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Correct....or the 3.5 trillion dollar social programs

Posted By: added to the bailout........NM on 2008-10-23
In Reply to: No, we don't need more taxes - gourdpainter

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Over a $10 trillion dollar deficit today? That didn't happen on O's watch.
Yes, they need to trim down a lot of the programs crammed in the current stimulus package. But I don't approve of McCain's, either. Giving the top 10% a tax break benefits NO ONE but the top 10%. They drink imported wines, buy designer clothes and travel to foreign destinations - how does that benefit the bulk of Americans? It takes $30,000 to $40,000 in gas just to fill up their yachts - who does that benefit? Not us. Instead of "screw the poor!" - how about "screw the rich!"
This is not social programs......this is HUGE government
!!
Tax cuts, progressive tax system, social programs
are as American as apple pie and these same policies and initiatives can be found puncuating the pages of our history from the day of our country's inception.

You do not understand Marxism or socialism, or you would be a lot more exercised by the current redistribution of wealth that takes your tax dollars and moves them upward to an elite ruling class that represses and undermines the middle class at the drop of a hat. State ownership of banks, lending institutions and direct personal property "buy outs" (as proposed by McCain certainly smack of Marxism and are not exactly what you could call traditional American values.
A trillion here, a trillion there, why doesn't congress take a pay cut? nm
x
How much is $1 trillion?
Million...billion...trillion. We get so used to hearing these words that they have no meaning. They even sound alike, so we forget how much larger a billion is than a million, and how much larger a trillion is than a billion.

Imagine that you're holding ten $1 bills in your hand. Lay them down on the table one at a time at a rate of $1 per second. 1...2...3...4...etc.

Okay, you've now just spent $10 in ten seconds. To spend $1 trillion at this rate would take you 32,000 years,laying down $1 every second of every day of every week of every year. Spending Obama's $3.75 trillion budget would take you 120,000 years.

Put another way, the first homo sapiens is thought by evolutionists to have appeared about 110-120,000 years ago. Personally, I don't think so, but let's say he did. If Mr. H.S. had discovered a pile of $3.75 trillion lying around, and if he and one of his descendants in every generation since then had spent the money at a rate of $1 per second, his descendant in the year 2009 could have handed the last dollar to Obama.

I've just received this news flash. The search for the H.S. descendant has failed. In his place, American taxpayers will hand our last dollar to Obama instead. Anyone who believes that tax increases are coming only for those who make $250,000 and up are deluding themselves. If nothing else, the prospect of raging inflation lies ahead, and we all pay sales taxes as a percentage of the price of everything we buy, so if the tax bill isn't in your annual return, it will come through the back door, down the chimney or some other way.


Where does your tax dollar go? sm

For those of you who are not in love with our current POTUS, kindly skip over the first paragraph. 

I'm about sick............


http://www.heritage.org/research/budget/bg1840.cfm


Agree with that but where is the other 3 trillion
Obama's social programs will need minimum of 3 trillion MORE to pay for all those government agencies, deep pockets to oversee all those government agencies, and then more government agencies to oversee those government agencies to make sure they are doing what they're supposed to be doing....yea, right, I'm not falling for it.

3.5 trillion dollars and that's a low ball estimate. where will it all come from after he brings our money back from Iraq? No one wants to address that.

He can't get that kind of money from the 5% rich he seems to have so much bitterness towards, so where will it come from?
This is nothing to celebrate, unless another trillion
nm
Or Obama's 3.5 trillion in taxes
xx
A day late and a dollar short......
xx
I will be happy to send you a dollar.
Just let me know where to send it. Gotta go now...it's almost time for sunset, and it looks like it's going to be fabulous!
it's on the dollar menu and call
yourself happy when you get it home. that's all I can afford.
Fed Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion

(Okay.  Everyone in Congress and the White House, empty your pockets.)


Fed Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion (Update1)


By Mark Pittman


Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.


Bloomberg filed suit Nov. 7 under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act requesting details about the terms of 11 Fed lending programs, most created during the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression.


The Fed responded Dec. 8, saying it's allowed to withhold internal memos as well as information about trade secrets and commercial information. The institution confirmed that a records search found 231 pages of documents pertaining to some of the requests.


"If they told us what they held, we would know the potential losses that the government may take and that's what they don't want us to know," said Carlos Mendez, a senior managing director at New York-based ICP Capital LLC, which oversees $22 billion in assets.


The Fed stepped into a rescue role that was the original purpose of the Treasury's $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. The central bank loans don't have the oversight safeguards that Congress imposed upon the TARP.


Total Fed lending exceeded $2 trillion for the first time Nov. 6. It rose by 138 percent, or $1.23 trillion, in the 12 weeks since Sept. 14, when central bank governors relaxed collateral standards to accept securities that weren't rated AAA.


'Been Bamboozled'


Congress is demanding more transparency from the Fed and Treasury on bailout, most recently during Dec. 10 hearings by the House Financial Services committee when Representative David Scott, a Georgia Democrat, said Americans had "been bamboozled."


Bloomberg News, a unit of New York-based Bloomberg LP, on May 21 asked the Fed to provide data on collateral posted from April 4 to May 20. The central bank said on June 19 that it needed until July 3 to search documents and determine whether it would make them public. Bloomberg didn't receive a formal response that would let it file an appeal within the legal time limit.


On Oct. 25, Bloomberg filed another request, expanding the range of when the collateral was posted. It filed suit Nov. 7.


In response to Bloomberg's request, the Fed said the U.S. is facing "an unprecedented crisis" in which "loss in confidence in and between financial institutions can occur with lightning speed and devastating effects."


Data Provider


The Fed supplied copies of three e-mails in response to a request that it disclose the identities of those supplying data on collateral as well as their contracts.


While the senders and recipients of the messages were revealed, the contents were erased except for two phrases identifying a vendor as "IDC." One of the e-mails' subject lines refers to "Interactive Data -- Auction Rate Security Advisory May 1, 2008."


Brian Willinsky, a spokesman for Bedford, Massachusetts- based Interactive Data Corp., a seller of fixed-income securities information, declined to comment.


"Notwithstanding calls for enhanced transparency, the Board must protect against the substantial, multiple harms that might result from disclosure," Jennifer J. Johnson, the secretary for the Fed's Board of Governors, said in a letter e-mailed to Bloomberg News.


'Dangerous Step'


"In its considered judgment and in view of current circumstances, it would be a dangerous step to release this otherwise confidential information," she wrote.


New York-based Citigroup Inc., which is shrinking its global workforce of 352,000 through asset sales and job cuts, is among the nine biggest banks receiving $125 billion in capital from the TARP since it was signed into law Oct. 3. More than 170 regional lenders are seeking an additional $74 billion.


Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would meet congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system.


The Freedom of Information Act obliges federal agencies to make government documents available to the press and public. The Bloomberg lawsuit, filed in New York, doesn't seek money damages.


'Right to Know'


"There has to be something they can tell the public because we have a right to know what they are doing," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Arlington, Virginia-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.


"It would really be a shame if we have to find this out 10 years from now after some really nasty class-action suit and our financial system has completely collapsed," she said.


The Fed lent cash and government bonds to banks that handed over collateral including stocks and subprime and structured securities such as collateralized debt obligations, according to the Fed Web site.


Borrowers include the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Citigroup and New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co., the country's biggest bank by assets.


Banks oppose any release of information because that might signal weakness and spur short-selling or a run by depositors, Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government affairs for the Financial Services Roundtable, a Washington trade group, said in an interview last month.


'Complete Truth'


"Americans don't want to get blindsided anymore," Mendez said in an interview. "They don't want it sugarcoated or whitewashed. They want the complete truth. The truth is we can't take all the pain right now."


The Bloomberg lawsuit said the collateral lists "are central to understanding and assessing the government's response to the most cataclysmic financial crisis in America since the Great Depression."


In response, the Fed argued that the trade-secret exemption could be expanded to include potential harm to any of the central bank's customers, said Bruce Johnson, a lawyer at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP in Seattle. That expansion is not contained in the freedom-of-information law, Johnson said.


"I understand where they are coming from bureaucratically, but that means it's all the more necessary for taxpayers to know what exactly is going on because of all the money that is being hurled at the banking system," Johnson said.


The Bloomberg lawsuit is Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 08-CV-9595, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).


To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Pittman in New York at mpittman@bloomberg.net;


Last Updated: December 12, 2008 11:35 EST


Like the 2002 Bush $1.3 trillion tax cut for the wealthy
decimated the $128 billion FY 2001 surplus, shifted the tax burden to the middle class while he went on a deficit spending spree and brought their ever diminishing numbers to their knees by September 2008? You want me to vote for the guy who backed up these policies 90% of the time, the same guy who has yet to utter the words "middle class" in a public forum during this entire campaign? Thanks, but no thanks. I'll take my chances on the change train.
Obama bailout up to just short of a trillion....
and he has been in office HOW long?  lol.   Doesn't count the billions we already spent.  This is new spending.  Talk about spending like a drunken sailor....lol.  Hello democratic majority.  LOL.
Well, it has turned into a multimillion dollar business...
I just find it appalling that they made a $68 million profit and most of that came from aborting babies. It is the only service they render where they require cash up front. No wonder they don't want the laws repealed. They don't give a DANG about womens' reproductive choice. They care about a $68 million profit. I hope if McCain is elected the FIRST thing he does is work on removing federal funding from abortion. There is no way the american public en masse should have to pay for this stuff. Let the posters here keep sending their checks and all the pro-choicers, let THEM pay for it. Seems only fair to me.
He's not talking about million dollar houses.

He's talking about people that got schnuckered so they can keep their homes.  Maybe they would reduce the principle, but that would also keep people in their homes and make the other homes in that neighborhood keep their value. 


Do you understand the concept that if the homes around you go into foreclosure then that brings your home value down? 


 


Democratic governors seeking $1 trillion bailout...sm
Democratic governors seeking $1 trillion bailout
Obama and his staff receptive to ideas, Doyle says

By SCOTT BAUER • The Associated Press • January 3, 2009



MADISON — Five Democratic governors are asking the federal government for a $1 trillion bailout package, including $250 billion for education and $150 billion in middle class tax cuts.
Advertisement

The governors from Wisconsin, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Ohio on Friday said they have presented their plan to President-elect Barack Obama's transition team as well as congressional leaders.

They said that level of federal aid is needed to deal with unprecedented state budget shortfalls in 41 states and Washington, D.C., that the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities pegged at $42 billion for the current fiscal year alone.

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle said congressional leaders and the Obama team have been receptive to the governors' ideas.

"That's not to say they've told us this is what they'll do or they're with us all the way," Doyle said. He also said other governors were involved in creating the plan, which grew out of an early December meeting that Obama had with the nation's governors.

Obama's aides and congressional leaders have been talking about a package roughly half the size of the two-year plan the five governors proposed Friday.

A $1 trillion is equal to 6.7 percent of the gross domestic product, the U.S. economy's total output in a single year. A package of that size is likely to draw significant opposition from congressional Republicans and concern from moderate and conservative Democratic lawmakers who oppose large budget deficits.

In addition to the money for education and tax cuts, the governors said their plan includes $350 billion for road construction and other infrastructure projects and $250 billion for social service programs such as Medicaid.

The governors all said their states are facing unprecedented budget shortfalls that will require deep cuts to services and possibly irreparably harm their education systems.

"We aren't crying wolf," Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland said. "These are real circumstances, unprecedented situations we are facing."

Ohio's budget deficit could grow to $7.3 billion even after $1.9 billion was cut from its current budget, Strickland said.

A forecast from Global Insight shows that the economy hasn't hit bottom yet.

National economic growth is now expected to drop 1.8 percent this year, rather than increase 1 percent.

The U.S. labor market is expected to lose 3.7 million jobs during the downturn, with unemployment reaching 8.7 percent in the first half of 2010, it said.

That forecast assumes there will be a $550 billion federal stimulus package, roughly half of what the governors requested.


http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20090103/GPG0101/901030590/1978
A trillion dollars being spent, 1100 pages
and the American people aren't allowed to look at it let alone the house and senate don't get time to read it? WTFrig  is that all about?
I saw that clip earlier today and it is exactly right. And you can bet your bottom dollar on this...
Alarmist video? Who knows. Scare tactics? Who knows, but one thing I believe is there will be class war fare, food riots, and when Obama has taken all our guns away, then what???

It has happened in the UK with Sharia Law, in Australia they confiscated all guns, France with their huge Muslim population, and it sure as H.E. double-hockey sticks can happen here. And if Obama gets elected, you can take that to the bank. He will strip mine our country to its bones.

My DH has a saying..the tree of freedom has to be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots. Or words to that effect.
He also said that some of programs...
need to be stripped and he is well aware of that. Don't forget, he didn't write this all by his lonesome - it was written in the House. He does not want it ditched altogether for fear of the consequences of starting from scratch - WE DON'T HAVE TIME. BUT, the pubs could give a rats about those of us in limbo - they'd rather engage in partisan infighting. If the morons would quit fighting - get to work and strip the garbage - present us with a job creation only bill - we'd be in business. But, cooperation is impossible - as evidenced by the hate posted all over this board.
Bottom line...they made a 68 million dollar PROFIT.
PROFIT is AFTER expenses. So I am thinking they are doing pretty darn well, don't you? They are not in it for the goodness of their hearts.

And it says plainly on the website they will take checks for anything but abortions. So that says to me cash or credit card. IF there is another explanation for that, please share.

It has been awhile since there was a bombing or a shooting, and I don't condone either. Killing abortionists or bombing clinics is not the answer. Changing minds and providing alternatives is the answer. But going with the flow and remaining quiet while mass murder of the unborn goes on is something I cannot do, and sorry if I find it horrifying that PLanned Parenthood makes such a KILLING for killing. THere is THAT.
Geithner assures Chinese audience that US dollar is sound.
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINPEK12423320090601?rpc=44
cut what federal programs??

So the Federal govt is gonna cut back in entitlement programs to fund the rebuilding of NO?  Not gonna cease his tax cuts for the rich, just gonna cut back on programs for.....the disadvantaged, of course, the ones whose voices will not be heard..Whose fault was NO?  Bush and his administration.  I say Bush should donate some of his millions to the rebuilding of NO, let some of the unfortunate ones camp on his 1700 acres that he boasts about..He got us into this awful mess.  His speech the other night was a joke..Just another press moment, trying to pull on Americans heart strings but it aint working, LOL..**Long live equality**..Three more years?  Oh gee, can we survive?  What will be the next catastrophe under this fool?  9/11, Iraq and now NO..**America where are you**?


The programs in the stimulus...nm
x
The History Channel programs are

often very factual. I watch it a lot.


I would love to see the John Adams program but I gave up HBO. They didn't seem to have very good programming for a long time, movie-wise, and a lot of the series were on too late for me, so I gave HBO up (after 15 years).


 


 


 


govt job programs/CETA

My first real job some 30 years ago was a CETA job. That was Comprehensive Employment and Training Act. This was doing medical transcription for a county health department.  I worked as a CETA employee for a year, they trained me and paid me, and I have worked in transcription for 30 years, of course moving on to hospital stuff. Made big bucks for quite a few years and now here I am, strangely enough, I think back to the same money I made all those years ago.  You've got to keep your sense of humor. 


 


   


oh no - social ostracism -- I can't

bear it . . .


 


isn't that social security?
We already pay 7.5 of income to social security and employers pay an additional 7.5%. An IC pays the full 15% themself. Is this 5% in addition to that, replacing that or what? Can you provide additional information or a source for such?
Re: Social Security

Yes, I applied in April of 2008.  Was denied.  Filed Request for Reconsideration.  Was denied.  Am now awaiting a hearing, which might take another year.  Since my initial application, I've developed a few more diseases, and I'm hoping to talk with my lawyer today to see if we can send a "Dire Need Letter," since the situation is now dire.


As far as quarters, I have plenty of them and was even told when I applied how much I could expect to receive each month.


I never, EVER thought I would be in a position like this.  If anything, I've softened my attitude about "those people" who are forced to take advantage of government assistance.  You just never know when it might happen to you.


Ronnie Reagan, the man who cut all the programs for mentally ill and sm
that is when you started seeing all the homeless people on the streets. During his reign of terror. A horrible president.
we already have schools and programs to feed our hungry
x
Yea but he didn't have to pre-empt my favorite programs
Judge Joe and Judge Alex. They were gonna be pretty good today. Guess I'll have to wait for re-runs. LOL
In our area, all the "Handicapable" work programs are
subsidized through the state or private donors. The state is broke. They have already announced this is one of the areas of the budget that will be eliminated, along with the subsidized housing programs that provide the same people with independent or assisted living residences. The private corporate donors in our area are announcing layoffs by the thousands and have cut way back on community donations.
Why shouldnt gov fund religious programs?
I should be able to get some funding just like everyone else if I have a religious program.  I mean we fund abortion here in the US and abroad.  We fund wars, we fund all kinds of CRAP so why NOT religion?  Isnt it supposed to be equal and fair?  Why is it the religious people of this world, namely the Christians get the short end of the stick? 
Here's some info on the 'shovel ready' programs.
Read this morning in our paper that the majority of the stimulus money coming to our great state of Ohio is going to go not to construction projects (like it was supposed to, hence the term 'shovel ready'), but to study construction projects.

I get that maybe we just shouldn't throw money to whatever pothole comes first and that there has to be some sort of order, but the reasoning behind this 'study' given by Gov. Strickland was that it was totally within the parameters of the stimulus and "we're putting engineers and planners to work."

I'm sure that will be greatly appreciated by those construction workers three years from now - after they've lost their homes, cars, equipment, business, etc.

I wish I could explain it, but I just don't get it either.

You don't believe in Social Security and Medicare?

What would your plan be for the elderly population then? 


No drug laws?  I thought libertarians only objected to posession of marijuana as a crime.  I didn't know you actually objected to all drug laws. So then, you believe all drugs should be legalized? 


You don't believe in a standing military.  I am not sure I remember that right. It's hard to remember that very long list without it in front of me.  So is your plan then that we should all live in a drug-haze, leave all other countries to their own devices and we won't need a military because we won't be bothering anyone and who will care anyway because, of course, we will all be stoned?  I can't say that I see any cogent thought behind this list.  It's a morally relative list of Doctor Feel Good.  I thought libertarians had more sense.  What a bummer dude. 


So, you look forward to paying for more social
xx
Perhaps it was the social and community outreach
1. Can-Cer-Vive support to cancer patients and caregivers.
2. Churh school and youth church.
3. Counseling services, both individual and group.
4. Emmaus Road Ministry, which provides companions, prayer partners, helpers and friends for grieving persons, months after the passing of a loved one. Ongoing contact with the family is maintained.
5. Girl Scouts.
6. Teen choir.
7. Computer classes.
8. Assistance to physically, mentally and emotionally handicapped.
9. Marriage enrichment seminars.
10. Workshops on building and maintaining Christian homes.
11. Men's chorus.
12. Men's fellowship.
13. Bible study.
14. Sanctuary choir.
15. Stewardship.
16. Women's chorus.
17. Women's drill team.
18. Yoga.
19. Youth drill team.
20. Active seniors.
21. Adopt-a-Student.
22. Athletes for Christ.
23. Career development.
24. Church in the community.
25. Domestic violence advocacy and support.
26. Drug and alcohol recovery.
27. Food share.
28. Grandparent's ministry.
29. HIV/AIDS support.
30. Housing workshops.
31. Health and wellness.
32. Legal counseling.
33. Math tutors.
34. Prison ministry.
35. Reading tutors.
36. Drama.
37. Fine arts and literary guild.
38. Quilting.
39. Adult dance.
40. Music.
Compare these ministries with Obama's life experiences, political views and current campaign platform. That is explanation enough for me.
I think the quickest way to fix Social Security...
is to make it so politicians have to rely on it when they are of retirement age instead of us paying them their government salary after they leave office.

I think a lot of economic problems would be solved if politicians would have to play by the same rules as the rest of us.
Do you draw social security or do you know
someone who does?
Medicare and social security
This today regarding Social Security and Medicare. For the person below who thought this money could not be used for other purposes, please note the *** paragraphs and the final paragraph stating this administration would run a deficit this year of $1.84 trillion, four times last year's record, and said the deficits will remain above $500 billion every year over the next decade.

Washington – The financial health of Social Security and Medicare, the government's two biggest benefit programs, have worsened because of the severe recession, and Medicare is now paying out more than it receives.
Trustees of the programs said Tuesday that Social Security will start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2016, one year sooner than projected last year, and the giant trust fund will be depleted by 2037, four years sooner. Medicare is in even worse shape. The trustees said the program for hospital expenses will pay out more in benefits than it collects this year and will be insolvent by 2017, two years earlier than the date projected in last year's report.

*******The trust funds — which exist in paper form in a filing cabinet in Parkersburg, W.Va. — are bonds that are backed by the government's "full faith and credit" but not by any actual assets. That money has been spent over the years to fund other parts of government. To redeem the trust fund bonds, the government would have to borrow in public debt markets or raise taxes.


Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the head of the trustees group, said the new reports were a reminder that "the longer we wait to address the long-term solvency of Medicare and Social Security, the sooner those challenges will be upon us and the harder the options will be." Geithner said that President Barack Obama was committed to working with Congress to find ways to control runaway growth in both public and private health care expenditures, noting the promise Monday by major health care providers to trim costs by $2 trillion over the next decade. However, Republicans pointed to the newly dire assessments as evidence the Obama administration has failed to come forward with actual entitlement reform to close the funding gaps. "Instead of getting existing public programs in order right now, some are saying we should create a new government-run health insurance plan," Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, said in a reference to the administration's health care proposals. "When we can't afford the public health plan we have already, does it make sense to add more?" House Republican leader John Boehner said the trustees report "confirms what we already knew: Our nation cannot afford to continue this reckless borrowing and spending spree." The findings in the trustees report, the annual checkup given the two benefit programs, did not come as a surprise. Private economists had been predicting that the dates the programs would begin to pay out more than they take in and the dates the trust funds would be insolvent would occur sooner given the economic recession.

The deep recession, the worst the country has endured in decades, has resulted in a loss of 5.7 million jobs since it began in December 2007. The unemployment rate hit a 25-year high of 8.9 percent in April.

Fewer people working means less being paid into the trust funds for Social Security and Medicare. The Congressional Budget Office recently projected that Social Security will collect just $3 billion more in 2010 than it will pay out in benefits. A year ago, the CBO had projected that Social Security would have a much higher $86 billion cash surplus for the 2010 budget year, which begins Oct. 1. The trustees report projected that Social Security's annual surpluses would "fall sharply this year," then remain at a reduced level in 2010 and be lower in the following years than last year's projections. The report said that the Social Security annual surplus would be eliminated entirely in 2016, reflecting increased demands from the wave of 78 million baby boomers retiring. That means Social Security will have to turn to its trust fund to make up the difference between Social Security taxes and the benefits being paid out beginning in 2016. The trustees projected the trust fund would be depleted in 2037, four years earlier than the 2041 date in last year's report. At that point, the annual Social Security taxes collected would be enough to pay for three-fourths of current benefits through 2083.

*******To tap the trust fund, the government would have to increase borrowing or raise taxes because Social Security bonds exist only as bookkeeping entries. While the government is obligated to redeem those bonds, it has already spent the excess Social Security collections over the years to fund general government operations, providing the trust funds with IOUs.

While the smaller surpluses that will begin this year will not have any impact on Social Security benefit payments, the government will need to borrow more at a time when the federal deficit is already exploding because of the recession and the billions of dollars being spent to prop up a shaky banking system. Medicare's condition is more precarious, reflecting the pressures from soaring health care costs as well as the drop in tax collections. Obama on Monday praised the pledge by the health care industry to achieve $2 trillion in savings on health care costs over the next decade, but it was unclear how much help those pledges would be in achieving Obama's goal of extending coverage to some 50 million uninsured Americans. The administration is pushing Congress to pass legislation in this area this year, preferring to tackle health care before Social Security. The trustees report is likely to set off renewed debate over Social Security and Medicare. Critics have charged that the Obama administration has failed to tackle the most serious problems in the budget — soaring entitlement spending.

*****The administration on Monday revised its federal deficit forecasts upward to project an imbalance this year of $1.84 trillion, four times last year's record, and said the deficits will remain above $500 billion every year over the next decade.
God d*mn America is ok then? As long as you have good church programs? (nm)
x
employer based-programs subsidize insurance...
not just make it available--and therein lies my problem.
And govt shouldn't fund religious programs....
schools, facilities, etc.
Yeah, they are liberal on social issues. sm
And, they have run amuck chasing the adoption records of Roberts. It's things like this that make people want to lump liberals/democrats all up in one pile when in fact this is one, maybe two journalist starting this up. It gives fuel to the right wing media and the wheels keep on turning.
Post Office, Social Security

Veterans Health care.


 


Social Security is a retirement "insurance" sm
as with any insurance you usally do draw more than you pay in! If you have a (for example) $250,000 life insurance policy, do you think you are going to pay in $250,000 for it?

All this complaining about people drawing SS but I tell you if you are paying in and happen to have a catastrophic illness and have to draw disability benefits, you will be glad you paid in.
Programs the conservatives make a life long mission
nm
Putting together job programs in order to get people back to work....sm
able to perhaps save their homes and families, able to pay taxes, which will in turn pay for social programs, support the infrastructure, and then when folk are back to work they will feel secure in perhaps purchasing again, which will help businesses....FDR did it, it takes time, it is not a quick fix, it won't make Obama into Merlin, it took 8 LONG YEARS to get into this bottomless pit, can we give this administration at least a year or two to try to get things moving upward again? I may not support every social program included therein, but work is being done, adn will continue. I used to cross the desert on occasion when I lived in CA, and I am starting to see vultures on the side of the road again circling and not even waiting to pounce and pull apart the government. Why? Just my opion.
You might want to Google "mccain privatize social security"
nm