been more of an up-down roller-coaster than anything else. There is a 125 year CBO projection graph that illustrates it going up from the 50's low of 15% to the mid 80's peak of 23%, then declining gradually to the present 18%, projecting a future rise. (CBO predictions being much less reliable than historical numbers.)

The range between 15% and 23% isn't a huge one, though, and probably has more to do with how well the economy was growing (since that has fluctuated a lot) than the spending increase level (since that has been a more steady upward trend, although the Republican Congress of the early 90's held increases down to as low as 28 billion some years).

I would simply respond with a look at budget surpluses and deficits from the 60's through today. Try out my untrustworthy biased liberal sources.

Stays pretty decent until *shock* 1983! Then it gets better in *shock* the mid 90's! It drops off a cliff again in *shock* 2002!

No, no pattern at all there. Nope. [AHEM...Tax Cuts, Iraq Wars, Arms Race...AHEM]

I believe the parent is talking about the year to year budget surplus Bush was handed when Clinton left office.

That would be The positive numbers in the first two data columns.

And, since this is a historical document maintained by the government... hopefully you will accept that it does indeed reflect the reality of the past.

If you look closely you will see positive numbers across the board for 1999, 2000 and 2001.

Bush took office in 2001 and the first budget from his tenure took affect "officially" that October. It has been down hill since then.

This article is filled with wild inaccuracies. I am not saying this as a fan of any particular Social Security Reform scheme, I know that the President's Reform is as full of misdirection and incorrect information as this piece is.

While normally I respect the New York Times, they have gone astray with this piece. The author is clearly a "status quo" defender of Social Security, and has failed to present something that is at all balanced.

Some of the most glaring problems:

1. The Social Security Trust Fund is a series of IOU's from the Treasury. There is no cash reserve that can be tapped into at will. In 2019 when we start going into the Trust Fund we will need to either cut spending, increase taxes, or issue more debt to meet those requirements. For many this means that the Social Security Trust Fund does not exist save on paper. There is no force (besides the political force) that demands that we pay back those IOU's. While they currently have the force of law, Congress can always change its mind. Many, like myself, believe that this promise is binding (making the trust fund more binding than critics maintain), it is in no way a bank account full of several trillion dollars waiting to be tapped into. If you want to read a somewhat technical offical document on this stuff check out this CBO report. The CBO works for both parties in Congress, so it is generally non-partisan.

2. He mentions in 2042 that we will have enough money coming in to pay 75% of promised benefits. Look to your parents or grandparents and ask them if they would take a 25% cut in their Social Security benefits so that the program may exist when you are their age. 95% of them will laugh at you. There is no way that they will take this cut. Given that the "grey" or "entitlement" lobby will be even larger then it is today, and given that they are already the most powerful voting bloc in the country, expect tax increases .. in fact expect them in 2019.

3. Up until the massive inflation of the 1970's, Social Security benefits were indexed against inflation. Unfortunately this overpromised benefits, so they moved to the slower growing wage index.

Inflation index: Checks grew to provide the same buying power.
Wage Index: Checks grow to keep up with wages.

At this point, wages are outpacing inflation (but god knows that current policy could lead to trying to "inflate" our way out of the debt) and it is reasonable to move to inflation index since it guarantees that seniors have the same buying power .. even if they will get fewer benefits in the future.

4. He goes off to mock the 10 year estimates of the Social Security Actuaries saying that only their most optimistic estimates were accurate. He then uses this to defend the idea that they are overstating the problem. He ignores that those 10 years were an unprecedented period of economic growth, and that if we want a secure retirement fund we can't always bet on the long shot. Even worse, he then later talks about how conservatives overestimate the stock market returns of privatization because their numbers include the boom of the 90's. As if he isn't using the same optimism when discussing how low the SSA estimates were. He can't have it both ways .. denying the data to the privatizers, and then using it to deny the SSA's reports.

5. Privatization has major challenges associated with it, and a carve-out method (the one where we start private accounts by running up deficits) is especially horrifying, but without privatization of some sort Social Security will always be a Pay As You Go situation where us and our children and our children's children are paying for Grandma and Grandpa to be retired.

6. He talks about how hard it is for the elderly. While this was true in the 30's, the elderly are now the WEALTHIEST AGE DEMOGRAPHIC. It doesn't

And more from the Congressional Budget Office ...annual Social Security outlays exceed revenues starting in 2019, and scheduled benefits cannot be paid beginning in 2053.

Wait, that means there's problems 14 years from now. And major problems in 48 years.

Here's a pretty graph.

And more from the Congressional Budget Office ...annual Social Security outlays exceed revenues starting in 2019, and scheduled benefits cannot be paid beginning in 2053.

Wait, that means there's problems 14 years from now. And major problems in 48 years.

Here's a pretty graph.

What are Democrats saying in response? That there is no financial crisis in Social Security...

Every single person will receive their full benefits of Social Security until the year 2052. After that the pay-out will be at 80%. Where am I getting this information? From the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

First, you're making the wrong assumption that rich people are conservative. I'm sorry, but that's just plain wrong. Look at this. Yes, I know it's from Rush Limbaugh, but I won't accept an ad hominem attack on him. An anecdote: in my state, Wyoming, only one county went for Kerry: Teton county, home of Jackson Hole, which is where all the rich, out-of-state people live. Teton county has about 15,000 residents and 20,000 people employed there (because people can't afford to live there, so they have to commute). Next, journalists are liberals, and they decide what to report. I think it should open some eyes when you have ABC saying they need to hold Bush to a higher standard of truth than Kerry, or when you have the Newsweek editor or publisher (I can't remember which) saying that positive coverage of Kerry is worth 15% (later revised downward to 5%). Sorry, but the data don't fit your proposed explanation, so the explanation has to be wrong.

I think it's important to tell the whole truth. The media never mentions when we open schools, when we open hospitals, when we improve infrastructure, or anything else like that. The media is only telling one side of the Iraq story, and it's the side designed to harm American morale. Why don't they start reporting on the good things that are happening over there as well?

The Kerry by 20 in PA came from early numbers, and Karl Rove was even quoted mentioning it. They had Kerry tied in North Carolina. However, when the exit polls vary far from months of previous polling, that's got to be pretty telling.

John McCain is liberal relative to most other republicans; the same is true with Arlen Spector. However, in general, they're centrists. That final remark was food for thought. Next, Bill Clinton raised the top income tax rate from George H.W. Bush. Also, economically speaking, Bill Clinton is a moderate, and Barry Goldwater was a social conservative (and a nutcase in my opinion. 1964 was the last time that Wyoming went Democrat). Goldwater suggested doing nothing with the taxes, Clinton raised them. However, this whole analogy is flawed: you're comparing apples to oranges here. Furthermore, Bush made the income tax system MORE progressive. Crunch the numbers instead of relying on baseless allegations about how Bush is only taking care of the wealthy.

The figure of 3% overhead for Medicare is correct. Unlike most insurance programs Medicare doesn't pay for marketing and outrageous executive salaries, bonuses and perks. And yes, the SSA is considered a very efficient organization. Having worked with them as a consultant on an IT project, I found them to be as efficient as any large corporation that I've worked with. The problem with SS is due to demographics, not efficiency. The CBO produced a good report on this. The problem that needs to be solved is long term in nature. The real problem doesn't come until mid-century. At the point, if nothing is done, benefits would have to be reduced by 20%, since all past surpluses would have been consumed. It never goes broke in the sense that most people think of it. It would be reduced to paying out what it brings in each year, which would be 80% of projected benefits. Increasing SS payroll taxes by 2% of income, taxing income above the upper cutoff, or a combination of the 2 would eliminate the shortfall.

We need to elect some conservatives that will actually..gasp...spend less then they take in.

PREDICTION: Unless Bush has problems passing a law allowing Corporate America to loot social security (instead of the neo-cons looting it), the "Alert Level" thing is going to quietly fade away.

Wow, troll bait, but I have to bite. If you look at the numbers, you'll see that Social Security has seen a bigger surplus in the first 4 years under Bush than it saw under all 8 years of Clinton.

Click here to see the numbers for yourself.

You'll also see that we only saw one year of REAL surplus under Clinton - 2000. There was an 86.6 billion surplus in the budget. 1.9B the year before, but that's not anything to have a party over.

One other interesting thing you'll see is that the national debt, in terms of GDP, was higher under Clinton than under any other President in the presented data. Under Bush, the national debt has fallen from 49.5% GDP at Clinton's highest point to 36.1% in 2003.

Finally, if you look at total government spending in terms of GDP, we're spending on average less now than we did under Clinton.

According to a Congressional Budget Office report on Medical Malpractice, lawsuits cost the insurance companies $24 billion dollars a year, less than 2 percent of overall health care spending. A reduction of 25 to 30 percent in insurance premiums would only reduce health care costs .4 or .5 percent. Furthmore the report says that it found no evidence that tort reforms reduce defensive medicine.

My understanding is that Reagan ran up a big bill by asking for the "600 ship Navy". Reagan also spent a lot on the Star Wars Missile Defense, which was entirely government fraud, because it could not work with present technology.

My understanding is that Reagan did this to embezzle money for his friends in the weapons industry. Both of these programs were entirely government corruption.

Note that the last few presidents have come from alcohol-influenced families: Reagan was an ACOA. George H.W. Bush is an ACOA. Clinton is an ACOA. (Adult Child of Alcoholics) George W. Bush is an alcoholic.

It amazes me how little people know about the activities of their government. Here are facts that are important now:

Table of U.S. Parties and Economics

Government data shows Democrat and Republican spending patterns.

Furthermore, How will you deal with our budget deficit and reform the GOP's relentless tax cuts and the Democratic Party's exorbanent spending?

Don't you mean "the GOP's relentless tax cuts and exorbanent spending"? The Republicans control the house, senate, and executive -- Democrats aren't spending a pretty penny at the federal level these days.

Look at the figures provided by the congressional budget office: specifically, the outlays as a ratio to GDP. You'll see that Clinton inherited a ratio of about 22.2-22.3, and in his eight years brought that down to 18.6-18.4, the lowest level since 1966. That means that government spending relative to the size the economy was nearly at at 40 year low -- how's that for exorbatant Democratic spending?

Oh yes, that number is on the rise again, as soon as the GOP got a stranglehold on power. Government is growing rapidly under the watch of the "small government" Republicans. Just because they expouse rhetoric doesn't make it true, the facts show that Republicans are worse at creating "Big Government" than the Democrats are.