PDA

View Full Version : A budget primer



Peter1469
05-06-2017, 07:35 AM
A budget primer (http://www.investors.com/politics/columnists/robert-samuelson-a-budget-primer-for-trump-and-everyone-else/)

Here are some interesting facts about our budget. The author laments that the US has turned its federal government into an old-age and health care agency.


I have been writing for some time — not years, but decades — that we are slowly turning the federal government into an old-age and health care agency. The relentless rise in the costs of Social Security, Medicare and other health programs is slowly draining funds from other areas, from defense to education. Still, it's hard for many people to grasp what's occurring, because the year-to-year changes seem small and inconsequential.

So let me try a different instructional tool: a table. Consider it a budget primer, good for President Trump and everyone else.

The table below shows the major categories of government spending as a share of our national income — the economy or gross domestic product (GDP). The figure for the year 2000 is an actual amount; the numbers for 2017 and 2037 are projections by the Congressional Budget Office under existing government policies and plausible economic assumptions.

What is obvious is that government spending is dominated by Social Security, Medicare and other health programs. Indeed, their share of spending has grown over time. In 2000, these programs represented roughly 7% of GDP (4% for Social Security, 3.1% for health care). That was nearly half of all government spending, excluding interest on the federal debt. By 2017, their share was more than half of non-interest spending at more than 10% of GDP (4.9% Social Security, 5.5% health care).


Looking ahead and considering the floodtide of baby-boom retirees and the high cost of health care, the CBO sees more of the same. By 2037, Social Security and federal health programs would absorb nearly 14% of GDP, or about one- seventh of national income.

See the chart at the link.

midcan5
05-06-2017, 05:21 PM
Another wealth trained economist brought to you by big money.


https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RkXj_nWMuPA/WHogSPd3qXI/AAAAAAABMxM/N9O9eWYTQW0SFv8osauKRt0RkK-B1FLRQCLcB/s640/Healthcare%2Buniversal%2Bin%2Bthese%2Bcountries%2B Bernie%2BSanders.png



"But the real conservative movement was funded instead by wealthy extremists on the fringes of the business world. It was the creation of people like Richard Mellon Scaife, who inherited part of the vast Mellon fortune from his alcoholic mother. Joseph Coors inherited a brewing company, John M. Olin ran a relatively-obscure chemical company, R. Randolph Richardson inherited the money his father made by selling Vick’s to Procter and Gamble.2 None of them can exactly be called Titans of Industry, or even titans of industry. Yet these are the men who bankrolled not just the conservative legal movement, but the conservative movement in general.This fact is sometimes obscured by a document called the Powell Memo. Written by Lewis Powell, shortly before Nixon made him a Supreme Court Justice, it calls on the US Chamber of Commerce to defend “the free enterprise system” from “the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians” that would dare to criticize it."http://crookedtimber.org/2009/05/01/political-entrepreneurs-and-lunatics-with-money/

Peter1469
05-06-2017, 05:26 PM
Marxist class exploitation theory is bunk.

texan
05-06-2017, 07:51 PM
Krauthammer said something this week that shouldn't go overlooked. Most Americans now believe people shouldn't be denied HC and in fact should be provided easy affordable access. I agree with that assessment. I also agree that we have a responsibility to make sure that kid from a less fortunate family gets help if they need it. Or some elderly person doesn't get robbed by big pharma every month.

Better to get you alls minds minds around this now. It's going to happen. It's better to lead.

Peter1469
05-06-2017, 08:53 PM
Krauthammer thinks the right should craft the coming universal health care scheme rather than let the hard left do it later

That is insane. The US will never manage a universal system well. Not even poorly. We will look like the NHS in the UK. Horrible.

Expand Medicaid for those who can't get market based insurance. Don't screw up the entire system for a minority of people.


Krauthammer said something this week that shouldn't go overlooked. Most Americans now believe people shouldn't be denied HC and in fact should be provided easy affordable access. I agree with that assessment. I also agree that we have a responsibility to make sure that kid from a less fortunate family gets help if they need it. Or some elderly person doesn't get robbed by big pharma every month.

Better to get you alls minds minds around this now. It's going to happen. It's better to lead.

Casper
05-06-2017, 08:58 PM
A budget primer (http://www.investors.com/politics/columnists/robert-samuelson-a-budget-primer-for-trump-and-everyone-else/)

Here are some interesting facts about our budget. The author laments that the US has turned its federal government into an old-age and health care agency.



See the chart at the link.
Yes those evil programs the government set up to help those that supported this Nation all their lives is evil, better to spend more on ways to kill others and give tax breaks to the rich, for better, well according t the Pawn handlers. Good Grief people can be idiots at times, what sorts of fools work against their own best interests, I believe they call them sheep, the dumbest barnyard animal around.

Peter1469
05-06-2017, 08:59 PM
Yes those evil programs the government set up to help those that supported this Nation all their lives is evil, better to spend more on ways to kill others and give tax breaks to the rich, for better, well according t the Pawn handlers. Good Grief people can be idiots at times, what sorts of fools work against their own best interests, I believe they call them sheep, the dumbest barnyard animal around.
Those programs are failing. Ponzi schemes tend to run out of money.

Adelaide
05-07-2017, 07:50 AM
Two things are going to continue to cause the increase in spending on health care, which are obesity-related illnesses and baby boomers. It is not going to get better anytime soon.