rdmcandie wrote:
Your idiocy is pissing me off.
Projection is a *****.
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Using your 2T dollar example you still owe 2T on it if you borrow it, that either comes from a direct 2T in spending, or 2T in cuts from somewhere else.
Yes, but by borrowing that $2T today, you borrowed less from somewhere else. The net effect in terms of total revenue versus total spending for that year is completely unchanged. Do you understand that in terms of the
entire federal government, you can add up all the surpluses you have then subtract all the debts, and the result is how much you actually have saved or owe. It's the same principle as with your own finances. Lets say that you have an investment portfolio (or even just a 401k or equivalent), that is worth $200k. Let's also say that you have a mortgage you owe $100k on. We could correctly say that you are carrying $100k of debt. However, if we're trying to assess the solvency of your whole economic picture, we'd include the $200k of assets and subtract the $100k of debt and say that your "net worth" is $100k.
Same deal here. Even if the government borrows that $2T from the public, and holds $2T in the SS/medicare accounts for some reason, the net result is zero dollars. Now, if the accounts were actually separate (like say the individual retirement account system that Republicans have been trying to get our government to use instead of the current system), then the two would be calculated differently. But that is not the case in the US, and it hasn't been the case in the US
for over 40 years.
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It is still part of your overall debt.
And again, surplus money sitting in an account is *also* part of the calculation for "overall debt". Your argument only holds water to the extent that we assume that the ability to take money from the payroll tax revenue and spend it on things other than SS/medicare resulted in increased spending on things other than SS/medicare. Which I agree with btw. However, that has no bearing on the assessment of the amount of actual debt the nation owes (which is what we were talking about).
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It is something that you manage through cutting and spending. But 4T (the amount of inter government debt atm) is still debt that must be managed, it has to be accounted for. So you need to cut 4T from other programs to break even to begin making a dent in your public debt, or you need to increase taxes to pay for the programs.
Again, the problem is that government programs are budgeted year to year. If a program had a surplus in a year, we're not going to go back in time and spend more money in that past year. It's done. What matters in terms of deficit/debt calculation is the total amount of revenue the government took in minus the total amount of spending the government actually did. The idea of saying that because we thought we'd spend X dollars on something, but spent less somehow equates to an increase in debt is absurd.
The intergovernmental debt system is an accounting measure. Nothing more. You're effectively arguing that if you transfer money from one bank account to another, you've somehow accrued debt. You didn't. You just changed where the money went.
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It is a debt, and you are an absolute moron if you think it is not a debt.
Then apparently, me and pretty much every economist in the world are all morons then. And you, and the folks on fringe sites, quoting half understood numbers, you're all the geniuses who know the truth that no one else wants to talk about! Lol. You're kidding right?
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It is 35% of your overall debt, the government owes itself 1/3 of the debt, and it has to pay for it just like the other 65%. Through cuts, or taxes, or both.
Except it's not that "debt" that has to be paid off. This is where I think you're going off the rails. The problem is that SS/medicare yearly costs are going to increase over time. What that means is that every year those programs will cost us more money. Money which will have to be raised in some way to pay for those programs. Whether some account was "raided" in the past has no bearing on this. It's a year to year cost, and a year to year revenue equation. As I illustrated in my earlier example, the total costs compared to total revenues over the whole time period in question remain the same no matter how we manage the money.
The problem isn't the money "owed" to social security and medicare, but the forward looking cost estimates of those programs themselves. And no, that's not a "debt" either. It's a projection. The simple fact is that given current structuring of those programs, the current retirement age when they take effect, and the current revenue streams used to pay for them, they are not solvent. And even if we'd not transferred money out of the accounts, they would still not be solvent when we extend the cost/revenue calculations forward.
We don't calculate those programs as though they hold a "fund". At least, we aren't being honest when we do that. To be fair, politicians on both sides of the aisle have done this and have maintained the illusion that we have some kind of bank account with the SS/medicare money sitting in it. But as I've been explaining over and over, that hasn't been true for over 40 years. Those programs have been funded year to year, just like every other government program. And what matters is that right now we're hitting the point where the costs for each years operation exceeds the payroll taxes designed to pay for them.
Which means one of two things: We increase taxes to pay for them, or we find ways to cut the costs of the programs themselves. I suppose a third option is some sort of significant restructuring (which could include a whole range of changes far beyond the scope of this discussion). That reality is true regardless of how we calculate the "debt" from those programs. As I've illustrated by using some really basic math, in that long term calculation the "raiding" of those programs doesn't actually affect the resulting debt at all.