As Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) said about the weather, everybody talks about it but nobody does anything about it. What is going to happen with the federal budget? What should happen?
One small observation. There are more than 900 federal grant programs that account for nearly three-quarters of a trillion dollars in spending, administered by just under 20 federal agencies. Most of these grants are for healthcare but they extend to transportation, education, and dozens of other areas. Why do these grant programs exist? I think it’s because the Congress isn’t doing its job but delegating its responsibilities to the executive branch. The Congress should be allocating these grants itself or they shouldn’t exist. Not only would that be a lot of work and distract the members of Congress from their main jobs (raising money for their re-election campaigns) it would leave their fingerprints all over the place. Mustn’t have that.
I also think that in the final analysis the bickering over the budget is a sideshow. Our real problems are in entitlements and taxes not in what is referred to as “the budget”.
One more thought. When Social Security was enacted in 1935, full retirement age was 65. Life expectancy was 60. Today full Social Security retirement age is 67 and life expectancy for men is 75 and for women 80. That’s a bit misleading since those statistics are life expectancy at birth but you get the general idea.
What is the funding mechanism for Social Security and Medicare?
They are off-budget. They are funded from the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.
Will give it a try. Sounds interesting. Morale is important in war fighting.
Quick question. I think I know that you do opera and plays. Maybe local symphony? Our local orchestra is pretty good. Not quite as good as the Philadelphia one but very respectable. Every year they do a holiday pops presentation that is supposed to be kid friendly. Every year the guest soloist is some opera singer. Every year I think most opera singers dont do most Christmas music very well. The songs they do well are the songs director chooses to introduce to the audience that few know and are generally from my POV pretty mediocre. Does yours do similar? Disagree on opera singers as choice for Christmas music?
Steve
The CSO does Christmas concerts but to the best of my recollection they don’t usually include opera singer soloists. Whether an opera singer is a good interpreter of Christmas music depends on the opera singer. So, for example, Frederica von Stade was just plain a good singer as she proved in the “full” recording of the musical Show Boat in 1987. Her several Christmas albums suggests she’s a good interpreter of Christmas music. That’s true of quite a number of American opera singers and IMO it’s becoming increasingly true.
Yes I know Dave, I’ve been paying into Social Security and Medicare for many years, still am actually, I don’t have a problem with that either. I would have no issue paying more for these programs. Get rid of the for profit aspects of Medicare. Increase the taxable incomes to support these programs, millions depend on them.
Actually, I think that all wage income should be subject to FICA and that the full Social Security retirement age should be raised, probably to 75. All wage income is already subject to Medicare.
I think that a lot of people would object to the level of taxation that a single-payer healthcare system would require without constraining spending considerably which they would also object to.
Raising the retirement age to 75 would save some but not as much as you think.
People with physically demanding jobs would be applying for disability in droves.
And congress has delegated its spending authority to lobbyists and special interest groups who pa, I mean, support them.
The executive branch can either sign the omnibus bill or not, in the end, every President signs.
I provided the link at OTB, but for lower income people the average number of years that they have disability free is 63 years. The is different than upper income people who average about 70 years-72 years IIRC. I agree with Grey that we would see a large increase in SSDI payments. It’s actually a bit more difficult now to get SSDI in the past so not sure numbers would match. However, in a worst case scenario the industry that currently exists to get people on SSDI improves if it has a lot more customers.
Steve
“…that the full Social Security retirement age should be raised, probably to 75.”
It should have been indexed to life expectancy years ago. I think we all know why it wasn’t and won’t. Its a government program. And politics.
I’m collecting $3600/mo net of Part B. It was a horseshit investment, but its $43K/yr just for sitting on my duff. With my wife, we collect $73K. Let that sink in. We live a fairly modest lifestyle in low cost No GA, though with exotic travel. Mountain and lake views. And our rather large combined net worth just accretes. Its a perpetual motion machine.
Yes, the retirement age increase is issue #1. A structural blunder of the system born of people/demagogues like Ted Kennedy bringing in elderly witnesses to hearings to creek into a microphone “please don’t take my social security away.” Or political ads showing Paul Ryan dumping grandma and her wheelchair over a cliff. Democrats really ought to own up to this.