According to polling on what Americans list as priorities, the federal deficit is listed in the top three in multiple polling from a variety of organizations, such as CBS News, New York Times, CNN and Bloomberg polling, just to name a few examples.
Contrary to Liberal's arguments, fact checkers have found that Social Security does contribute to our federal deficit. In fact the numbers show Social Security ran a $37 billion deficit last year, is projected to run a $45 billion deficit this year, and more red ink every year thereafter
Other entitlement programs which include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Unemployment insurance, as of 2010, took up over 58 percent of America's expenses. (Chart below from Business Insider)
There is no doubt that our government's spending practice of spending more money than we have has led to historically high deficits and that current entitlement programs are unsustainable and further add to the deficit.
Using just Social Security as an example, FactCheck.org, via the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) own figures, has found that SS has "has passed a tipping point."
For years it generated more revenue than it consumed, holding down the overall federal deficit and allowing Congress to spend more freely for other things. But those days are gone. Rather than lessening the federal deficit, Social Security has at last — as long predicted — become a drag on the government’s overall finances.As recently as October, CBO was projecting that it would be 2016 before outlays regularly exceed revenues. But Social Security’s fiscal troubles are more severe than was thought, and the latest projections show the permanent deficits started several years ahead of earlier predictions.
Medicare, Medicaid and the Obamacare subsidy program, and Social Security will consume all revenues by 2049.
A deficit Supercommittee was created, a 12-member bi-partisan panel formed with the express purpose of making a deal that would reverse the country’s economic mess and reduce the deficit. The goal was to slash at least $1.2 trillion in deficit cuts
At the time the Supercommittee was formed, Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee from 2004, said "The world is watching. And our strength at home determines our strength in the world."
Democratic co-chair of the Supercommittee, Senator Patty Murray of Washington stated "Many worry our government is broken. And at times, it’s easy to share their fear. The committee has the opportunity to show the American people we can still come together, put politics aside and solve a problem plaguing our country."
The Republican co-chair, sitting next to Murray, said "Will history record that we wrote the first chapter of America’s decline? Or will history record that we kept faith with the founding fathers and previous generations and left the next generation with greater blessings of liberty and vaults of limitless opportunities? The choice is ours, let the work begin."
The Supercommittee failed.
Now, both parties are quickly trying to figure out how to turn the committee’s embarrassing failure into a political win for their side.
The Democratic message: We stood up to Republicans looking to gut Social Security, slash Medicare and permanently extend the Bush-era tax cuts for high income Americans.
The Republican counterattack: Democrats wanted little more than tax increases and refused to consider changes to deficit-driving health care entitlements. Both sides are positioning themselves as the party that compromised and sought a middle-ground.
Only one side of the political spectrum is applauding the failure of the Supercommittee to accomplish it's goals.
Liberals.
Via The Politico, headline "Left blogs cheer supercommittee's collapse."
Judging by the reaction from the blogosphere, the deficit supercommittee’s failure is a victory for the left.
Liberal bloggers are praising the widely expected collapse in bipartisan talks and the apparent failure of supercommittee to come to an agreement on deficit reduction, noting that it was the best outcome that they could have hoped for.
Pretty much says it all right there. Liberals never wanted any reform of entitlements combined with a reduction of Government spending, which would require a "shared sacrifice." The only sacrifice Liberals propose is to raise taxes to continue to pay off the interest of money borrowed to support entitlement programs and government spending that is now at levels that cannot be sustained in the long term.
Robert J. Samuelson at Washington Post explains:
Contrary to much press coverage, the committee’s Republicans opened the door to compromise by abandoning — as they should have — opposition to tax increases. Sen. Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania proposed a tax “reform” that would raise income taxes by $250 billion over a decade. First, he would impose across-the-board reductions of most itemized deductions and use the resulting revenue gains to cut all tax rates. Next, he would adjust the rates for the top two brackets so that they’d be high enough to produce the $250 billion. All the tax increase would fall on people in the top brackets.
Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin called Toomey’s proposal a “breakthrough.” With good reason: It came from a “no new taxes, over my dead body” Republican who had signed Grover Norquist’s pledge against any tax increases. But the details of Toomey’s plan are murky, and many Democrats claim that it would cut taxes for the rich. Democrats also didn’t respond with an equal concession: a willingness to deal with Social Security and Medicare.
Democrats never wanted the Supercommittee to succeed and their supporters have no problem admitting it.
Former three-term Republican Senator Judd Gregg asks "Where in the world is Obama?" when the Supercommittee came on to it's last days to offer a solution.
Conservatives are not the only ones asking that question either. H/T to Hot Air, we have a video of one of the Democratic members of the panel, Senator Joe Manchin, saying that Obama needed to do something, yet Obama didn't.
Is it any wonder that some Democrats want Barack Obama to abandon his candidacy for reelection?
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