Durbin said that Republicans had to put tax revenue on the table to get entitlement cuts.
Fox host Chris Wallace noted that Durbin has previously supported entitlement cuts, and asked why Republicans should have to give up tax increases to get something that many Democrats support. President Barack Obama has repeatedly endorsed Social Security cuts as part of budget deals, and Durbin acknowledged that he did support Social Security reforms.
"Social Security is gonna run out of money in 20 years," Durbin said. "The Baby Boom generation is gonna blow away our future. We don't wanna see that happen."Huh?
Social Security will not run out of money in 20 years. The program currently enjoys a surplus of more than $2 trillion. Social Security will, however, be unable to pay all benefits at current levels if nothing is changed. If a 25 percent benefit cut were implemented in 20 years, the program would be solvent into the 2080s.Craziness of economic morons. As Alan Greenspan testified to Paul Ryan, the issue is not affordability but rather the availability of real resources in the future. That will depend on economic policy now.
The Huffington Post
Why Democrats Might Cave On Social Security Cuts
Zach Carter | Senior Political Economy Reporter
3 comments:
How about a counter-attack on that entitlement for the rich, the government-backed banking cartel? And sovereign borrowing?
Otherwise, the rich parasites can portray themselves as "producers."
Tom,
Something I noticed:
If you believe "S=I" is causal, ie "if you want to increase investment, then all you have to do is increase savings...." which imo is how we get QE from these people, then you can STILL acknowledge that 'there is no solvency issue' as the issue for these people is NOT solvency, as Mike got Walker to admit and Greenspan quoted to Paul Ryan here, these people CAN still think there is no solvency issue AND that "deficits" and the UST securities issuance that they foment are NOT 'savings' and hence DO NOT lead to "investment" but rather "crowd out investment"....
So we should not necessarily be surprised that someone like Greenspan can say something like you quote here, or Walker would make the admission that he did to Mike and they could somehow stay 'out of paradigm'...
They do not have the correct view of causation in all of this so solvency for them can be thought of independently.... they do not see the inherent contradiction between the 2 statements "we can't afford it" and "there is no solvency issue" as they do not have the correct view of causation via their misuse of the simple ex post "S=I" accounting identity as somehow becoming causal ex ante...
No conspiracy, just severe misunderstanding and cognitive deficiency on their part...
rsp,
Actually, the causality involved in S = I is disputed theoretically. Supply siders claim that savings causes investment while demand siders hold that investment produces the income that is either consumed or not, i.e., saved, in the period.
Saving causes investment only if banks are true intermediaries in the sense of loaning out deposits one to one. This is the erroneous model of the financial system that many hold.
The other error is confusing financial savings with real savings on the model of feed corn and seed corn.
Neither of these is correct in current context. When this is point out, if acknowledged, the response is often, well, it should be that way and otherwise it is a sham.
Post a Comment