Mce SaintPremium
join:2007-10-03
Saint Louis, MO Reviews:
 ·AT&T U-Verse
| reply to dogma
Re: ...so I am going over the Presidents budget proposal... quote:
Even if that were a correct figure today, wouldn't it be incorrect tomorrow?
Nope. Social Security pays current promised benefits (let's call them 100% for sake of discussion) out of current taxes OASDI taxes collected.
For the past 20-25 years , OASDI collections have exceeded OASDI payouts. I don't have the exact figure, but OASDI collects, say, $125 from current workers and pays out $100 to current retirees. And that's paying SS to current retirees at 100% of the promised amount. The "extra" $25 in OASDI taxes collected (versus what is paid out) is where the "surplus" comes from.
In the future - say 20 years from now - OASDI taxes from (future) workers will still be used to pay (future) retirees.
Even if we assume the "surplus" is entirely emplty - those bonds are worthless and/or defaulted on - the amount collected from those (future) workers will be sufficient to pay (future) retirees 75% of what is "promised" to them.
Now, all of this assumes fairly "normal" rates of employment and life expectancies in the future. If employment fell to 0 (i.e., unemployment of 100%), then - obviously - $0 in OASDI payroll taxes would be collected from (future) workers and, therefore, $0 could be paid to (future) retirees from collected OASDI taxes. But, that's not a likely event.
Medicare is a whole different problem. |
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| reply to Midgard
said by Midgard:said by Waterbug:said by Midgard:If I were you I'd question why in the $%#^ we are spending that much on F/A-18 Hornet's! Nothing like a plane that went into service before half the people in this thread were born! (1983)
Age alone has little impact of the capability of a weapons system to accomplish it's intended purpose. That $ 2 billion is probably a one time expense to update a large number of F/A-18s. B-52s were first designed in the late '40s (without computers) and went into service in 1955. There is no other aircraft that can even attempt to meet it's capabilities. Because of it's constant upgrades, it is still a very effective weapons system. As someone who's been in the Aerospace/Defense sector for a long time I know a bit of what I talk about from first hand experience unlike others in this thread. Goodrich did a retrofit on the F/A-18 in a few area's while I was with them. Exterior lighting, interior lighting, & the computer to control them was done at the division I worked at. We've put stuff on the UCAV/UAV and the JSF F-35. Age is what the companies who make them are counting on. Goodrich bids contracts like the Boeing 787 Dreamliner to lose money on the initial sales for new planes just to get all the the profits on spares and repairs. If a plane stays in service 30-40 years it means insane profits for the companies that make the parts. Age doesn't mean much on how a plane functions as parts are replaced on a timeline no matter if they need it or not but the cost to keep them in the air is another story. The older the plane the more expensive it is to keep in service. FYI: BF Goodrich is owned by Michelin. Expensive as it is to replace outdated equiptment, it is still cheaper than designing and replacing an entire air-frame/weapons system. |
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| reply to dave
Infrastructure should be privately funded. We only need roads because the government figured out that a mobile population earns more TAXABLE INCOME.
As for entitlements, I disagree that the government owes people a living. Their purpose is to protect individual rights--not violate them by redistributing their wealth. |
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 VoxxjinCool Blue TrollPremium
join:2010-01-13
San Antonio, TX
 ·Time Warner Cable
| reply to dogma
Of course you will be hard pressed to find people willing to actually 'cut' their area of benefits (SS, military, etc). But like some others I have seen here I would continue to pay SS if it meant that we could kill it later/phase it out (new workers or those below a certain age would no longer get SS). As for military, can cuts be made, sure. But our defensive strategy may have to be altered. Of course if our allies in europe would actually invest in their military maybe they could help out more in these multinational excursions. BRAC has already closed many bases and was/is being done to cull the excess from the budget.
One problem I have seen with government budgets is that there is no reward for saving money. By that I mean if your department is budgeted, say, a million dollars and at the end of the year you only spent $800,000 becuase you didn't waste money, there is no benefit for your department for these savings. What you get for the next budget is only $800,000 and the other $200,000 is likely given to another department who may have overspent the previous budget. They need to figure out a way to reward those that spend less. Then the excess that wasn't used could be diverted to payment of the deficit or something.
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Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war |
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3 edits | reply to Waterbug
said by Waterbug:Expensive as it is to replace outdated equiptment, it is still cheaper than designing and replacing an entire air-frame/weapons system.
By that philosophy we should be using old WW2 or even WW1 planes still. The old saying applies here: "You have to spend money to make money."
On a side note. The year the F/A-18 went into production aka 1983 the military budget was $221.1 billion or 29.2% of the entire budget. In today's dollars that's more like $488.87 billion. Currently there is $548 billion in the 2011 budget so it's not really far off the mark. There's another $159 billion for the war in the budget but that's not part of the apples to apples comparison. The 2011 budget is $3.83 trillion so that's not even 15% of the budget in 2011 vs. 29.2% in 1983. If you add in the war budget as well it's still under 19% of the budget. |
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 TheRulWhy Not You?Premium
join:2007-09-18
Gilroy, CA
kudos:1
·Verizon FiOS
| reply to disconnected
said by disconnected :Infrastructure should be privately funded. We only need roads because the government figured out that a mobile population earns more TAXABLE INCOME.
As for entitlements, I disagree that the government owes people a living. Their purpose is to protect individual rights--not violate them by redistributing their wealth.
You must be trolling.
Roads are NOT just for making the population mobile and therefore more taxable. It is for getting goods from one place to another. Things like food from the farms to the city, regardless of if it is TAXED.
The one thing that made Rome so large was it's Road building skills. Getting it's goods from Outside, in, so those inside the city could live a life of luxury (not the slaves obviously, but the slaves came in on the roads as well).
But as roads work both ways things made in the city are sent out via the roads, so the lives of those in the farms are easier as well.
IF the roads were privatized, we would be stuck with toll roads all over the place, and I have driven through Chicago, and Toll Roads are a pain, and I have paid more in Tolls than I would have in taxes.
There are toll roads in Southern California that are rated based on the amount of traffic. Fortunately these roads are optional, a rich tax if you would, but I have seen these tolls up over $20 a use.
The roads also transport the military as well.
And while I am at it, next time you get your Medication (which I think you should have them check) , they came over the road as well.
So to sum it up. For the little that we actually pay in tax for these roads, the return is much greater in the price of goods, and services than paid.
The welfare of it's citizens is a major concern for a government. The main reason for a military is so that some country does not come in and kill and rape it's citizens. Shall we also do away with cars and go back to horses as well?
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When you have a great straight man, it is easy to be Lou Costello |
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davePremium,MVM
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio
kudos:7 Reviews:
·Verizon FiOS
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to disconnected
said by disconnected :Infrastructure should be privately funded. No it shouldn't. (If you're going to make statements without support, I can do that too).
We only need roads because the government figured out that a mobile population earns more TAXABLE INCOME.
You have an immensely peculiar view of what we don't need. |
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