Scott Stantis for January 25, 2011

Neither will be in the least meaningful, or effective, until “defense” is also included, period.

^Add SS, Medicare and Medicaid to your rant and it would be half true.

^ I agree. Cut Medicare and Social Security payments for anyone who receives more than $200K/year in interest or dividends. That would be a start. Then we should fully tax the unearned income that a son or daughter receives from their parents’ estate. (It’s not a ‘death tax’; it’s a tax on unearned income.)

^^ I would like the “righties” to define the difference between a simple and accurate observation vs “rant”. Oh RIGHT! If it’s a total lie that comes from the screeching lips of a psychotic Beck or Limbaugh it’s only “observation”.

Blue- I agree, actuarial tables would include eliminating benefits to “high income” earners who’ve retired and can make it on their own. Deciding on a “number” for cutoff might still depend on COL in the area they live though.

^^^SOCIAL SECURITY IS NOT PART OF THE GENERAL BUDGET DANGIT!!!

And medicare is paying out less and less thanks to the holes Republicans drilled in the system.

Republicans won’t be satisfied until they’ve repealed all regulations on business, eliminated all “entitlements” as they define them (including social security, which isn’t an entitlement), purged all unions from the face of the earth, and guaranteed no one making $1 million or more a year pays any taxes at all, because, gosh, they’re the job creators. Then they’ll repeal the minimum wage, and eliminate all social safety net programs and move everyone to tent cities by pollution-filled rivers and tell them to learn to fish cause that’s how you really help people!

Return to the wonderment of 1929.

This cartoon is a little unfair – the Republicans have not proposed any cuts so far that go anywhere near what Obama has proposed on defense and eliminating energy subsidies and the millionaire tax break. Sure, they’ve proposed setting back the budget several years, but only because (a) they don’t have to say what it will cut, and (b) because they know that it can’t possibly go through because adults will step in and intervene.

hey ARodney

House GOP Lists $2.5 Trillion in Spending Cuts - Yahoo! Finance http://finance.yahoo.com/news/House-GOP-Lists-25-Trillion-usnews-2718863982.html?x=0

note to bc –guaranteed no one making $1 million or more a year pays any taxes at all – like soros or gates

Social Security and Medicare shouldn’t be cut. They’re both too important to the welfare of this country.

WarC said, “^^^SOCIAL SECURITY IS NOT PART OF THE GENERAL BUDGET DANGIT!!!”

It wasn’t set up that way, but unfortunately, it’s been drawn into the mess. SS was originally set up as a stand-alone trust fund to serve as a safety net for poor retirees. But in the ’60s, Congress started using the surplus funds in the SS trust to offset the expense of the Viet Nam War, and they’ve continued to mis-appropriate SS money for the general fund (read ‘wars’) ever since.

The correct comment should be that Social Security does not contribute to the deficit, and therefore, should not be part of the whole spending cuts equation. If the Social Security fund were left untouched as a trust fund, and especially if Congress showed enough spine to pay back what has been “borrowed” over the past 40 years, it would remain solvent long after we Baby Boomers are gone.

Actually the SS trust fund has a lot to do with the debt. It was embezzled by congress years ago to make the debt look smaller.

they called that putting it in a lock box (after they cleaned out the cash).

oh durn, nobody got my polluted river, teach them how to fish parable.

^ OK, thanks.