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Comment by timr | Hacker News Reader

It's definitely a great idea, given that members of both major political parties are absolutely loathe to touch the biggest sources of government expenditure: old person benefits (social security + medicare), and the military. Medical services for the poor (medicaid) are comparatively minor, but you wouldn't know it, given how much emphasis the Republicans place on the question of the "welfare state".

With greater public knowledge, perhaps we'd finally be able to move past the irrational demonization of expenses that don't matter (but win cheap political points), and focus our attention on the actual problems.

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Medical services for the poor (medicaid) are comparatively minor, but you wouldn't know it, given how much emphasis the Republicans place on the question of the "welfare state".

I'm not sure I'd describe medicaid as "comparatively minor". Medicare is $390B, medicaid $247B ($290B including the state contributions). I guess the threshold for expenses that don't matter must bet somewhere between $290B and $390B.

http://usgovernmentspending.com/year2008_US.html#usgs30210

(Use the dropdown to select year=2008, the last year for which full data is available.)

[edit: curious why I'm being downmodded. Is posting the actual numbers so detrimental to the conversation?

edit 2: put in the federal-only numbers, thanks jbooth for pointing that out. ]

Compared to the size of the government, or even just the deficit, it's comparatively minor. By your numbers.

390B + 240B is over 20% of the total 2008 budget. I guess we have different definitions of "minor."

Hey jbellis, been doing some Cassandra this past week.

The original contention was just regarding medicaid -- 290 billion compared to a 3 trillion budget, with a > 1 trillion deficit. Entitlements all together add up to about half of the budget. They're big. But the original point was that nobody wants to touch medicare/SS but everyone makes Medicaid the bad guy. Makes you think they're more concerned with demographics and likely voters than budget arithmetic.

EDIT: Watches the downvotes. Chill out guys, it's just numbers. You'll win the house this fall, take it easy on HN.

Medicaid amounts to 65% of the budget deficit and about 60% of medicare. Welfare amounts to another 70%. If we cut the welfare state (i.e., medicare and welfare), we would have a budget surplus.

While I agree that medicaid is a politically easier target than medicare, it's not a small program. It's a completely legitimate target of criticism, and eliminating it would significantly improve the federal budget.

That's keeping the payroll taxes that pay for medicaid intact. So you're saying cut the medicaid program and slush the money that pays for it over to the discretionary budget (funded by income tax) to plug the hole there? Maybe put a different line item for that amount, or rejigger the tax itself into income tax? Or cut the medicaid program and kick it all towards medicare to give it a longer lifeline? Honest questions, would love to hear a clarification.

(for the record, I'm keeping it extremely civil in the numbers but find the thrust of this morally disturbing because I think there's a right to basic medical care and you can't deny it only to the poor)

Wait, 65% of the budget deficit? Your own quote has it at 290 billion dollars, that' s approximately 30% of the discretionary budget deficit. Letting alone the fact that it's part of an entirely separate budget.

The federal deficit was $377.9 in 2008. You do the math. I'll post the link again:

http://usgovernmentspending.com/year2008_US.html#usgs302

Ohhhhh, we're talking about balancing the 2008 budget.. Well that doesn't make any sense, but I'm looking forward to your answers to my questions above on the mechanics of how that would work.

(EDIT in reply: Yeah, that's fine, and I went with it, but talking about percentages of a 380 billion dollar deficit in the context of current events is just plain silly.)

From my previous post: "(Use the dropdown to select year=2008, the last year for which full data is available.)" I don't think I was unclear - jbellis certainly figured it out about 2 hours ago.

As for the specific mechanics, I'll refer you to another post in this thread which provides a number of mechanisms: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1745969

More or less any of them should work.

"More or less any of them should work"?

You want to burn a $290 billion dollar program to the ground, with consequences like "poor people don't get insulin", and you can't even be bothered to think about which top level line item should be moved around?

This is why Al Gore sighed into his microphone that time. Yeah, it lost him the election, but when are you people going to realize that studied ignorance is not the way to solve problems?

"I'm not sure I'd describe medicaid as "comparatively minor". Medicare is $390B, medicaid $247B ($290B including the state contributions). I guess the threshold for expenses that don't matter must bet somewhere between $290B and $390B."

2009 US Federal Spending: 3,518 Billion (100%)

2009 US Defense Spending: 782 Billion (23%)

2009 US Social Security: 678 Billion (20%)

Medicare and Medicaid combined: 676 Billion (19%)

I'm not saying Medicaid is nothing; I'm saying it's not even close to Social Security or defense spending as a source of concern.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY...

Social security and medicare are "welfare" by any reasonable definition. So the welfare state is a big issue.

You can define "welfare" however you like, but it doesn't change the reality that no politician -- on either side of the aisle -- is seriously proposing cuts to Social Security or Medicare. Old people comprise the base of both political parties.

Those elderly white men have families do they not? Maybe the family should take care of old white men instead?

Or better yet, invest in technology so they rejuvenate old people to the point that they can enter the workforce and earn their living for the rest of their life(presumably several centuries).

I am not sure why people downvote the comment.

I am merely suggesting that we should return the care of elderly to the families, who are in better position to know what their elders need.

I am also suggesting that people should invest in anti-aging research so that social security would be entirely unnecessary.

I'm not sure how race got involved.

Many people agree with you that people should take care of themselves, and that Social Security and Medicare should be, at most, a safety net for people who would otherwise be old folks on the streets without healthcare. Such a policy is usually referred to as "means testing" retirement benefits.

Eliminating government retirement benefits altogether will never happen because no one likes seeing 70 year-olds suffering in poverty, but they don't dislike it enough to ameliorate the problem directly via charity. Humans are weird like that.

I'm not sure how race got involved.

Ignore that. I was reading a parent's post and reply to the wrong parent comment.

No, this is not what I advocated. I advocated that the family should resume the role of caretakers(or what been eroded by government) instead of leaving old folks alone in old people homes. Old people can then serve as babysitters, teachers, etc, to grandchildren. That is assuming, that they do have them.

Maybe some. But this is ignoring the option of creating mutual aid societies. Fraternities organizations used to exists in large number and large number of Americans join them, regardless of their race and class. They provide orphanage, hospitals, and even home for elderly. Now the welfare state serve some of these functions, some said, poorly.

I advocated that the family should resume the role of caretakers

What do you think should happen to those who are unable to reproduce, or who choose not to, or whose children die before them, or whose children are just jerks who won't help their parents out?

What do you think should happen to those who are unable to reproduce, or who choose not to, or whose children die before them, or whose children are just jerks who won't help their parents out?

So this is saying that we should need a government to help out all these old people that do not have anybody to help them.

That's nice, but government aid have crowding out effect on mutual aid societies and the like, and that's assuming that government aid are actually better than family based, charity based, mutual aid societies and other voluntary assistance.

Beside, the increasing wealth of society and technological development should eventually help those old folks out. Charity would eventually be able to buy more food and shelter per dollars.

Look, my suggestion isn't perfect and won't cover all the case scenario. But government is a tradeoff. You might be paying it through taxes, increased bureaucracy, less innovations amongst charity, etc.

All things being equal, I think I consider a voluntary effort to support the old people to be more ethical than coercing people to support these people.

Private, voluntary solutions that achieve the same goals as government programs at equal or lower cost are always superior. However, I don't think your proposed solutions would achieve the same goals. There would likely be more impoverished seniors.

no politician -- on either side of the aisle -- is seriously proposing cuts to Social Security or Medicare.

Not true. Paul Ryan did, and even got into a fairly public fight with Paul Krugman about it [1].

http://www.roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/

[1] The fight was mostly over matters of little substance - Krugman told a few lies about Ryan which blogger Megan McCardle repeatedly debunked. The substance of the proposal was not discussed. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/krugman-... http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/paul-kru...

And then he walked it back - the way I saw that conversation was Ryan walking his statements back and Krugman trying to pin him to them, or, if you'd prefer, exaggerating them -- that's just more support for "noone will touch SS".

If Ryan came out swinging and saying "YEAH i want to dismantle SS", that'd be different.

Krugman and Ryan never discussed matters of substance. The public fight I was referring to was bickering over whether Ryan specifically asked the right agency for a forecast. Stuff like this:

Krugman: "...Ryan could have gotten JCT to do a 10-year estimate; [...] he chose not to get that 10-year estimate. "

McCardle: "...I contacted Ryan's staff, who were happy to clarify that yes, they asked the JCT to do a forecast, and JCT said no."

As I said, nothing of substance. Just Krugman dishonestly attempting to paint Ryan as a liar (I believe "flim flam man" was the term he used).

On substantive matters, if you look at Table 1 of the CBO's score of Ryan's roadmap, you see that Ryan clearly proposes cutting medicare by just under 40% by 2040 (and even more drastic cuts after that).

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/108xx/doc10851/01-27-Ryan-Roadmap...

I agree with you that the Republicans aren't going to do much of what I want. I don't agree that all politicians are Democrats or Republicans, or that it's pointless to speak about issues where the parties in power aren't making good proposals.

"I don't agree that all politicians are Democrats or Republicans, or that it's pointless to speak about issues where the parties in power aren't making good proposals."

I didn't suggest that it was. I just think that if we're going to have an intellectually honest discussion about the matter, we have to disregard most of the Republican party rhetoric: the poor are not the problem. The elderly are the problem. As far as I'm concerned, nobody is saying that out loud.

The Democrats are just as guilty of pandering to their base (which is also elderly), but at least they don't hang the poor out to dry in a cynical attempt to distract attention from the real problem.

I don't even think the elderly are the problem. I think Congress as a whole is the larger problem. And the structure of national elections, the existance/tactics of the Republican Party, as a close 2nd and 3rd.

Different sorts of problems - the elderly are a financial problem - not because they're bad people for being old, but because their retirement represents a huge financial liability.

The other problems you state are meta-problems - they're the reason we can't solve any actual problems. And possibly more concerning than actual problems.

It's not the elderly's fault that bad laws make them expensive. Elderly people aren't a problem, bad laws are.

Obviously poor people aren't the problem either -- personally I want to see far more immigration of poor people who want American jobs (yes I want rich immigrants too ofc) -- but inefficient govt programs like food stamps and unemployment benefits do cost a lot of money.

The problem is the govt and its mistaken idea that redistributing wealth can help people. It doesn't. It destroys wealth. We'd all be way better off if they'd never done it in the first place, including the poor and elderly. (Now we have transition issues. We need to abolish it in a way that doesn't screw people who are relying on it.)

Nearly all federal politicians with a realistic chance of winning federal office are Democrats or Republicans, with the exception of one Socialist, and a couple Democrats and Republicans running as independents because they lost their primaries.

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