Autopilot spending devours the government's budget

Vambram said:

Autopilot spending is the real debt-ceiling culprit

OPINION | Pay-as-you-go schemes can work only as long as enough people are paying into the system.

thehill.com

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Not arguing, but this article is from 2017

Vambram said:

A Blueprint for Balance

Which takes up a greater percentage of the federal budget — national defense or entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare? Even if you picked the right answer (entitlements), you may be surprised by the gap between the two. National defense accounts for 16 percent of the federal budget...

www.heritage.org

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It's strange to me that folks will argue that the American capitalist free marketsystem CLEARLY is the best version of an economy when the "entitlement" spending is as high as it is. But I have a feel a BIG part of that is due to America's unwillingness to throw themselves fully into a single payer health care system. AS it is, it seems set up to be the MOST expensive option possible where the poorest get proper medical support BUT, poverty ALSO breeds a LOT of seriously terrible health outcomes. So the MOST expensive segment of the population is getting health coverage.

Vambram said:

Autopilot Spending Devours Budget - Federal Budget in Pictures

Autopilot spending makes up more than two-thirds of the budget and is growing rapidly.

www.federalbudgetinpictures.com

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I found it really surprising that there are American who pay more on JUST their health insurance than I pay in TAXES. Imagine if, instead of into health insurance companies and their boards, ALL of those premiums go into the tax bucket?

Vambram said:

A single payer health care system in the USA is not really workable, in my opinion.

However, if we could actually find a way to make that feasibly work while also recognizing that government programs almost always go way over budget, my question is: Would a single payer national federal health care system actually go a long way in having a strong positive impact that can prevent the escalating federal budget, federal deficits, and federal debt?

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Are you saying that the single payer system for seniors doesn't work? Vets also have a single payer system.

Vambram said:

A single payer health care system in the USA is not really workable, in my opinion.

However, if we could actually find a way to make that feasibly work while also recognizing that government programs almost always go way over budget, my question is: Would a single payer national federal health care system actually go a long way in having a strong positive impact that can prevent the escalating federal budget, federal deficits, and federal debt?

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It would probably make the government's books look worse. However...

If you look across the economy at what we spend on government-sponsored health care (e.g. medicaid) + private health insurance + hospitals footing the bill for indigent patients, we would probably come out ahead. Medicaid reimbursements may not be great, but there's a lot of overhead associated with billing insurance. It's essentially a whole subindustry, and doing away with that massive expense (which I appreciate would likely result in a fair number of job cuts) would free up money and other capacity that could be directed into actual health services.

Vambram said:

A single payer health care system in the USA is not really workable, in my opinion.

However, if we could actually find a way to make that feasibly work while also recognizing that government programs almost always go way over budget, my question is: Would a single payer national federal health care system actually go a long way in having a strong positive impact that can prevent the escalating federal budget, federal deficits, and federal debt?

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This is going to be particular:
If there was a system that was CHEAPER for ALMOST all Americans directly, but a BIT more expensive for your government, do you think that is a GOOD option? (Im not saying that because it would be a bit more expensive, most htings I've read suggest ultimately, America would spend LESS on healthcare

From the Heritage link:
National defense accounts for 16 percent of the federal budget. Entitlements? 52 percent.
Social Security alone dwarfs defense spending, taking up 24 percent. That's right: One out of every four dollars spent at the national level goes toward the mammoth New Deal program. Medicare, Medicaid and other health care spending gets 28 percent of every federal dollar.

16% percent on defense is too much.
From the far right, I keep hearing that we should be "taking care of our own first". Well, let's start by trimming the defense budget and not cutting so-called "entitlement" programs. We can't afford to be a Super power 16x over for ever....(...just ask the USSR).

wing2000 said:

From the far right, I keep hearing that we should be "taking care of our own first". Well, let's start by trimming the defense budget and not cutting so-called "entitlement" programs. We can't afford to be a Super power 16x over for ever....(...just ask the USSR).

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[my emphasis] It feels like comments like this always come as a reaction to spending somewhere else (ie...international) as opposed to some kind of organic feeling of brotherhood and community. In other words, it seems things like this sometimes get said out of convenience than a real desire to help

rambot said:

[my emphasis] It feels like comments like this always come as a reaction to spending somewhere else (ie...international) as opposed to some kind of organic feeling of brotherhood and community. In other words, it seems things like this sometimes get said out of convenience than a real desire to help

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One need only look at their domestic spending policies to illustrate how true that is.

wing2000 said:

From the Heritage link:
National defense accounts for 16 percent of the federal budget. Entitlements? 52 percent.
Social Security alone dwarfs defense spending, taking up 24 percent. That's right: One out of every four dollars spent at the national level goes toward the mammoth New Deal program. Medicare, Medicaid and other health care spending gets 28 percent of every federal dollar.

16% percent on defense is too much.
From the far right, I keep hearing that we should be "taking care of our own first". Well, let's start by trimming the defense budget and not cutting so-called "entitlement" programs. We can't afford to be a Super power 16x over for ever....(...just ask the USSR).

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It is also worth noting that those against raising the minimum wage are also the ones railing against entitlement spending. They seem to fail to see the connection between "paying a living wage" and "government entitlements for Walmart workers, because Walmart doesn't pay a living wage."

Note: For those who want to argue about how Walmarts in their area by $x/hour, and that should be a living wage -- I'm picking on Walmart because they are an easy and well known target that is known, at many of their stores, to pay less than a living wage; as well as the fact that it is a job adults have and try to support a family on (where many will claim that fast food is a teens job). If you don't like Walmart, insert fast food or whatever other business you want, the fact remains many businesses get by paying lower wages because the worker can get government benefits.

SimplyMe said:

It is also worth noting that those against raising the minimum wage are also the ones railing against entitlement spending. They seem to fail to see the connection between "paying a living wage" and "government entitlements for Walmart workers, because Walmart doesn't pay a living wage."

Note: For those who want to argue about how Walmarts in their area by $x/hour, and that should be a living wage -- I'm picking on Walmart because they are an easy and well known target that is known, at many of their stores, to pay less than a living wage; as well as the fact that it is a job adults have and try to support a family on (where many will claim that fast food is a teens job). If you don't like Walmart, insert fast food or whatever other business you want, the fact remains many businesses get by paying lower wages because the worker can get government benefits.

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Good point.

I think the American working/middle class has a bit of a "King of the Hill" mentality.

Vambram said:

What are y'alls options concerning what we should do to dramatically decrease our nation's annual deficits as well as our ever escalating National Debt?

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Allowing the Trump tax cuts to sunset/expire would be some help.

Undoing the Trump corporate tax cuts that were made permanent would help even more.

Most of us in Gen X thought the boomers would suck Social Security completely dry leaving us nothing. So some changes to age requirements would give us more than the nothing we expected, and undo some of the demographic timebomb on SS.

Vambram said:

There are good and valid comments in this thread that y'all have said about health care government spending and defense spending.
What are y'alls options concerning what we should do to dramatically decrease our nation's annual deficits as well as our ever escalating National Debt?

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I'd like a serious look into reducing our global defense posture. I can appreciate that, given what our goals are, we're probably running a bit lean, but do we actually need to be our goals as lofty as they are?

Higher taxes, especially on businesses and upper income brackets, including raising or eliminating the cap on social security taxes.

Raise the age of social security eligibility - not much, maybe 1-2 years.

Longer-term, we should take a more holistic look at what triggers our more expensive medical conditions and seek systemic approaches towards reducing them. If, say, our problems stem from obesity and inactivity, then a systemic approach would include things like urban planning that makes cities more walkable and bikeable.

Vambram said:

Did you know that the Federal Government still collected an increasing amount of revenue every year, despite the Trump tax cuts on individuals income taxes?

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Yes, despite the tax cuts. That's because the nation's economy still grew during that time.

As a percentage of GDP, tax receipts trended very slightly downwards between the time the bill went into effect and the COVID recession:

A proportionally smaller slice of a bigger pie can still net you a larger slice, providing that the pie grows enough to overcome the reduction of the slice size.

iluvatar5150 said:

A proportionally smaller slice of a bigger pie can still net you a larger slice, providing that the pie grows enough to overcome the reduction of the slice size.

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Vambram said:

Did you know that the Federal Government still collected an increasing amount of revenue every year, despite the Trump tax cuts on individuals income taxes?

When I think about corporate taxes, I consider whom actually ends up paying the costs for those corporate taxes. Business and corporation inevitably passes on the costs of their taxes onto the customers and consumers of the goods or services provided by those businesses and corporations.


As for your ideas concerning social security higher age requirements, that's an idea which makes a lot of sense to me.

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1) An increasing amount of revenue isn't relevant. We have more people and a growing economy. Government spending as a pecentage of GDP or even per capita is smore relevenat.

2) What the government spends money on is more important than the amount or even percentage. I would be more than happy to pay higher taxes if those in need received needed benefits. As a country, we very low taxes and very low levels of service.

3) An increase in higher taxes on the rich or in corporate taxes does NOT automatically get passed on to consumers. Prices are determined by suppy and demand. You simply can't just decide to charge $20 for a buger because your costs went up. Well, you can, but you will fail as a business. Besides, corporate taxes relect costs. Some think that it was just aweful to increase the minimum corporate taxes rate to 15% as middle class earners pay much more (please include income and payroll taxes).

4) It is simply morally wrong for taxes on earnings (income plus social security taxes) to be higher for bosses than for workers.

5) Military spending is difficult to analyze since so much of the cost is overhead. Also, in the end, we have to decide whether we want to be one of leaders in proactively moving to keep the peace, or whether we want to be reactive and fight the forever wars. And just BTW, many countries in Europe spend a higher percentage of their GDP to fight Russia in Ukraine. Our contributions are very, very small compared to to the ridiculous amount we spent trying to impose our will on Iraq and Afghanistan (and Viet Nam in times past).
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BOTTOM LINE
We can afford whatever we want to afford for whatever goals we wish to spend. As a country, we need to decide on goals. We have decided that leving more income for the richest among us so that they can buy their yachts and pay their dog walkers is more important than using government money to provide the middle class with a living wage for those working full time or more than full time. We do deem to accept that the veryu poor should be provided for, except for the obvious deficiencies in medical care, education and public transport.

iluvatar5150 said:

I'd like a serious look into reducing our global defense posture. I can appreciate that, given what our goals are, we're probably running a bit lean, but do we actually need to be our goals as lofty as they are?

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Long overdue IMO.