Last U.S. combat troops leaving Iraq

[Al B. Sure!]

anyway... Military Keynesianism

It offers employment, education, and both tangible and intangible skill-acquisition for vast numbers of people, drives technological development (let's not forget that the freaking Internet we are on that has changed the world was a product of DARPA), and protects us.

The military is clearly the best investment the US government has ever made. I am shocked that this is even something people would question. If you ask me, the only problem with the military is that it is appalingly inefficient.

[Hauldren Collider]

Keynesianism

Keynesian economics has become a codephrase for "I'm going to go into deficit spending and give you lots of money right now for political brownie points" as opposed to actually viable counter-cyclical spending.

[Kuciwalker]

Keynesianism

Economic illiteracy

[Kuciwalker]

anyway... Military Keynesianism

It offers employment, education, and both tangible and intangible skill-acquisition for vast numbers of people, drives technological development (let's not forget that the freaking Internet we are on that has changed the world was a product of DARPA), and protects us.

The military is clearly the best investment the US government has ever made. I am shocked that this is even something people would question. If you ask me, the only problem with the military is that it is appalingly inefficient.

Man, trying hard to decide whether you're smart enough to troll me..

[Kuciwalker]

Aside: ARPA's responsibility for the invention of the Internet is vastly overstated.

[DinoDoc]

Economic illiteracy

Recent history seems to cast doubt on the strength of this insult.

[Boris Godunov]

You should be happy then. Defense spending lags far, far behind on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid as budgetary items.

For ****'s sake, how could you and HC make such a basic error as this?

The government doesn't spend anything on Social Security except for the administrative costs of running the program. It's a trust fund. The SS budget line item is what we owe SS because the government keeps borrowing money from it to pay for things like stupid, unnecessary wars.

[Al B. Sure!]

For ****'s sake, how could you and HC make such a basic error as this?

The government doesn't spend anything on Social Security except for the administrative costs of running the program. It's a trust fund. The SS budget line item is what we owe SS because the government keeps borrowing money from it to pay for things like stupid, unnecessary wars.

Okay you lost me on this one, Boris.

[Jaguar]

That's because it doesn't make any sense. He's holding onto the myth that social security is separate from the rest of the federal budget.

It's paid for with taxes collected by the government. That alone should make it perfectly reasonable to call it government spending. But even the idea that it is a separate fund is bunk - although that is nominally true, the government has dipped into that fund repeatedly - and furthermore, social security will expect to borrow from the rest of the government budget pretty soon when its IOUs run out.

[DinoDoc]

I kept waiting for him to mention lock boxes.

[Kuciwalker]

For ****'s sake, how could you and HC make such a basic error as this?

The government doesn't spend anything on Social Security except for the administrative costs of running the program. It's a trust fund. The SS budget line item is what we owe SS because the government keeps borrowing money from it to pay for things like stupid, unnecessary wars.

Um, Boris, the government collects a portion of every paycheck and then gives it to someone else. If that doesn't count as a government tax and expenditure [regardless of the superficial accounting] then nothing does.

[Boris Godunov]

That's because it doesn't make any sense. He's holding onto the myth that social security is separate from the rest of the federal budget.

Uh, because it is.

It's paid for with taxes collected by the government.

Taxes that wouldn't be being collected if it didn't exist. Unlike other taxes, SS taxes all go to one place--the SS trust fund. It is designed so that people will get back what they pay into it. If the objection is to the mere existence of SS and the requirement workers pay into it, that's a separate issue than citing it as an example of the government supposedly misspending general tax revenue dollars like it does on things like the military. As I said, the entire reason SS shows up as a deficit line item is because the government is borrowing from it to pay for things like the military expenditures. So it's the things being paid for with borrowed SS funds that are causing the deficit, not the SS fund itself.

and furthermore, social security will expect to borrow from the rest of the government budget pretty soon when its IOUs run out.

How can Social Security be said to "borrow" from the rest of the government budget, when it's that government that owes Social Security $900+ billion dollars? Wouldn't that be the government... paying back what it borrowed?

[Jaguar]

Social Security's benefits aren't indexed in any way to the amount of money that the fund actually has. The fund will start to decrease in value sometime in the next ten years, and run out of money in some number of decades. At that point, the program will need to take money from the government to survive.

[Boris Godunov]

Um, Boris, the government collects a portion of every paycheck and then gives it to someone else. If that doesn't count as a government tax and expenditure [regardless of the superficial accounting] then nothing does.

Which goes back to my point that if it's a philosophical complaint about SS itself, that's a different argument than complaining about it being a chunk of the deficit. Americans want Social Security, and they're willing to pay in to the system now for expected benefits when they retire. Current benefits are completely paid for by that system, and future benefits will be paid for as well because the system will get back the money it's owed. That money was not meant to go anywhere else, so citing as an example of government wasting money is stupid and wrong.

[Boris Godunov]

Social Security's benefits aren't indexed in any way to the amount of money that the fund actually has. The fund will start to decrease in value sometime in the next ten years, and run out of money in some number of decades. At that point, the program will need to take money from the government to survive.

And what does that have to do with the current SS budget line item? Nothing. Again, this isn't an argument about the future solvency of the program.

The idea that the program will go insolvent in 2037 is likely hogwash anyway. That relies on the notion that the government won't make any attempts to address the situation, when relatively simple things like restoring the cap to 90% from 82% will go a long way. Given the overwhelming public support for SS, that will probably happen.