Yes, that is indisputably fair.
I raised the possibility of US fomenting conflict not because I believe that is definitely the case, nor that I have a partisan interest in arguing for the same. I honestly felt did not have the information needed to conclude either way. You’ve given me a lot to chew on – thanks!
Ah, that warm pleasant feeling of a civilly resolved argument.
The age to collect full benefits has been going up for decades. By the time I’m 67, which is the current full benefit age, it will be up to at least 70 (if I’m lucky it doesn’t go up more). The number of people able to draw SS will decrease over time as life expectancies are experiencing something of a crash in the US. Dire predictions about the SS trust fund might yet prove to be overstated. However, if this is your worry, lobby to eliminate the income cap. This should’ve happened at least a decade ago.
Again, that depends on what claim you’re arguing for.
If you’re trying to use the budget as a proxy for how socialist or capitalist the US is right now, then I think it makes much more sense to pay attention to the discretionary budget as it reflects decisions made recently.
Expenditures on social security are the result of decisions made nearly 100 years ago, the cost of which is driven by demographics, not by how capitalist or socialist the current crop of Congress critters are. It is therefore misleading to suggest that the US has a very socialist orientation right now on the basis of social security expenditures in the mandatory budget.
I also pointed out that the discretionary and mandatory budgets vastly understate the amount of military and intelligence spending. Given that fact, do you still think it’s reasonable to use the full budget as a proxy for US government priorities?
Yes, I understood that. However, one could just as easily argue that it’s BAD that it’s in the discretionarycategory because that category more accurately reflects the priorities of the current US government, and that this reveals they have bad priorities. This is just a matter of what problem you choose to focus on, not any objective property of GOODNESS or BADNESS inherent in the situation.
The only reason I brought it up at all is that it directly contradicts your assertion that it doesn’t matter whether spending is in the discretionary or mandatory category, and inconsistent arguments drive me up a wall.
Did I make a “blanket statement”? Read it again. The word “necessarily” is doing some work there.
I think there is no objective right or wrong, and I think there’s a hell of a lot of wiggle room for honest disagreement which inevitably means a lot of wiggle room for excusing one’s behavior as moral when it is really only expedient. I think people in positions of power tend to be the types who are especially good at justifying their expedient actions as also morally correct. Note that this does not require positing any Illuminati-style conspiracies, only that some people are especially good at lying to themselves about why they respond to particular incentives.
Right; and the objection that I made is that this is a funny sort of use of the word “defend” where the US demonstrably does not defend the right of its NATO allies to democratic self-determination, for example. But I concede that if a non-NATO country tried to roll in some tanks the US would do something about it.
100% agreed; I think it’s clear neither of us fall into either of those categories, which I think also demonstrates the scope of possible disagreement in the spectrum between those poles.
PS Thanks for the civil, thoughtful, and thought-provoking rejoinder.
I don’t quite understand why you think that discretionary vs mandatory reflects current priorities? The mandatory budget covers most of the social programs, so it makes sense it have a very small foot print in the discretionary budget. IF they had put the military budget in the mandatory section, it would probably be very small in the discretionary category too. Couldn’t one argue the mandatory budget is the priority and thus why it is mandatory? (Like I said, you pay rent first before other things like your phone bill and Boba Fett action figures.)
But hasn’t the military always been in that category? Wouldn’t it always be a larger item in that category? Even if we cut it in half and nearly inline with like the UKs GNP percentage, it would be pretty large.
You certainly are more in the middle, the person I was replying to originally seemed to fall way more to one side.
In the case of social security, the decision was made nearly 100 years ago, and the spending is driven by accidents of demographics rather than anyone’s will. I think it’s therefore misleading to say:
“Hey, look at all the money we’re paying for social security! It’s even more than our military budget! See what giant socialists we are?”
You could say that 80 years ago when social security was actually implemented that it reflected a sympathy towards socialist ideas at the time, and that would be 100% correct in my opinion. But I don’t think the current social security expenditures reflect a sympathy towards socialist ideas because, again, no one recently made the decision to spend that much. It is locked in by decisions made by an earlier generation.
This is a good point. We can’t conclude that current sympathies are against socialism on this basis – it’s at least logically possible that everyone currently believes we have nearly the correct amount of social spending in the mandatory budget. However, for various reasons, I am skeptical that this is actually the case.
I suppose you could argue that. I’m not sure the analogy is good enough to carry the argument, but I’m willing to see where it goes.
The fact that you pay rent before you pay for a Boba Fett action figure does not indicate that you’d rather live in your apartment than have the action figure. It’s likely that you signed a lease many months ago, and it’s possible that your priorities have changed since then. Perhaps at the time you were not so keen on Star Wars and your passion was only recently re-ignited by the new film. Or perhaps when you got your lease it was because your parents had kicked you out of the house, and then you’ve since reconciled and you’re just winding down your lease before moving back in to save more money.
We can concoct any number of cockamamie scenarios, but the fact that you’re prioritizing the rent means that the cost of violating the lease is worse than going without the Boba Fett action figure, not that you’d rather pay rent than buy the action figure. Similarly, just because we’re not willing to pay the costs associated with ending the social security program now doesn’t mean we’d be willing to spend the same amount of money on social programs now had it never existed in the first place.
I’m not worried. For the last 25 years I have been planning for retirement with exactly this contingency in mind.
Wasn’t that rumor started in 1980? In other words, 36 years ago. It’s not true.
Now, if Bush had gotten his way and the fund had been privatized, making each worker responsible for their own investment choices, the resulting crash in 2007-2008 would have made Greece look like Luxembourg in comparison to the U.S. That would have been truly scary…like, revolution time.
As a result of changes to Social Security enacted in 1983, benefits are now expected to be payable in full on a timely basis until 2037, when the trust fund reserves are projected to become exhausted.
At the point where the reserves are used up, continuing taxes are expected to be enough to pay 76 percent of scheduled benefits. Thus, the Congress will need to make changes to the scheduled benefits and revenue sources for the program in the future.
The Social Security Board of Trustees project that changes equivalent to an immediate reduction
in benefits of about 13 percent, or an immediate increase in the combined payroll tax rate from 12.4 percent to 14.4 percent, or some combination of these changes, would be sufficient to allow full payment of the scheduled benefits for the next 75 years.
Source
I’m talking about the Berlin Blockade - the attempt by Stalin to take over the allied occupied West Berlin by starving its two million citizens. Stalin assumed that the allies would cede control over Berlin rather than watch it starve or that the populace would surrender in order to get food, electricity and coal from the East.
The occupied zones in Germany were temporary. They were never there to simply cede territory. Stalin however wanted not just a communist Germany, but a Soviet one. He knew where Berlin went, Germany went, so he tried to get the allies to give it up.
It wasn’t an invasion, but it was an attack. It was such a huge crisis that Winston Churchill wanted the United States to nuke Russia over it. Instead, we sent upwards of 1,400 cargo planes a day to West Berlin to supply its citizens for nearly a year.
OH, Ok. I see. Well, I am not calling attention to the numbers saying what giant socialists were are. I am not trying to label anything. I am calling attention to the fact that social programs DO take up over half of the budget. I feel like there is this perception that we don’t spend money on social programs, but we do. Now, does that mean we can’t make room for more? No. Does that mean we can’t lower the military budget? No.
But I DO think it is also important to study what we have done moving into the future. All that mandatory spending is mandatory if those programs are going to work. We could slash the budget of the military, make the Dept. of Transportation ride bikes to work, etc, but as you can see with the scope and size of our programs, we need to make sure we properly fund them now and in the future. Sort of like when you get a new phone plan. Sounds awesome at first, but if the budget gets tight that extra expense might make it hard to pay for other things.
I get now more what you are saying as using the budget as a guide as to what the current congress finds important. Though I am not sure that is a great measuring stick, because overall budgets have been pretty similar year to year with gradual increases and decreases, even when we have a changing of who is in power (the Dept of Labor still has to be funded, for example, and probably requires about the same amount it needed last year.) Even when we expand social programs some with Obama Care, I am not sure it accurately reflects our priorities, even though it makes a dent in the budget. But I do understand where you are coming from better now.
Like you said, what congress thinks is important and what we are obligated to are two different things. Say you had a faction wanting to end SS, they still would have to fund it until they changed the law. In our example, yes I am much more passionate about Boba Fett buying than paying rent. Looking at my budget you could call me a big supporter of rent, possibly even an Rentist, but it is just the obligation I have.
“I know where I’ll be heading when I retire!”
Your place.
This is a funnier joke in my head where people are like, “I’m heading to your place during the zombie apocalypse.”
Despite my vigorous critique of the ethics of US foreign policy, I don’t think “AMERICA BAD!”.
I think that America is a country of extremes; the best bits of it are astonishingly good, the worst bits of it are diabolically evil.
US Foreign policy has, IMO, mostly fallen on the bad side of that ledger. When it occasionally stumbles into virtue, it tends to do so under the pressure of strong self interest, and even the virtuous actions are often corrupted by profit extraction in the aftermath.
Wait, waht?
Perhaps^. But then NATO wasn’t formed immediately after WWII. It was formed several years later while the US was collectively shitting its pants over the Red Menace.
^ Actually, yes; the US did have reason to fear a direct war with the USSR in mid-45.
You’re right on the money there, but you’d sound a lot more credible if you paused for breath, and learned that apostrophes aren’t for plurals.
Yeah, whose winter is that?
However, they seem to be doing well up to fairly large, international scales. Corporations are gigantic command economies on the inside.
I don’t see why you shouldn’t. To my mind, combining libertarianism with socialism is exactly what we want in a society - risks are amortised amongst the collective and the greater good is actively pursued, while a minimum of toes are stepped on. Name me a system that promises more.
Westeros?
