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Originally Posted by zimmy
The "gutting" of 716 billion is favored by both sides and I am not sure it is accurate that it is to help pay for Obamacare. Adjustments in payments to insurers and providers is supposed to cover those costs. I agree, as I have said repeatedly on here over the years, that it is going to take tax increases and cuts in spending to deal with the deficit. What sacrifices are made is the question. Obama would moderately raise taxes on the top 1% to where they were prior to Bush 2. He would maintain middleclass rates. Romney likes the Ryan plan, which would astronomically lower taxes for the extremely wealthy and the middle class would pay more in taxes and more for health care/medicare. The Obama health law pays for itself and reduces the deficit and, as the CBO has pointed out, if Republicans overturn it it will add $100+ billion to the deficit. That is why I find the argument that Romney and Ryan will lower everyones taxes, get people off of food stamps, and "restore" the by the people, for the people to be a farse.
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Your beginning postulates "I am not sure," and "supposed to" are key to the rest of your argument in which you display confidence in various projections. Projections are not facts. They are often innacurate. And different agencies give different projections on plans. Obviously, Ryan and his supporters project outcomes differently. And deficit reductions are important but long term debt reduction by both Obama and Ryan "plans" may raise deficits in the short run to control rising debt in the long run. A problem with all the debt reduction plans is that they are all long term. Few, if any current politicians will be in office when the plans are scheduled to pay off. The "farse" is that those plans will not be changed, ammended, neutered, or discarded over the next twenty years by new administrations. As long as we maintain our expanding course of government of, by, and for government, instead of reversing, gradually, toward government of, by, and for the people, there are not only no garantees that any government "plan" will constantly reduce debt, it is more likely that debt will increase, and only fiscal disaster will force a change.
Yes, the Ryan plan is tweaking around the edges of progressive big government, and it is as likely to suffer degradations of future administrations, but it has a built in "trajectory" or "vector" or a "heading in the right direction" of returning a portion of responsibility and choice to the people. And though it may be unlikely that that direction can be maintained against the allure of the nanny state, if it could, and gradually infiltrate the rest of our big government structure, then true constitutional government, rather than bureaucratic administrative government, could be restored.
That it seems unlikely, does not make it a farse. That you and so manhy others consider it a farse, and even so many more have become dependent on government, makes it unlikely.