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During the conversation on X between Musk and Trump, they floated the idea of Musk leading a 'government cutting commission' or basically a setup where Musk would come in and cut the fat from the government.
This idea fascinates me, and while I'm sure there are all sorts of reasons it may be terrible, I fear that financially the U.S. may need to do something dramatic like this in order to get the debt under control, etc etc. Also I, along with many other mottizens, am just pretty bearish on the efficacy of most government. Especially federal officials.
The question for me is - how would this work? Which areas do you think would get cut the most? (education was mentioned here specifically) Which areas are critical and should remain mostly untouched? (post office?)
On top of that, if this were to happen, what would be the primary blockers? Do you think Elon is the right man for the job without political connections? Are there ways in which the President can be prevented from firing large swathes of the federal admin? Potential disasters that could happen if critical employees are in fact fired?
Fixing the budget is quite easy conceptually. Just cut Social Security. Old people have had their whole lives to get their affairs in order. The “fat” is the fact that we pay people simply for being alive once they reach a certain age. Maybe you need someone with basic math skills to structure the phase-out so that people who have already paid in don’t get completely screwed, but this is a fundamentally simple problem from an operations standpoint.
I would say to cut Medicare too, but I worry that many families would literally bankrupt themselves pouring money into the pit that is the US healthcare system in order to save granny. It is quite hard to evaluate costs and benefits in a dispassionately economic manner in these areas, which is probably why we’re in this mess.
I want to fix the budget, but I'm less than stoked about robbing me of the money I was forced to pay to social security in order to do it. Personally, I think that if politicians can't agree on what to cut (which is a likely outcome TBH) we should just cut all budgets at the federal level by x% in order to make it happen. For example, if we need to cut spending by 20%, every single department budget gets slashed by 20%. No exceptions. While it would be better if our representatives could agree what needs to be cut, this would at least be better than the current status quo where the US just keeps borrowing money it's never, ever going to pay back.
Social security's insolvent. There will be automatic cuts in a decade. Expanding lifespans and falling birthrates will make the situation worse. There's no way the program survives long enough for me to get a penny out of it.
Accordingly, your demand that you benefit is actually just saying that you don't want to be the one stuck with the bill—that's for other schmucks. Keep forcing people into the Ponzi, to make sure it's solvent long enough to fulfill the promises it made to you, specifically.
And this despite that it doesn't really promise you any direct reward! There's no accrued payout that's sitting for you on a leger somewhere. That's just the story they tell you to make you think it's reasonable.
It's almost a quarter of our yearly spending.
No. Social security needs to go. At the very least, we should be means-testing. It's unfortunate that there's no political will to touch it.
That is not actually my position. I demand that, after I have been forced to pay money in, that money isn't just ripped away to balance the budget. I accept that, if we stop trying to prop it up, social security is likely to run out of money long before I see a dime. I'm ok with that (relatively speaking). My demand is that we let the money run out first, not just pull the plug. The former is unfortunate but unavoidable, the latter is a vicious slap in the face to everyone who has been forced to pay into this bad program.
Fair enough—it's still a slap in the face to everyone who will have to pay in the meantime, though.
I'm fine with cutting off SS taxes immediately. Though from what @sarker said, that would mean that the money runs out immediately so I guess maybe it amounts to the same thing. I was under the impression that there was money left in the pot, but it sounds like I was mistaken.
I'm not sure, exactly. I'm pretty sure that other government programs took out loans from social security.
Social security is the single largest debt owner for the federal government, isn't it?
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There is no money. Money paid in today is paid out today.
https://www.npr.org/2005/04/06/4580019/shaking-faith-in-social-security
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I thought the money technically did already run out. Didn’t the federal government borrow all of it decades ago?
The government maintains the fiction that there are two separate accounts.
The general account which has a massive debt.
The social security trust fund (funded by employment taxes) which has a positive balance
At some point this farce will no longer be maintained as the "trust fund" will be depleted. In theory, this would cause a reduction in benefits, but I doubt the gerontocracy would allow it. More likely, we will see massive tax increases on the remaining workers to subsidize the old.
The plan seems to be
Borrow until enough Boomers die to transfer political control to the Millennials
Cut off Generation X
Profit.
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That I don't know, unfortunately.
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The fact that we don't means-test, which seems like such an obviously correct and non-controversial idea, is indicative of just how much of a third rail any meaningful cuts to SS are due to the old people voting bloc. Even though it is kind of crazy to oppose making it so that you don't collect SS if you are fabulously wealthy, the topic is like other third rails (guns, abortion) in that even reasonable changes are vehemently opposed. Unlike guns and abortion, though, you are probably not going to get the SC to intervene here, so the only possible approach is legislative. The "adults" from both parties need to get together and get real about SS, publicly contradicting party leaders who attempt to make the issue partisan, and see if they can't at least manage to means-test for the sake of the grandchildren. The Ponzi scheme doesn't have to go to zero - we just need to start cutting benefits as the current level becomes unsustainable. Perhaps another solution would be to embrace more official, non-citizen immigration so that we can have a bigger cadre of workers who pay into SS but never get to withdraw.
The slogan for the upcoming civil rights struggle for these people is already written though... "No taxation without representation!"
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Means testing deprives the program of its third-rail status and turns it into just another welfare program.
Means testing that would actually make a difference would affect far more people than the "fabulously wealthy".
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