Quote: (08-31-2012 04:11 AM)speakeasy Wrote:
Quote: (08-31-2012 03:34 AM)kosko Wrote:
When the created these programs they knew they would bankrupt them selves down the road. They were never intended to be sustainable long term.
You believe that the programs from the get go where intended to be bankrupted? Why do you believe that?
Some people do want them bankrupted so that they will become insoluble and then dismantled. See "starving the beast":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast
None of these programs HAVE to go bankrupt. They will when the Republicans slash taxes on the 1% in the hope of making them dysfunctional so that they can later point out how they don't work.
Voting does matter. If Gore won in 2000, the Bush tax cuts would not have happened, and we would've never been in Iraq. How can anyone look at just those two disastrous policies and say it doesn't matter who you vote for. Really?
The plans for an Iraq war we're sketched up as early as 1998 and we're on the table for Clinton.
Quote:Quote:
DECEMBER 2, 2003 – It was – and is – called Project For A New American Century. This was a group made up of, among others, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz – then not officeholders.
This group sat down and plotted their course of action to dominate the word through use of unilateral preemptive force. On Jan 26, 1998, they sent at letter to then President Clinton which said the following:
“The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing.
In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.
We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your Administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts.
Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater.
We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf.
In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.”
Sound familiar? Sound like exactly what the President said in the build-up to the pre-emptive attack on Iraq?
Yes, make no mistake, it is absolute fact that the plan the preemptively attack Iraq without UN involvement was created not by President Bush, not in response to 9/11, but by a handful of paranoid warmongers four years before 9/11 ever occurred. Other future Bush appointees, such as Abrams, a criminal whose crimes during his last tenure serving his country required a pardon from the first President Bush, were also a part of the group that drew up this plan.
Bush planned Iraq War prior to 9/11
The right-wing-radical factions withen the Government we're pushing for it harder since it was their policy formulation but the plans we're drawn out way before Gore and Bush. This is part of the issue that normal people don't get is that policy takes years to develop and create and is outside of the election cycle. The election cycle is just for the cronies whom pen the laws and pass the votes,
but the actual policies that guide America have no connection to the election cycle at all.
You think a idiot like John McCain or Joe Biden knows anything about complex middle east policy? Hell no there are people whom submit white papers to him whom have be involved with the area for decades.
How did Obama walk into office with a nearly pen'd and drafted healthcare plan ready to implement? From even before his transition team he had the papers handed to him and basically had to sell it to the people. The mega insurance companies
whom funded his election had a big chunk of the Healthcare plan ready to go...he did not do shit.
You have a whole infrastructure whiten the structures of Government that deals with this stuff and it does not matter whom is in charge.
They deal whiten their factions/groups and really just arm twist for power but all play whiten the larger box of rules that govern & guide Washington DC and America. They all have the same end goals but all have different ways of reaching them, and seek the power to have those goal reached whiten their own frameworks. Large amounts of money are funneled into these sub-groups by the wealthy Americans because they understand this is where laws and direction is created. Foundation institutes, policy tanks, hovering NGOs, this is where the influence lies. This is essentially all that Govt/Politics is.
Gore would of went into Iraq, he was exposed to the documents back in 1998 why did he not bring this up during the election ? Because he would of done the same thing. All of them are stooges.
Now to answer your question..
Why are Americans so obsessed with the 1%? It was a term created by the craptastic OWS it is a simple term but in reality the 0.005% whom have obscene wealth are really just a drop in the bucket. Jacking up thier taxes is not going to get the Gubmints coffers back into the black. The 0.005% whom fleece the American people are just taking advantage of the structure that is in place. Taxing them or taking money from their pockets won't do a damn thing. Re-configuring the broken structure of how they make their money will do something though.
Taxes have been at consistent levels since 1950 and will remain so into the future. The Tax argument by either Republicans or Democrats is a smoke screen. The Govt can only increase taxes so much or else it starts to eat away at returns in other areas. Taxing the 1% won't do shit nor will taxing the rich, or cutting taxes to anybody else poor or modest. Those are all fiscal issues not structural ones.
Even if the Govt were to cut 100% of its Dept and programs (including Defense) leaving only entitlements; SS, Medicare, Medicaid. It would still run a deficit.
The Govt is strcutrally broken. It is not a money issue. They simply refuse to adress the strcutural problems, it is structurally bankrupt and is simply using money to paper over the problems.
In 2009: we got back 2.1 Trillion from the Govt in transfer payments. This equaled the 2.1 Trillion Americans payed in taxes to the Govt.
From 2010 onward that number has been in defecit. But here is the catch even if all Americans we're taxed at 100% it would still not be enough. This is why I am saying its a structural issue... not money.
When LBJ and his policy wonks created Medicare they had to loosly cook the books since their projections kept giving them insolvancy in the fund way to early then they would of liked. But they goofed around projections to give some far off year of 2035, way farther then anybody in the 1960's could imagine for when the programs would run dry (The actual year they projected things would go wonky was sometime around 2008-2014). Typical in politics - regardless of party lines - the problem was paperd over for somebody else down the road to deal with... "kicking of the can".
His anylsyst predicted that it would cost $12 Billion to run Medicare in 1990.... Actually it ended up costing $107 Billion! A 792% Increase, in 2010 it cost $408 Billion. D.C. is not full of stupid people, you have people crunching numbers on this junk evrey year, they know the issues but choose not to touch it and its not a matter of wanting to starve the beast. Its simply a matter of political survival for them
Yes, these programs have to go bankrupt because they we're never adressed structually in the past to deal with it properly, before the biggest benefecraries were going to start drawing down from the fund. They we're created to go belly up because crony politicians knew they would never do the handwork to create a balanced and solvent system.
SS, Medicare, Medicaid, are essentially large Pyramid Schemes and nothing more. Like all Pyramid Schemes they eventually putter out when thier are no more people to pay into the fund to cover the rest of the fund.
Clinton balances the funds, and puts them into surplus.. all money though.
Bush Jr. came in and depleted it via debt... all money.
Structurally both guys didn't do a damn thing.
Its not a idelogical issue. Its simply a political one. For SS and medicare to be solvent long-term as it was intended. The Govt would of had to re-structure and redistribute wealth. Past generations would of had to increase their front loaded pay-ins way earlirer on. This is poltically toxic but its 100% doable. This in comparision to most plans where the slash, burn, and cut and jack things up last minute in last ditch efforts.
You notice how Gov't (western ones) around the world keep making the same mistakes then end up plunging them selves off a cliff? EU, UK, Greece, etc. They do ever address structural issues in there policies until its to late and then try to cut to fix the problem which just creates more fisical problems, etc, etc, etc.
Now America is going to have to go down this path or Austerity just like the EU and they will see it does not fix any of thier problems
So to answer you questions yes indeed the programs have to go bankrupt because that's is they way they we're structured in the start.
Front loaded increases on real wages needed to be increased the minute demographic numbers started to dip after the last year of the boomer surge. They always tried to attack this issue from a money/fiscal standpoint which does not work.
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