Entitlement Cuts or Tax Cuts?

[anvi]

A genuine question for Romney-Ryan supporters.

For those of you supporting the GOP ticket who believe that entitlement cuts are crucial to dealing with the deficit and American economic viability, I invite you to set me straight.  I mean this sincerely, because there is, when I think about this carefully, something I really don't get.

If I understand things correctly, the Ryan plan holds off practically all entitlement reforms for ten years, leaving their implementation to a completely different president and Congress.  In addition, Governor Romney has pledged to add back the $716 billion in Medicare Advantage subsidy cuts enacted under "Obamacare." He also pledges to hold off on defense spending cuts and even add to military procurement when necessary.   So, if the primary reason you are supporting Romney-Ryan is the necessity of spending cuts, given that the bulk of federal spending outlays are represented by entitlement programs and defense, why do you favor holding off on entitlement cuts for ten years and increasing the defense budget, forcing instead deep discretionary spending cuts, which represent a far smaller proportion of the budget and yet accounts for vital needs of states?  Why is Obama's near-miss on a grand bargain budget deal more contemptible than holding off entirely on necessary spending reductions for a decade as the Romney-Ryan plan envisions?

If in the end the spending issues are, considering everything above, actually not so important, than is the real reason to support Romney-Ryan their respective commitments to lower the marginal tax rates and their hoped-for effects on economic growth?  In short, in your overall view of the federal budget, are the Romney-Ryan tax cuts, which they plan to enact quickly, more important than the spending cuts which they also pledge to hold off until 2022?

[DC Al Fine]

Most of the real fiscal conservatives are voting Johnson or writing in Ron Paul.

Personally I'd give Romney a 2nd preference vote over Obama, because I prefer Romney's weak stand on entitlement reform over Obama's practically non-existent one.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

People... Stop calling them Entitlements. Stop it. Now.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

People... Stop calling them Entitlements. Stop it. Now.

Have you ever noticed that the people who are keenest to use that particular word in this context are people with a very strong sense (not that they'd ever notice) of entitlement themselves?

Rhetorical question is rhetorical, of course.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

People... Stop calling them Entitlements. Stop it. Now.

Have you ever noticed that the people who are keenest to use that particular word in this context are people with a very strong sense (not that they'd ever notice) of entitlement themselves?

Rhetorical question is rhetorical, of course.

Now, now, Al, let's not hurt the feelings of our libertarian friends. They're very sensitive, you know. It comes from all that internet warrior-ing they do against the big, bad government.

[Lief 🗽]

They are entitlements though? Seniors are entitled to these benefits, as they've been paying into the programs their entire lives.

[anvi]

I'm calling them entitlements only for the purpose of discussion on this particular forum.  I don't prefer how these programs are called in the U.S., nor how they are structured, nor how they are underfunded, and on and on.  But, so we don't get hung up on the word, I'll call the programs by their names, and hope not to lose sight of the question I'm posing.

I don't see how the Romney-Ryan plan(s) can be understood as anything but a "non-existent" reform agenda for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid when they don't plan on enacting any of it themselves, but hope that entirely different Congresses and presidents do it for them ten years down the road.  It's like someone saying: "I'm going to lose twenty pounds, but I'm not going to lose any weight myself, but am counting how much weight I've told my kids to lose after a decade."  The very idea that Romney and Ryan are supposed to be preferable candidates because they are going to undertake considerable spending cuts looks very much to me like a canard, a scam. 

If you think I'm wrong, tell me why.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I think the plan is to pass legislation that kicks in the changes at a particular date - Congress seems to do that sort of thing pretty frequently. So it's something, even if too little too late.

____________________________________________________________________________

People... Stop calling them Entitlements. Stop it. Now.

Have you ever noticed that the people who are keenest to use that particular word in this context are people with a very strong sense (not that they'd ever notice) of entitlement themselves?

Rhetorical question is rhetorical, of course.

Now, now, Al, let's not hurt the feelings of our libertarian friends. They're very sensitive, you know. It comes from all that internet warrior-ing they do against the big, bad government.

Considering it's the big, bad government that officially refers to them as Entitlements, I'm not sure  what you are talking about.

[© tweed]

They are entitlements though? Seniors are entitled to these benefits, as they've been paying into the programs their entire lives.

it's ideologically loaded language that has been co-opted by the enemy, with the idea of a bunch of leeching freeloaders 'getting something for nothing'.. the Left's propaganda machine is very lacking, here's a place to start.

[© tweed]

They are entitlements though? Seniors are entitled to these benefits, as they've been paying into the programs their entire lives.

it's ideologically loaded language that has been co-opted by the enemy, with the idea of a bunch of leeching freeloaders 'getting something for nothing'.. the Left's propaganda machine is very lacking, here's a place to start.

the other side of this coin is 'the taxpayer'.  https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=151186.0

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I think the plan is to pass legislation that kicks in the changes at a particular date - Congress seems to do that sort of thing pretty frequently. So it's something, even if too little too late.

____________________________________________________________________________

People... Stop calling them Entitlements. Stop it. Now.

Have you ever noticed that the people who are keenest to use that particular word in this context are people with a very strong sense (not that they'd ever notice) of entitlement themselves?

Rhetorical question is rhetorical, of course.

Now, now, Al, let's not hurt the feelings of our libertarian friends. They're very sensitive, you know. It comes from all that internet warrior-ing they do against the big, bad government.

Considering it's the big, bad government that officially refers to them as Entitlements, I'm not sure  what you are talking about.

Now you have identified part of the problem. The rest is what Tweed said.

[opebo]

They are entitlements though? Seniors are entitled to these benefits, as they've been paying into the programs their entire lives.

it's ideologically loaded language that has been co-opted by the enemy, with the idea of a bunch of leeching freeloaders 'getting something for nothing'.. the Left's propaganda machine is very lacking, here's a place to start.

That's right. Private property is the entitlement for leeches, not these petty scraps.

It is very difficult to come up with a positive term for social rights when one is speaking to a society that largely accepts the individualism lie though.

[DC Al Fine]

Opebo, I put a gun to your head and take all of your earthly goods. Do you consider this morally wrong? Do you think it should be illegal?

[opebo]

Opebo, I put a gun to your head and take all of your earthly goods. Do you consider this morally wrong? Do you think it should be illegal?

The first question is meaningless, the second political. What do you mean 'my' earthly goods?  Whatever you have or don't have is due to the various guns pointed at the various heads, my friend.  Everything is social production - our roles and privileges in the hierarchy of the ant-hive are always determined, in the final analysis, by violence and threat of violence.

So.. let me just say, do you mind that a gun is pointed at your head all your life, and you are continuously robbed of 'your' earthly goods?

[© tweed]

replace 'at the extreme' with 'in the last analysis', and you've made the perfect statement.

[Insula Dei]

Lol, real people actually use that terminology? Scary stuff.

[© tweed]

Lol, real people actually use that terminology? Scary stuff.

I tend to doubt that I'm a 'real person'.

[opebo]

replace 'at the extreme' with 'in the last analysis', and you've made the perfect statement.

Thank you, done.

By the way I had completely missed this thread and enjoyed reading it:

the other side of this coin is 'the taxpayer'.  https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=151186.0

[All Along The Watchtower]

People... Stop calling them Entitlements. Stop it. Now.

^^^^^

[anvi]

Well, even though projected retiree benefits are calculated on an ongoing basis as one pays into the system, technically the Social Security and Medicare taxes non-retired workers pay now got right back out the door to people who are retired now.  So, one is not ever technically paying into a fund in order to accumulate one's own benefits.  In a literal sense, as a matter of fact, the Romney-Ryan approach to Medicaid intends that current workers pay for current retiree benefits for the next ten years, but will not through those payments accumulate benefits themselves.  With Medicaid, funds are drawn from state taxes and the general revenue that goes into the HHS budget, and the payments go to people too poor to pay taxes who are deemed eligible.  So, all these programs are forms of social insurance.  Presumably, in a legal sense, they are dubbed entitlements because the benefits are supposed to be guaranteed to people who are deemed eligible.  But of course the adjective "entitled" has all kinds of pejorative connotations that have been injected into talk about these programs primarily by people who oppose them, so the legal sense of the term doesn't translate into popular uses while the pejorative senses do.  But, laying aside the quite misleading label of "entitlements," these programs are all forms of social insurance.

So, that being said, the only social insurance reforms Romney-Ryan intend to implement in the next ten years are an incremental increase in the retirement age, adding back Medicare Advantage subsidies and giving retirees expanding opportunities to get subsidized Medicare funding for the purchase of private plans in state exchanges (which will almost surely cost more than traditional Medicare  plans do).  Otherwise, major funding cuts to these programs will not commence for a decade, after Romney and Ryan would have hypothetically left office and entirely different Congresses exist.  The voters are then supposed to believe them when they claim that they're going to be the big spending cutters and debt-cutters?  It's not a credible claim at all.