\n\n\n\u00e2\u0080\u009cThe commission leaders said that, at present, federal revenues are fully consumed by just three programs: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. \u00e2\u0080\u0098The rest of the federal government, including fighting two wars, homeland security, education, art, culture, you name it, veterans -- the whole rest of the discretionary budget is being financed by China and other countries,\u00e2\u0080\u0099 Simpson said.\u00e2\u0080\u009d
\nThe only solution is drastic cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, then, until they\u00e2\u0080\u0099re taking up something significantly less than the entirety of federal revenues. Ya know? But I think the whole point of the commission is to give political cover to tax increases, even though the problem they\u00e2\u0080\u0099re describing is much, much bigger than that.
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Cf. my post about the federal deficit at http://paul-m-jones.com/archives/1354.
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