- Joined
- Oct 30, 2004
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It's not the voters that are getting elected. The problem is what I said before. Voters (and elected Republicans) want lower debt, elected Republicans have pledged not to raise taxes, they don't believe in cutting defense, and there's just no room for significant cost-effective cuts to discretionary spending (which is only 14% of the budget if you remove defense, anyway). The only way to make it work in that situation is to cut some combination of SS/Medicare/Medicaid. Their preference among those is Medicaid, which they came close to cutting last time, but SS is also appealing to them because it is treated as separate from the overall budget (to maintain the accounting idea that it's self-sustaining), which means it needs a specific revenue source or cuts. That's the reason for the debt-ceiling bullshit, BTW. They know cutting those programs is politically toxic so the hope is that they can force Democrats to do it.Ron is in align with the voters - https://www.foxnews.com/official-po...ing-social-security-medicare-over-budget-cuts
On the Democratic side, the solution to the general debt issue is much easier--raise revenue, though they also have a problem in that they keep pledging not to raise taxes on the "middle class" (which is often defined as people making less than $400K). For SS specifically, you have to either ditch the idea that it's separate from the overall budget (which I think is the right solution) or you have to shore it up with a tax increase on lower incomes (raising the cap, or eliminating it would hit people making between around $170K and $400K).
Anyway, voters are delusional about this stuff (lots of them think you can balance budgets by cutting unspecified "waste," and keep all the programs they like and not raise taxes). Elected officials (and especially their staffers) know better but face some constraints that make SS cuts the only option for Republicans, which is why the idea keeps coming back.