Reply from Congressman Emanuel Cleaver concerning OrphanWorksActof 2008

[rod]

On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 10:26 PM, Matthew Copple
<mcopple at kcopensource.org> wrote:
> On 8/13/08 10:56 PM, "Jim Herrmann" <kclug at itdepends.com> wrote:
>
>> What has busted the budget is an illegal war entered into using known lies
>> by an administration that should be tried in the Hague for war crimes and
>> crimes against humanity.  Eliminate the war spending, which is borrowed from
>> China, and you eliminate about half of the deficit.  Eliminate another 20%
>> of a military budget that is larger than all the rest of the world combined,
>> and we have a balanced budget.  Unfortunately, the next president, Obama,
>> has been doing a bunch of sabre rattling about Afghanistan.  That won't be
>> cheap.  So, I don't hold out much hope for that 20% reduction I'm talking
>> about, but at least he'll get us out of Iraq soon.
>
> Naturally, Medicare and Social Security wouldn't have anything to do with
> the deficit, right? Why make hard decisions when you can sit comfortably in
> the armchair and blame everything on a nasty little war?
>
>
I think both of you are inaccurate, but both of these inaccuracies
work to mask the real size of the budget deficit.  First, it is my
understanding that the war spending isn't part of the budgetary
process, in-so-much as the WH numbers and its budget projection never
include it, it just gets ignored.  I don't think any of the
appropriations bills consider it.  I guess because the WH doesn't ask
for it as part of their budget request, congress isn't going to fund
it as part of the ongoing budget.  It is always an "emergency"
spending measure paired with a resolution to raise the debt ceiling.
When budget short fall estimates come out, the WH will not have war
spending included and the press is left to report the WH numbers  Then
they may or may not qualify what has been left out.

Rhetorically inferring that social security is a contributing factor
to the budget deficit is just blatantly wrong. (Maybe I misunderstood.
 Were you trying to use satire to infer the opposite?)  Social
security pulls in much more money from payroll taxes than what is paid
out in benefits.   This SS surplus is figured into the budget deficit
numbers, without it the budget deficit would look much worse.  This
surplus has been in effect at least since the large payroll tax
increases of 1983.  President Bush as a candidate and early in his
first term stated that he would balance the budget without using the
SS surplus.   The projections are for this surplus to continue until
late in the next decade at which point the promised benefits per month
will outstrip the taxes collected per month.  Some are referring to
this as a crisis point and must not be allowed to happen.  The
implication is that excess payroll taxes will be used for upwards of
35 years to pay for items that should have been financed primarily
with income taxes. Once this positive cash flow is gone and SS has to
call in its IOUs  many of our elected officials won't want to ask
income tax payers to fund their spending, and they certainly don't
want to ask them to pay back the monies borrowed from SS.  Without any
changes to the system SS will still have enough IOU's to run just fine
well into the mid  2040's (date from memory, I didn't check this).

Note, I didn't bring up Medicare because I don't know its funding mechanism.

-Rod