Hitokage said:
Government does not have a monopoly on the ability to restrict liberty.You talk as if debt is an inherent problem with liberal policies, but we've run surpluses with them, and social security NOW is running a surplus. The problem with SS's budget is long-term, and can be corrected with adjustments.
Government should be in the business of protecting liberty, not restricting it.
The recent Clinton surpluses were a surprise, even to people within the administration. They anticipated a fall in tax revenue when rolling out the policy, and it was only due to the increase in payroll tax and capital gains tax revenue from the .com bubble that we ran any real or projected surpluses.
Social Security will pay out more than it receives within a decade. You'll hear that the program is solvent through 2040 because of the "trust fund", but that trust fund is nothing but special-issue, non-marketable bonds - in non-government speak that's called an IOU. There's nothing of real value there. The money has to come from the general fund back into the the SS fund so that it can be paid out to beneficiaries. Think our deficits are bad now? Wait until we get to fund the shortfall in SS payments every year on top of all of our current spending.
What adjustments are going to fix problem that, when combined with the Medicare (the other major entitlement program) amount to a $125K of unfunded liability for evey man, woman, and child alive in the US at this moment?
Hitokage said:
Regardless, how does all of this represent a naive view of history?
Because throughout history there have been a number of formerly powerful nations whose demise was ultimately caused by unsustainable levels of spending.
EDIT: Signing off for the night. Nice talking w/ you.