The Redhunter

Yup, Democrats are going nuts over their victory in the NY-26 congressional election, which was seen by many as a referendum on Rep Paul Ryan's plan to save Medicare.

Translation; the Democrats don't want to do anything about entitlements. We've got a $1.6 trillion deficit and they're perfectly fine with it.

So what is Ryan's plan that has caused so much fuss? Let's let him explain it himself:

and here

Ok, look, if you don't like Rep Paul Ryan's plan, fine. I am not wedded to his plan or any other. But come up with your own. Come up with one that dramatically cuts spending.

Because here's the bottom line; if we continue as we are now we as a nation are headint toward financial Armageddon. The big entitlements programs are unsustainable as currently structured, and we can neither tax our way out of the problem or just tweak them a little.

While the Democrats in Congress have absolutely no plan to deal with the coming entitlement disaster, Obama has a fake one. Kevin D. Williamson explains:

Our current unfunded entitlement liabilities run about $100 trillion.

President Obama proposes to "strengthen" Medicare through a price-fixing panel called the Independent Payments Advisory Board (IPAB).

CBO took a look at IPAB and estimated that it might save us $28 billion over the next ten years, i.e., next to nothing.

And then it took another look and lowered its estimate from next to nothing to nothing:

For 2015 and subsequent years, the IPAB is obligated to make changes to the Medicare program that will reduce spending if the rate of growth in spending per beneficiary is projected to exceed a target rate of growth linked to the consumer price index and per capita changes in nominal gross domestic product. CBO's projections of the rates of growth in spending per beneficiary in the March 2011 baseline are below the target rates of growth for fiscal years 2015 through 2021. As a result, CBO projects that, under current law, the IPAB mechanism will not affect Medicare spending during the 2011-2021 period.

You have to admire the president: To go out and give a morally preening speech like that, with IPAB front and center, on the assumption that nobody's reading the footnotes.

In another post on NRO, Williamson knocks down the Democrat shibboleth that raising taxes on the evil, filthy, stinking rich* will solve all our problems:

Repeat as necessary: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and national defense is where the spending is. Raising taxes enough to cover that spending and stabilize the debt would mean an 88 percent increase in every federal tax -- not just for "the rich," but for everybody, according to IMF estimates. Raising taxes on the middle class to support Social Security and Medicare for the middle class is a shell game. You may as well just cut the benefits: essentially the same outcome, but more cleanly executed.

You are not going to balance the budget on tax hikes only on people you do not like. You are not going to balance the budget on pulling out of Afghanistan (wise as that might be) or on eliminating foreign aid (desirable as that is) or on shuffling Uncle Sam's real-estate portfolio (prudent though that may be). You are not going to balance the budget on eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.

Unfortunately there are too many conservatives who parrot the "waste, fraud, and abuse" mantra too. You know you're dealing with a no-nothing whenever you hear that coming out of their mouths.

And guess what, although I'll for it, cutting funding to NPR or Planned Parenthood won't affect sqat. Neither, for that matter, will drydocking a few aircraft carriers or cutting funding for the F-15.

Cutting entitlements is the only answer. We either do it now or our country goes over the cliff, and it's a Chinese 21st century. Is that what we want?

How Bad is the Deficit?

Yes George W Bush and the Republicans in Congress increased spending and the deficit to irresponsible levels. Conservatives, including me, criticized them bitterly over it.

No his "tax cuts" were not the problem. For the most part all the "tax cuts" did is reduce rates to their pre-Clinton levels. Remember, folks, when Democrats like Clinton hike taxes, it's to be permanent. When Republicans bring them down again, it must be reversed.

Once Again, the Federal Budget

Just because these numbers are charts are important, here they are once again:

2010 Federal budget (the last for which I can find charts and hard numbers)

And here are the major spending programs in another format:

* Mandatory spending: $2.173 trillion (+14.9%) o $695 billion (+4.9%) - Social Security o $571 billion (+58.6%) - Other mandatory programs o $453 billion (+6.6%) - Medicare o $290 billion (+12.0%) - Medicaid o $164 billion (+18.0%) - Interest on National Debt

US receipt and expenditure estimates for fiscal year 2010.

* Discretionary spending: $1.378 trillion (+13.8%)
o $663.7 billion (+12.7%) - Department of Defense (including Overseas Contingency Operations)
o $78.7 billion (−1.7%) - Department of Health and Human Services
o $72.5 billion (+2.8%) - Department of Transportation
o $52.5 billion (+10.3%) - Department of Veterans Affairs
o $51.7 billion (+40.9%) - Department of State and Other International Programs
o $47.5 billion (+18.5%) - Department of Housing and Urban Development
o $46.7 billion (+12.8%) - Department of Education
o $42.7 billion (+1.2%) - Department of Homeland Security
o $26.3 billion (−0.4%) - Department of Energy
o $26.0 billion (+8.8%) - Department of Agriculture
o $23.9 billion (−6.3%) - Department of Justice
o $18.7 billion (+5.1%) - National Aeronautics and Space Administration
o $13.8 billion (+48.4%) - Department of Commerce
o $13.3 billion (+4.7%) - Department of Labor
o $13.3 billion (+4.7%) - Department of the Treasury
o $12.0 billion (+6.2%) - Department of the Interior
o $10.5 billion (+34.6%) - Environmental Protection Agency
...
The total deficit for fiscal year 2009 was $1.42 trillion, a $960 billion increase from the 2008 deficit.

The 2009 budget deficit would represent 12.3% of gross domestic product, the largest share since World War II.

What about Defense?

As I've shown many times in the past, the reason we're running such large deficits has little or nothing to do with spending on defense. I'm not going to repost all those charts and numbers again, but see this post for details.

And the Question Is...

...will we or will we not get a handle on entitlements spending? The Europeans are probably at the point of no return; they are going over the cliff. But we are still at the point where we can turn around and save ourselves.

Make no mistake about it, right now we are headed in a direction that will take us over the cliff. This is why I put an exclamation point and not a question mark in the title.

How we got here is the fault of both parties, but mostly the progressives or liberals, and they're mostly but not exclusively Democrats. Some but not all Republicans see the danger and want to change the system, but virtually no Democrats see or want to take any serious action to avert disaster.

How we fix our problem is open to debate. But all proposals must be serious, and those that just tweak around the edges are acceptable.

The fact is that we've promised too much to too many people. We've promised things we cannot deliver. It is good to want to feed the poor and take care of the sick and elderly, but surely we can do that with 3 or 4 trillion dollars without running a huge deficit. Because either we get control of our spending or we're going over that cliff.

* If you're a liberal rich person all is forgiven.