John F. Kerry

young people dont vote or contribute to political campaigns....

...excellent article fareed

Fareed Zakaria - America's grim budget outlook

It is now well understood that one of the crucial drivers of the crises in the Middle East is the discontent of its youth. Arab countries have been unable or unwilling to provide jobs, education, opportunity and rights for their young and so, finally, they revolted. Is there any lesson in this story for the United States? Not directly; there is no analogy between Middle Eastern dictatorships and American democracy. But if the troubles of Arab youth make us shine a light on the state of America's youth, the picture that emerges is grim.

THIS STORY
How Boehner is playing the Democrats
Why Social Security is welfare
America's grim budget outlook
As countries get rich, you might assume that they focus greater attention on their children. Not in the United States. The federal government's expenditures on children have shrunk as a share of the budget over the past 30 years. In 1960, about 20 percent of the federal budget went to programs dedicated to the health, development and education of Americans under the age of 18. Today it's 10 percent and falling.

By contrast, spending on the elderly has skyrocketed, doubling as a percentage of the budget during that time. Spending on Social Security and Medicare alone makes up close to 40 percent of the budget. In a decade, that share will rise considerably, perhaps to as much as half the federal budget. Whatever the exact percentages are - what you define as programs for children and the elderly can vary - the conclusion is clear: The federal government spends between $4 and $5 on elderly people for every dollar it spends on children.

Why is this happening? To put it bluntly, children don't vote or make campaign contributions, and the elderly do both aggressively. Our political system is hyper-responsive to votes and money, so the natural consequence is that those who organize, vote and send in dollars are looked after. Maybe we need to let toddlers form PACs.

In fact, the contrast between what we spend on the old and the young is part of a broader problem that threatens America's economic future. Look at the economic debate in Washington: We continue to avoid dealing with the large entitlement programs and the largest domestic giveaways, such as the tax deduction for mortgage interest. No tax increases, such as a value-added tax or a gas tax, are even remotely possible. Instead, legislators make a show of cutting the budget by trumpeting the savings in the much smaller pie of discretionary spending, slashing education, infrastructure, science and other such programs.

The net effect is that the United States will continue to massively subsidize consumption and starve investment. This is exactly the opposite of what history tells us produces long-term economic growth. The American economy is already far too focused on consumption and credit. And not only will this approach have limited benefits to the budget - any fiscal discipline that does not tackle entitlement spending is a charade - but we are cutting in precisely the areas where we should increase spending. From China to South Korea to Germany, countries are making large investments for future growth at the moment we are pruning such expenditures.

Again, the reasons are clear: There is no political will to take on the subsidies and spending that are consumption-related. And yet we need to find budget cuts, so lawmakers look to the easy place to find them: on the investment side of the budget. The result, however, will be disastrous for the country's long-term health.

President Obama sounded this call for investment in his State of the Union address. His budget tries to preserve and even expand spending in key areas that will contribute to future growth. But he faces a Republican Party that is fixated by a budget-cutting mentality but refuses to propose entitlement cuts and in which a sledgehammer is preferred to a scalpel. And America's business community is sitting on the sidelines, betting its future on the growth in foreign countries (which themselves are making huge investments for their growth).

America's growth and prosperity over the past few decades have been consequences of major investments made in the 1950s and 1960s. Some of those are the interstate highway system; a public education system that was the envy of the world; massive funding for science and technology that produced the semi-conductor industry, large-scale computing, the Internet and the global positioning system. When we look back in 20 years, what investments will we point to that created the next generation of growth for the next generation of Americans?

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Nasa under Obama

John F. Kerry

even more than this, the crazy thing i hear is that nobody not dem or rep talks about changing the social security or medicare or wellfare benefits for people who are already in, or near to, retirement.

we're gonna arbitrarily pick a year and everyone under that age is fucked and their contributions to social security and medicare will be worth dog shit so that everyone who happens to be 44 and not 43 gets all the benefits they were promised as 30% was taken out of their paycheck every week.

if we want to end the problem, we have to end the problem. its not politically expedient
(yet) for people to do this- but i think if enough young people banded together and had their own tea party maybe we could start having politicians act with the youths best interest at heart and not the elderly as the only people that vote.


its just like with the unions thing. i dont want to hurt unions, or old people.... but its their shit that got us into this mess- its decades of stagnation, and entrenched interests, and all the rest, they had years and years to provide us a society to get jobs and flourish in- but instead were too busy buying second homes and betting on the stock market with the extra money they should have been investing in the next generation... the only way we will ever change this is if we speak up.... we gave them a chance to build a society that would endure , but it seems like all they are interested in is maintaining their (unsustainable) benefits, and not whether our nation is any good anymore once they are gone...

so , in light of their attitude and that same attitude expressed by politicians.... and in light of the reality of the fiscal situation... i think its time for the youth to make its voice heard .... i think every young person from every party has more in common than all dems or all reps do.....that is, setting up society so IT WORKS for our generation like it worked for the last 2.

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Nasa under Obama

SageTree

Thanks John. I don't follow the news in the States much and even though I don't always agree with what you have to say or understand the point I am glad you bring stuff to the fore front with a post.

I paid into SS until I was 24 before I moved out of the country. Consider my contribution a gift

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stoneric

You just want to abolish unions and cut off old people. Much different from actually hurting them, I guess.

Grieves

j is just living a delusion of affluence, he wants to cut off anyone who wants to tear him away from his delusions...It's not just the unions and old people, it is anyone who threatens the wealthy class, that amazingly enough he doesn't belong too...

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mothernature

I must admit that I did not read the whole thing.

I am 56 years old and I have been working since I was 14. That is 42 fucking years I've been paying into Social Security. So, fuck yes, I feel entitled to the money. It's my fucking money.

The Rev

U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

That's understandable. I'm 44, and have been paying in for almost 30 years, and I'd like to see something back, too. Unfortunately, I probably won't. Social Security is already $15 Trillion in the hole, and medicare is like $78 Trillion in the hole. It's beyond unsustainable, at this point. It's just waiting to fall apart. And when it does, that will be it for the U.S. Government as we know it, as everyone left holding the bag unleashes their rage upon Washington.

That's what we get for basing our state elderly care on a system developed by Charles Ponzi.



The Rev

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DdC

The Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan is extremely disappointing and something that should be vigorously opposed by the American people. The huge increase in the national debt in recent years was caused by two unpaid wars, tax breaks for the wealthy, a Medicare prescription drug bill written by the pharmaceutical industry, and the Wall Street bailout. Unlike Social Security, none of these proposals were paid for. Not only has Social Security not contributed a dime to the deficit, it has a $2.6 trillion surplus.

It is reprehensible to ask working people, including many who do physically-demanding labor, to work until they are 69 years of age. It also is totally impractical. As they compete for jobs with 25-year-olds, many older workers will go unemployed and have virtually no income. Frankly, there will not be too much demand within the construction industry for 69-year-old bricklayers.

Despite all of the right-wing rhetoric, Social Security is not going bankrupt. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Social Security can pay every nickel owed to every eligible American for the next 29 years and after that about 80 percent of benefits.

If we are serious about making Social Security strong and solvent for the next 75 years, President Obama has the right solution. On October 14, 2010, he restated a long-held position that the cap on income subject to Social Security payroll taxes, now at $106,800, should be raised. As the president has long stated, With the richest people in this country getting richer and the middle class in decline, it is absurd that billionaires pay the same amount into the Social Security system as someone who earns $106,800.

Pure evil
The solution is simple...

mothernature

Now that I'm no longer exhausted from working my ass off all day....

When I was in my 20's, there was much to be said about SS lasting. After all, there are more baby boomers than any other age group, and today's workers pay for today's retirees. The numbers just didn't add up. My government told us not to worry, that everything was all good. But is it? It wouldn't be the first lie told to the people by it's own government.

Long time ago, I don't remember when, we were told the age for retirement would go up. Yes, I get to retire a few months before those people younger than me, but I have to work longer than those people older than me.

At some point in time, The government wanted to privatize SS. Wanted the money tied into the stock market. The people had had enough lies, so that didn't happen.

Now throw this in to the mix...

My dad worked for the government. He didn't pay into SS. They had (have?) their own separate retirement set up. After his retirement, he got 2 checks. One from his pension, one from SS, for the work he did prior to government work. Even he said, that it wasn't right.

Our society has been playing the spend now, pay later game for far too long. At some point the house of cards will collapse. It will only hurt the working class. The rich have already bought laws to protect themselves and their future generations.

Ya know, I'm SORRY that my generation spent too much money. I'm SORRY my parents generation spent too much money. I'm also sorry that your generation is spending too much money. I personally didn't. I was against the wars, the tax cuts, the dynasty trusts and all the rest.

This is a "has been" country now. The bottom 90% of us are poorer than ever, while the top 10% own the majority of the wealth. Hasn't been like this since 1928, right before the Great Depression.

I love space, but how about cutting out NASA? I would rather spend the money cleaning up the radioactive dump sites that are all over this country. The leftovers from the glorious 50's and 60's. Maybe with that shit cleaned up, our people living close to those areas would not be going on disability from having things like lukemia (at 10 times the national avarage). Maybe those people could actually work to support their own children instead of dropping dead at an early age.

DdC

Hemp 'Eats' Chernobyl Waste

An explosion at a nuclear reactor on April 26th, 1986 in Chernobyl, Ukraine created the world's worst nuclear disaster - so far.

The blast heavily contaminated agricultural lands in a 30 km radius around the reactor. The few people still living there must monitor their food and water for radiation. However the combination of a new technology (phytoremediation) and an old crop (industrial hemp) may offer the Ukraine a way to decontaminate it's radioactive soil.

In 1998, Consolidated Growers and Processors (CGP), PHYTOTECH, and the Ukraine's Institute of Bast Crops began what may be one of the most important projects in history =the planting of industrial hemp for the removal of contaminants in the soil near Chernobyl.

CGP is an ecologically-minded multinational corporation which finances the growing and processing of sustainable industrial crops such as flax, kenaf, and industrial hemp. CGP operates in North America, Europe and the Ukraine.

Ganja//Hemp

SageTree

Saying it's because the young people don't vote, is conversely saying that old people don't care about the young, which I believe to be untrue.

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John F. Kerry

well look at the numbers... older people know full well that our society is on an unsustainable path.... and they know that indisputably, social security wellfare medicare and medicaid will be more than half of our total economic output in a few years- these arent debatable things, these are facts.

they know full well that unless the system is changed and their benefits reduced, we will be spending all the money of society, meant to pay for everything from the military to schools , will instead go to paying for their cost of living increases and benefits.... all while the rest of us scramble to try to make society work with half or 1 third, or 1 quarter of the money we used to have to make it run- because all that money is going to pay them to sit on their asses and do nothing ... (may sound mean, but its true).

so if they really do care about the younger generation , then u could imagine what they would say ..


instead they say, oh fuck the rich, tax them more, its the bs corporations that should be taxed more, blah blah blah..... if they looked at the numbers they would realize that everyone probably needs to be taxed more and given less benefits- including the rich, but all they care about is shifting the burden to someone-who-isnt-them.


so i disagree with u , if they really cared , they would do what is clearly necessary.... or at least talk about doing what is clearly necessary, not just demagogue people with the false notion that bill gates can pick up all the slack and pay for 1/2 of our expenses every year for the next millenium.



....edit (wrote this after your post rev)

as fareed notes in his article.... we were spending twice as much on children and half as much on the elderly in the 1960s...... so what has changed? taxes on the rich werent 91% in 1960... that was during world war 2..... was there so much more money back then that everyone could be happy with their share? no- the fact was that when u had 6 workers for every 1 old person the system could work- now its the reverse and people are more selfish than they were back then - imagine asking an old person to eat spam once a week to save some money or to go to a group home instead of demanding 24 hour home care paid for by taxpayers.... those things sound so inhumane and cruel- but actually, they really arent. a small alteration in behavior by a large number of people will make a huge change- its either eat spam and cambels soup once a week, or keep this freight train running at full speed towards a big boulder in front of the tracks... im not trying to squeeze the poor- eating cambells soup once a week is tasty.... u dont need expensive shit every day..... small changes by a lot of people add up to lot.... contrast that with the huge changes we would need to make for the 1% of rich people to really get enough money for the other 99% of society to keep living unsustainably.... and once those people were eating soup for lunch once a week instead of take out- the rich could be much more easily shamed into paying more themselves.... i approach this in a what would be the least harmful way to fix things type of way..... and while i can abstractly say that having the rich pay for it would be nice, or cutting programs i dont like would be nice.... what would be better overall is if everyone could make a small change that would add up in agregate but really not be all that extreme for any one person.... the difference , literally, between eating out once a week or twice a week.

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Nasa under Obama

The Rev

I think alot of the sentiment among retirees (or close to being retirees), about social security, is the same as it is for the rest of us who've paid into it for any amount of time. They paid into it forever, and they feel they deserve to get something out of it. Can't blame them for fighting (through AARP, etc.) to get what they've paid for.

The problem is, yes, it's unsustainable, as is any system where early investors are paid out of the money invested by later investors (aka, a Ponzi scheme). But, the thing is, the whole system of government is unsustainable. The government is running up larger and larger deficits, committing future generations to pay for what we're doing now, just as we are now paying (through lower standards of living for the same work) for the debts run up by earlier generations. Tax rates are so high (when you count ALL the taxes you pay, from income tax to sales tax to tax on your cable bill) that you have to earn enough to support yourself more than twice over in order to simply support yourself once. The government has taxed us almost to the point that they no longer feasibly can, so they print money (a hidden tax, as it takes purchasing power out of the dollar, leaving people with less) which hobbles the economy further.

If you have a leach on you, that progressively sucks more and more blood, eventually, it either has to stop growing or it will kill you. Well, the government can't stop growing, much as we wish it were otherwise, so sooner or later, it must kill it's host (our ability to produce actual wealth, as opposed to nominal wealth in the form of money) or be killed.

Fortunately, "organizations" such as wikileaks and anonymous are helping the government to the block.



The Rev

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stoneric

What planet do you live on? What do you think people make on Social Security? Spam would be an upgrade for some compared to cat food.

DdC

Oh I see, Kerry just makes shit up and then references it.

That is what has changed numbnuts. When Art Linkletter made millions on early TV he paid 90% taxes, still made millions but we didn't need both parents working with no one watching the kiddies. Stop sucking up to Koch, it doesn't ever trickle down. WaFNN! I certainly hope you're on the clock. To think Americans are this gullible is scary. Thinking you're getting nickels tossed your way gives it some semblance of sanity. Moneysluts may be weird degenerates but at least they have a motive for their stupidity. But then being a sheep is still a slave and no amount of money is worth that.
Give it up JFQ, you're crazy.