The modern GOP has perfected this cyclical deficit outrage ritual. Republicans run up the tab when they control the White House, then scream about deficits when Democrats win - insisting that 'serious reform' means cutting only Democratic budget priorities.
While the Left seems obsessed with increasing taxes and spending even more money, conservatives have focused more heavily on the need for spending restraint and entitlement reform - primarily to preserve and protect the future of the Medicare program. Overlooked in all of this is the future of Medicaid.
Democrats believe, plausibly, that middle-class entitlements are instantly addictive and, because there is no known detoxification, that class, when facing future choices between trimming entitlements or increasing taxes, will choose the latter.
Trillions of dollars in out-of-control entitlement spending cannot be remedied by cuts in NASA, or even in the entire discretionary budget, defense included. Rather, the financial bleeding needs to be staunched where the hole is and nowhere else.
Everything Republicans once claimed to advocate - entitlement reform, free trade, standing up to dictators, encouraging the march of freedom around the world - turns out to be negotiable and reversible, depending on Donald Trump's whims and the furies of his base.
In order to truly get deficit spending and federal debt under control, the Trump administration is going to have to eventually address entitlement reform. If not, Trump will not only become part of the Washington status quo on the issue, but will leave burdensome and expensive problems for future generations.
It is extremely difficult to rescind entitlements to which people think they are legally entitled. Taxes can easily go up and down. There isn’t the same political pressure.
We should be reforming our entitlement programs to empower people.
The government has made $44 trillion in promises we can't afford to keep. We must get serious now about our long-term budgetary problems, recognizing that the sooner we act, the less painful the choices will be.
Washington doesn't have just a spending problem, or just an entitlement problem, or just a taxing problem. We have a leadership problem. Fix that, and the first three problems are solved.
What I'd like to do is be able to work with Democrats to reform current entitlement programs for future generations, grandfathering all the grandparents.
When you talk about entitlement programs, it's not just about - it's not about cutting those programs. It is about saving those programs. Those programs are on a path of fiscal unsustainability.
Reconciliation is a special budget procedure to change entitlement and tax laws. It cannot be filibustered and requires only a simple majority in the Senate to be passed. It is primarily intended for deficit and mandatory spending reduction.
We cannot deal with the debt. The Democrats are not going to allow reductions in entitlements like Social Security. The Republicans will not allow one dime of additional taxes. We have a deadlock of democracy.
In point of fact, 'Simpson-Bowles' has become a symbol, or SimBowl, rather than an actual plan, political shorthand for the process of long-term deficit reduction.
Any politician that says no tax revenue or zero spending cuts does not deserve reelection. Our hole is so deep in this country with the debt and the debt service, the interest on that debt, before the big expenses come for Social Security and Medicare - for we baby boomers in a few years - that everything has to be on the table.
Our pandering politicians compete to add names to the dependency of entitlement rolls instead of evaluating the success of these programs by how many people leave the dole and are restored to an independence. And these bulging entitlements are saddling our offspring with unsustainable generational debt.
I don't think you expand entitlements when so many people are dependent on government and when the money the federal government is offering is going to be taken away from you after just a couple of years.
It's going to be true that anything that reduces the federal deficit will have somebody unhappy.
To avoid large and unsustainable budget deficits, the nation will ultimately have to choose among higher taxes, modifications to entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, less spending on everything else from education to defense, or some combination of the above.
I think that all areas of the budget have to be scrubbed. Clearly the entitlement issues have to be reformed and that's an issue that's going to require I think some strong bipartisan cooperation and leadership.
Paul Ryan has been a responsible legislator and public servant, almost alone among members of Congress in his belief that we need to strengthen and save our social entitlements.
President Obama has offered a plan with 4 trillion dollars in debt reduction over a decade, with two and a half dollars of spending reductions for every one dollar of revenue increases, and tight controls on future spending. It's the kind of balanced approach proposed by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission.
Obviously the first thing we need to do is repeal “Obamacare.” That's one entitlement that we can get rid of. And that's a couple trillion dollars in spending over the next 10 years.
Obama and his Democrats need to be placed on the defensive. They are the primary drivers of this spending; they are the obstructers of entitlement reform and the national debt continues to burn while they fiddle.
