Sorry, but this is sophistry, plain and simple. The two presidents known mostly by their initials (FDR and LBJ) did far more damage than anyone on your list. Both are responsible for a huge class of people who think "free" food, housing, medical care, etc. are inalienable rights. In addition, the Supreme Court in FDR's day wreaked havoc on our constitutional republic. The ever-prescient Mencken wrote about it back in the day and would be spinning in his grave if he knew how much worse it is now: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/mencken1.html So where are the assets hiding in the SS Trust Fund? Or is it all a fiction? If there were any, why did Obama talk about seniors missing their checks a year ago? Either the SS is lying or Obama was. And yes, until we can phase SS out, the full retirement age should be raised. Moreover, "disability" benefits should be scrutinized much more carefully. Obamacare won't "save" anything. On the balance, it will end up being a huge burden that will come in way over cost. When Medicare passed 1965, the projected cost for 1992 was $3 billion ($12 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars). The actual cost in 1992? $110 billion â only off by a factor of nine. And the NEA doesn't need a dime from me. I didn't even get a liberal arts degree, but I know more about music, art, literature, etc. than the subsidized NEA clowns who think GLBF film festivals and putting things in bodily fluids = high culture. The military needs a lot of cuts and downsizing as well--that I can agree with.
Well at least LBJ is on my list. I put him there because of the eventual effect of his "Great Society" on education. The result was bad in my opinion, but I think his intentions were honorable. And I have no choice but to agree that the advent of medicare did result in higher medical costs. And the cost increase was a direct result of medicare. But that is another topic for another day. I hope you'll reconsider the value of the NEA to society. Art is in the eye and ear of the beholder. Art is all around us, or should be. We may not appreciate it until it's gone. It seems the jury on Obamney care is still out. We don't really have it yet. Stay tuned. The S.S. disability fund is separate from the retirement benefits, and disability is in some trouble. The old age benefit part is in fairly good shape, but Congress must approve adjustments in the contribution rate to adjust for changing demographics. You can get the details on the Social Security Administration's Web site. The Trustee's report is also available. There is an unbelievable amount of misinformation on social security. I attribute that to Wall Street. I am a big fan of Mencken.
With Obama and Romney it is going to be just more of the same. Same old over tax and over spend. Neither is taking the mountain of debt seriously, just letting it mount up for the next and next and .... generations to try and pay it off. Let's hope a man or woman with courage and foresight steps forward to take the hard decisions necessary. Someone of courage - not like those two limp dicks. Yeah I know - dream on
as long as there is someone out there stupid enough to loan it to us, we will be stupid enough to spend it the only hope now is that we are smart enough to spend it on something that someday will make some money
This situation in my view puts democracy itself under severe strain. If you see the competitors catching up at an alarming rate and one's own system is like a leaky boat then changes will have to be made to remain competitive. There is so much crap from the past that needs cleaning up. Often in the US Bills were only passed through Congress if a number of neutral members could be persuaded ( bribed ). To get enough members onside to pass the Bill, these neutral members were allowed to attach their parochial Bills onto it. There must be a whole raft of money wasting attachments still current. A few years ago there were about 50 military bases in Germany alone. What the current number is I don't know but there are still many probably plus secret CIA bases. Haven't they noticed the Cold War is over ? The whole system needs a thorough overhaul and upgrade. So too in most European countries. With an honest committee to supervise the politicians, who can't be trusted when it comes to money matters.
Another classic fallacy "the more complex society becomes, the more we need government to make our decisions". In operations, the more complex a system becomes, the less you want that system to have a single point of failure. The more of the economic decision-making we run through the Federal government, the more it becomes a single point of failure, not to mention a single point of regulatory capture. Unless you plan on staffing the government with emotionless robots, it will always be subject to the same cognitive constraints as the non-government sector. Even worse, because, on average, more intelligent people are going to go into the non-government sector due to the fact that their potential upside, compensation-wise, is much higher. You then find yourself in the paradoxical position of the less-intelligent making the rules for the more-intelligent. The fact that Barack Obama could be elected President, while, in the private sector, his "best" job was as a middling lawyer at a 2nd-tier law firm, is proof enough of this fact. If we want the benefits of a complex society, and I would say that we do, we should have less centralized government and more local control of economic decision-making. Those advocating for more centralization are ultimately advocating for less complexity in the long-run. Now, I can see why they would want that, being that they are generally less-intelligent and capable of dealing with complexity, but I hate to think that the human race will descend to the lowest common denominator so readily. All the effort it took for our ancestors to evolve from apes is in danger of being wasted. These truths are so basic, it's appalling that there is not 100% consensus on them.
We also have the situation where the less hard-working, less ambitious, intentionally lazy, less educated, etc... making the rules for the hard working, productive, and accomplished.
Right, it's not just about intelligence, although that's what I mentioned. The world literally looks different to someone with a bold vision of what they want out of life than it does to someone who voluntarily cedes over his agency to another. We need to weed that latter trait out of the gene pool, not encourage and subsidize it. Or, if we are going to subsidize it, do so in such a way that it doesn't reproduce. We should give people who want it a lifetime of a minimum annual income, but they can't reproduce. If they decide they want to reproduce, they can, but they can never go back on the annual income program.
Hard to weed it out when so many are content to be less-accomplished and so willing to vote for scumbag politicos who promise them a bit of money for their vote. The history of America has us morphing from a fiercely independent and self-reliant society... to one today of ever increasing acceptance and dependence upon centrally planned social support. This progression has gone beyond the "point of no return". IOW, it's reached critical mass and is too big to be altered in any significant way. Even if Romney wins and if a 60 Republican majority in the Senate to repeal Obamacare...... after 4-years of trying to "right the ship", the parasites will be screaming for ever increasing handouts and subsidies from the government... with Romney serving only one term... followed by the next incarnation of FDR, LBJ, Odumbo.
That's true enough. That's why I say give them an incentive not to reproduce. Obviously, this kind of person is very short-term oriented, so the promise of a steady paycheck for no work will probably be enticing enough to get them to not have children.