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osamanobama on 31 July 2011
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Kasz216 said:
Kantor said:
thx1139 said:


Like I said earlier Medicare should be expanded and offered as a choice for people to buy into. The premium would be more than what the tax we pay, but less than private health insurance. Not to mention it takes an act of congress to raise Medicare taxes, where as private insurance it is a guy with a 7 figure salary and benefits, corner office, private bathroom with gold fixtures, couple of yachts, a bentley (or 2) and a villa (or 2) that raises health insurance premiums.

Sure, if you never want to have a balanced budget again.

As you said, Social Security and Medicare both run surpluses, but the surplus decreases every year. Again, as you said, within a few decades, those surpluses will be gone.

Now, cutting Social Security is highly irresponsible, because it is funded by contributions, not even technically by taxation. You are essentially taking money away from everyone in the country by a method other than taxation.

Cutting Medicare is different. Medicare is funded by Payroll Tax. Who says Payroll Tax should only go towards Medicare? I see no reason why it shouldn't subsidise the rest of government spending, because only $950 billion in income tax has to fund the other $2 trillion odd of government spending.

Either payroll or income tax needs to be raised, and if Medicare spending is increased alongside that, the government will be completely broke. Universal healthcare is expensive, and would be even more expensive if not for the fact that quite a few people will still go for private insurance. If you make Medicare optional, nobody wealthy will pay for it (they will get much better care with private insurance) and the poor cannot possibly afford to fund the entire thing.

The best ways to reduce the deficit are to cut defence spending and get rid of Bush's tax cuts, but Medicare needs to take a cut, too. Something like twice as much is being spent on Medicare now as in 2000.

Forgive me if any of the above is completely wrong. I don't live in the USA, so this is just what I understand of how Medicare and Social Security work.

I would actually argue that Medicare and Social Security DON'T run surpluses now.

Though that's just my opinion as someone who comes from a union family.

The average person collects three times what is paid for each person... meaning the US government is NOT meeting their fiscal burden.

If the US were a private company they'd be blasted left, right and central.

Really the best way to look at it is that we are 11% over budget.

 

Really getting rid of the Bush tax cuts wouldn't even begin to dent that.  The Democrats just want to pass it because it would be one political win they could get out of the giant mass of failure they're being forced to take on due to reckless spending.

 

 

also not to mention that letting people keep their own money doesnt add to the deficit, but pretending it does.

government never gets the amount in revenue that they predict from tax increases, and in this case getting rid of the obama tax cuts (we had i vote on these tax rates not to long ago, i seem to remember obama was in office, and he suported it along with his super majorities in both houses of congress) changes behavior people shift their money around, also businesses will be less productive, higher less people, etc, therefor will pay less taxes, than say they had a thriving business with lots of employees. so raising taxes would not only have a detremental impact on economic growth but tax revenue too (there will be a ever so slight increase in tax revenue, though it wont even put a scratch on a microscopic dent on our debt)