NY Times - "Imagining a Deficit Plan From Republicans" - Must Read! Exposes The GOP Deficit Lies

[TomCADem]

This story does a great job exposing the Republican lie that they are actually concerned about the deficit. Heck, Rand Paul who has based his candidacy on fighting the deficit has pledged to support the Bush tax cuts to the richest Americans even without any off-setting budget cuts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/29/business/economy/29leonhardt.html?src=busln

In their Pledge to America, Congressional Republicans have used the old trick of promising specific tax cuts and vague spending cuts. It’s the politically easy approach, and it is likely to be as bad for the budget as when George W. Bush tried it.

The sad thing is, a truly conservative approach to the deficit does exist. You can find strands of it among Republican governors, some of the party’s current Congressional candidates and the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, Paul Ryan.

* * *

Actual fiscal conservatives acknowledge that these steps do not come anywhere close to solving the long-term deficit. By 2035, the deficit (even without counting interest payments on the federal debt) is on course to reach $1.9 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. If you reduced domestic discretionary spending to its share of the economy under Ronald Reagan and then eviscerated it an additional 20 percent, you would shrink the deficit by all of $100 billion.

The bulk of the deficit problem instead comes from three popular programs, Medicare, Social Security and the military, and they happen to be the ones the Republican pledge exempts from cuts. But it’s impossible to fix the deficit without making cuts to these programs or raising taxes. To suggest otherwise is to claim that 10 minus 1 equals 5.

[DJ13]

1. Social Security isnt a budget item

I wish the MSM would stop distorting things.

[TomCADem]

2. To be fair, the article never mentions the word "budget item" or calls

...social security a "budget item."

[DJ13]

3. If it adds to the deficit it has to be in the budget, doesnt it?

[TomCADem]

4. So, are you referring to social security as a budget item, or does the article do so?

Since you say, "Social security isn't a budget item . . .I wish the MSM would stop distorting things."

I thought from your comment that you were saying that this article was calling social security a "budget item." I re-read the article and found no reference to the phrase "budget item."

[mikehiggins]

5. yes and no

The factor that makes SocSec a "budget item" is the need to redeem Federal notes used by various administrations to use SocSec funding as a way to hide actual spending and preclude the need to raise taxes to "pay as we go". In other words, we have to pay back the money the US borrowed from its citizens via the SocSec taxes. It is NOT an "unfunded" mandate or financial giveaway, as SocSec opponents are prone to claim. It is a legitimate debt that fiscal hawks want to renege on and simply write off with a "sorry, my bad" and "screw you, retirees".

The problem for the opponents of SocSec is that if they renege on the Federal debt to the fund, that puts all US obligations backed by the "full faith and credit" of this nation at risk, i.e. who is going to buy our notes if we demonstrate that we are ready to renege on them at the drop of a hat.

So yeah, the need to pay back these notes is going to put additional upward pressure on the deficit, etc., but that's how things roll. If you cheat Peter to pay Paul, you can't expect Paul to be all that confident that he won't be next in line for a shafting.

At least that's how I see it. I could be wrong.

[ThomWV]

6. Nonsense - if it says cutting SS will decrease the Budget then SS is a budget item - NOT!

They are lumping Social Security into a Budget discussion and calling it part of the reason for the budget deficit, so how can anyone argue that they don't mention it as a budget item? The argument is pure nonsense.

[TomCADem]

7. "Budget item"?

I don't see budget item mentioned. It seems you are using budget item as a term of art then. Sorry, I'm not an accountant and I am not sure the article was aimed at accountants.

So I am not so Hung up on the jargon.