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Comment by zeroonetwothree | Hacker News Reader

It’s essentially impossible to balance the budget without cutting entitlements as the comment you are replying to suggests.

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They are called “entitlements” because we have a reasonable expectation of getting what we were promised when we agreed to pay taxes as our part of the social contract.

If you say, “We should have invested more,” I point you to the 40% of current retirees that were not in a position to invest because their jobs didn't pay them enough above the cost of existing. And then there are any number of events, such as age discrimination, common medical issues, divorce, and bankruptcy, that destroy retirement plans.

From what I can tell, it's not possible for the vast majority of the population to be able to save for a 20 plus year retirement.

One of the things that keep people from saving are the activities driven by their investing in the stock market. To increase returns, "Activist investors" and private equity drive companies to shed jobs. You shed a job, you destroy a person's ability to save for retirement, which makes them more dependent on the social contract of Social Security and Medicare.

Cutting benefits will only cause suffering. The cost will fall on society in other ways in terms of elderly homeless people filling the ERs, begging in the streets, or committing suicide. Is it time for a "Modest Proposal II"?

Totally false. It was balanced in the 90s. Its just that raising taxes has to be part of the equation. Guess what, three successive republican administrations have lowered taxes. So maybe just roll those back.

But that's not comparable. If the tax take/GDP was the same today as it was when the budget was balanced then (19.9%), there would still be a deficit well over a trillion dollars. The US is simply spending a lot more. In terms of entitlements, certain things have changed structurally.

For example in the year 2000, people aged over 65 were 12.4% of the U.S. population. Today, that demographic has grown dramatically to 19% of the population. That's fewer people working and paying taxes while also simultaneously drawing more from medicare and social security.

This doesn't mean it's "impossible". But to balance the budget today without major spending cuts would require raising taxes 39%. It's just so different than it was then to make the math work out.

If the remaining deficit is around a trillion dollars, and we spend more than that on needless wars in the middle east, it's easy to see what to cut to balance the budget....

One thing to do would be get rid of the $184k cutoff on payroll tax. That would greatly extend the life of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.

That gives a lot more time to phase in any longer term changes to those programs.

So raise taxes more.

The balance in the 90s was double counting social security surplus while also spending it as intra government debt.

Yes, I specifically said raise taxes because many here believe spending cuts alone will solve this. It is impossible to not raise taxes based on debt load and forward mandatory spending curves. The bond market will force this to occur, like your credit card company raising your interest rate and bringing your credit limit down to your current balance.

Taxes will go up, voluntarily or involuntarily. If we didn’t want to get here, well, should’ve never spent so frivolously on tax cuts for the wealthy and a bloated military that is unable to pass an audit. But we did, and that debt is going to have to be paid back, with interest. It’s impossible to grow out of this debt, and there are more workers than very wealthy people and their politicians.

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