Yes, but once again you spend all your attention on one thing you take issue with personally, while ignoring every other aspect of the problem. Yes, defense cuts need to be made. No, we can't simply slice the DoD in half and call it a day, or even eliminate it altogether and be solvent long-term. The long-term problems that literally will break us have nothing to do with defense (not that excess defense spending helps the issue). We need more people on both sides of the aisles willing to slash spending across the board AND tackle the issues nobody has the balls to touch (Social security, medicare) or we're screwed no matter how much we cut elsewhere.
Originally Posted by: Porforis
What about this haven't we known for years.. decades.. that once the Boomers started to retire our costs in Human Services/Social Security and Health Care were going to sky rocket.. simply put this isn't a new problem or one that can be singly pinned on Obama or Bush or any single president or administration.
It is collective failure.
Seriously, as you note in your final sentence.. this has been the sleeping giant cluster fuck of a problem that is finally impacting or overall operations because we have a good portion of this nation that is reaching retirement age with promised parachutes that were not realistic to be sustainable.
But somehow that is something that should be solved overnight by the current administration.
What about the previous number of presidents and administrations that failed to look forward and honestly say.. Houston we have a problem that needs to be addressed now.
No instead administration after administration passed on dealing with the problem.. yet now we will blame one single administration for the problem.
Look I voted for Obama.. and I have been disappointed by a majority of his policies to date.. but not anymore disappointed as I was with GW Bush, Clinton, G Bush, Reagan.. the lists dates back to the inception of the program and not dealing with the reality that the program would only be sustainable if there were more people working than collecting from the pool.
There is two parts of the problem that several administrations have failed to deal with.. the Boomer number and those that are abusing the system. Many just focus on the later.. but with life expectancy increasing and a large number of the population reaching retirement at the same time.. few are really looking at the whole problem. The program as a whole could not be sustainable with the demographics of our populace.
Health and Human Services and Social Security is only being focused on today because the rubber is finally hitting the road and a Democratic president is in term. This problem dates back well past this administration.
Again.. call me a pinko, a bleeding lib... whatever your heart desires.. simply put with the wealth this country generates we should be able to support those truly in need. I firmly believe that.. and I have no issue with paying in to do so. To me, it is the right and moral thing to do in a society as ours with the dollars our society generates.
But we have continued to watch our Health Care outpace any economic growth, we have watched our workforce numbers become turned upside down where not working outpaces those drawing a wage, we have watched our dollars bail out a number of businesses and corporations (yes passed by a so called conservative president).
But somehow this all has developed only in this administrations term.. please.
I love a good debate and would like to have someone solely to blame and make an easy button to resolve it.. but reality dictates otherwise.
Quite honestly.. this Social Security problem should have been addressed decades ago.. in advance of it becoming an anchor that is bound around our neck. But it wasn't.. and now my generation and future generations will have to deal with it. And to be brutally honest that scares the hell out of me with the current political system and ethics of my and future generations.
Without change.. productive change.. we have more dark days ahead. One in which sooner or later debts will be presented to be cashed.
"The oranges are dry; the apples are mealy; and the papayas... I don't know what's going on with the papayas!"