11 days until your SS checks might be interrupted

Pretty sure I didn't

 

It's all you gave me to work with

 

I guess you had a bit more.

 

From the amount of attention it garnered, Clearly

 

Rather than heap abuse on people who depend upon Medicaid (40% goes to indigents who can no longer live entirely on their own), Medicare and Social Security, why not calmly explain the long-term impact of rising government debt?

My concern is that we've created an economic system where workers are having difficulty earning enough from their labor to look after themselves. We're replacing self-sufficiency with government programs.



The median real wage for full-time workers is about what it was 40 years ago. No party or President has addressed the problem.

 

How long will you keep it up?

 

You say I'm avoiding a question about surtaxes? I wasn't asked anything about that.

 

Heh, I won't be "rolling with Joe" no matter what you may mean by that.

 

Here is a link to the bill:
H.R.2811 - 118th Congress (2023-2024): Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023 | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

The accumulative saving will be $167 Billion. Hardly a drop in the bucket of the current spending.

[Note: I'll lead you to water, but it is up to you whether you drink or drown!!!]

Update: The Biden so-called compromise is the raise the Debt Ceiling by $2.5 Trillion and raise taxes on the top 1%. Raising taxes (aka wealth redistribution will put more negative pressure on the economy and drive up inflation.) It is a really easy recipe. More money on the street, the freer the economy moves. Inflation was caused by the Federal giving out free money. People did not use the money wisely. They bought things that would not normally buy. While this was going on, there was a supply chain problem. People were emptying the shelves, and the stores did not have merchandise to restock with. That means there was too much money chasing too few goods and services. The FED has been trying to reverse that trend by raising interest rates. Thereby reducing the amount of money on the street. You would think that raising taxes would do the same thing, but it doesn't for two reasons. First, the FED has already got this economy at the tipping point. They are constantly weighing how much they can raise interest rates before it starts having a harmful effect on the economy. As I said, we are just about at that tipping point. Raising taxes at this juncture is a very bad idea. The second point is that the DNC plan is one of tax and spend. While taxing does remove money from the streets, the spend part puts it back on the street. That in the form of student loan forgiveness, social benefits (SSA, SSI, Medicare, Medicaid, Tanif, and Snap just to name a few). So, while raising interest rates takes money from the street, tax and spend puts it right back on the street. At this juncture, that is a bad idea.

 

Why did I post what I did? To get people to think about how much better off they could be if they were less dependent on government. I of course have no problem helping those who can’t help themselves. I’m taking about people who make the choice to become dependent or come into the opportunity to end dependence and don’t.

I’m uninterested in discussing the productivity pay gap again with you. We’ve been through that plenty of times. You want more unions and I want more worker ownership and democratic control of production.

But I agree the government is intentionally fostering dependence by failing to address the “working poor” situation.

 

I could talk rings around your simplistic, grade school level "economics" babble with one hand tied behind my back.

LOL, ahhhh! the truth leaks out - you're not interested in the budgeting process, as usual. you slip up and reveal your actual objective - blatant political crap

 

I'm afraid you misunderstood the question. It's how it affect the debt. Nothing you submitted tells us that. I assume you understand that reducing spending that doesn't reduce the debt is absurd. In fact, without an analysis it could actually increase the debt. What would be the purpose of that?

If this means that you don't know the answer (and I'm pretty sure you don't) then it proves my point. Talking about decreasing spending is just demagoguery if it's dones without an analysis of how it's going to impact the debt.

If you think you can answer the question, you would need to list HOW the spending cuts would affect the deficit. And you would need to be SPECIFIC as to what those cuts are. Anything of the type "return to xxx year level of spending" is just repeating right-wing demagoguery and not an answer.

 

Who won't be getting paid when the United States becomes illiquid? Bondholders? Other creditors? Benefit recipients? Employees, some running important services like air traffic control and TSOs, national parks, passports? IRS? Border agents?

Who draws the short straw?

Is it hard for you to come up with who it should be?

Are you interested in discussing the "what ifs" and their potential impact?

I think surtax is an appropriate part of reducing aggregate demand. Cuts is some of the "green" spending are needed.

Longer term, we should look at prescription drug prices, the cost of the "war on drugs," and how we should deal with taxes generally.

 

You're an American and you don't know what "rolling" someone means?

 

IRONY

 

Which one are you referring too

 

No I'm not interested in discussing the "what ifs" because I don't believe there is going to be a default. We've gone through this same charade multiple times and we already know how it's going to end. My interest in this thread is the OP's inaccurate threat about Social Security checks, again, a regular, and dishonest, feature of these debt ceiling fights.

 

We can stop paying food suppliers that supply and transport food to our troops.

When the troops are hungry and can't afford to eat anywhere because their paychecks are also on pause, they will remember that it's all Biden's fault.

 

What is dishonest is for the GOP to cut the budget on the backs of, for example, the unemployed, while protecting their own constituents and the military from the fallout. What is also dishonest is a spending discussion without touching the big three, i.e. SS, Medicare and defense. It's the typical GOP MO, projecting to their voters that they can get something for nothing.

 

The pay gap is the problem, we both see that, and I'm looking at making sure workers end up with enough earnings from employment to be in a position to provide for themselves instead of the country instituting social welfare programs for them.

Most of the people whose real wages have been stalled or declining for four decades are not choosing dependence.

Worker dependence is a necessary evil for Democrats and just evil to Republicans. Anyone thought of cutting off people and returning to the early 1930s where charity was the social safety net is recipe for a revolt leading to political instability--or worse. Democrats' policy of alleviating declining incomes with social programs while they focus on saving immigrants, the environment while ignoring the vanishing middle class, etc. isn't really helping much, either.

 

Elections have consequences: Biden decides who fetches the short straw. Will he cut off the troops? No, I don't think so.

 

How is more taxes on the wealthy is putting negative pressure on the economy? Or are you of the belief that personal wealth is what drives jobs, which it does not. That is the same old, tired argument have used for 2 decades and not one shred of economic data suggests that.

 

The pay gap is part of the dependence problem but not the only part. Many consciously choose dependence. Government does many things to make dependence the easiest choice. Social security is one example. It’s existence leads many who make good money to spend it instead of investing a portion that would result in far less dependence after retirement. Disability SSI is another. I know several people on disability that work under the table but still make less with the off the record plus SSI income than if they had a normal job. It’s a choice.

Independence is usually not as easy as dependence. But independence comes with many added benefits.

Many are choosing dependence. If one chooses single motherhood over a stable two parent household they are often choosing dependence. If one chooses $5 Starbucks and eating out over a brown bag and home brewed coffee they are often choosing dependence in the present as well as the future. Many simple day to day choices affect dependence or independence.

Neither party wants independent citizens. Their power and wealth depend on dependent citizens. It’s the whole point of making law and policy that make dependence an “easier” choice than independence.

 

That's your opinion. Your OP was factually dishonest.

 

Also...

https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/hr2811/BILLS-118hr2811pcs.pdf

I don't think anyone has scored the bill. It will impact the budget, however.

Have some evidence to support your claim?

"More money on the street" means inflation. Read...

A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960

Exactly. We put too much money into the system.

Correct because Congress won't raise taxes or cut spending.

So sorry, but this is flat wrong. Taxes can be raised as part of a program of reducing aggregate demand.

An ideological conclusion.

Not if they pay down debt.

You're planning to cut inflation on the backs of poor people? Take a look at what happened to the Republicans in 1928 and then in 1932. You want another run at 60 years out of power in Congress?

This is a convoluted way of discouraging taxes on higher incomes and advancing the demise of the middle class.