Obama participates in panel discussion on poverty

[Axulus]

It's a bit unusual for a sitting president to participate in a panel discussion. I thought it has a very interesting conversation (skip to minute 32 to get to the start)

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAIIWkKl3FM[/youtube]

I thought the point made by the AEI scholar was very interesting, which Obama didn't really want to address: we could pay for a lot of the anti-poverty programs that target the poor if we first consider reforming middle class entitlements, which are taking up an ever increasing share of the federal budget. Overall, I thought the discussion was an example of civility that can be had when conservatives and liberals enter into conversation.

 

[ksen]

Who was the liberal on the panel?

 

[Axulus]

Who was the liberal on the panel?

Robert Putnam - they mentioned his name several times...

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

...we could pay for a lot of the anti-poverty programs that target the poor if we first consider reforming middle class entitlements, which are taking up an ever increasing share of the federal budget.

I'd like to take a moment to say that this statement is so bullshit that I looked up jpeg's to demonstrate just how bullshit it was. But then I thought better of it.

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, military make up what 75 to 80% of our budget? These are what soak our budgets, not Middle Class "entitlements".

Overall, I thought the discussion was an example of civility that can be had when conservatives and liberals enter into conversation.

Yeah, imagine what we could have accomplished with ACA if the Republicans decided to get involved?

 

[Axulus]

I'd like to take a moment to say that this statement is so bullshit that I looked up jpeg's to demonstrate just how bullshit it was. But then I thought better of it.

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, military make up what 75 to 80% of our budget? These are what soak our budgets, not Middle Class "entitlements".

Social Security and Medicare are obviously considered part of middle class entitlements, to the extent that the recipients are middle class (or above).

You can't ignore it - it will need to be reformed:

 

[ksen]

Who was the liberal on the panel?

Robert Putnam - they mentioned his name several times...

Didn't click.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I'd like to take a moment to say that this statement is so bullshit that I looked up jpeg's to demonstrate just how bullshit it was. But then I thought better of it.

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, military make up what 75 to 80% of our budget? These are what soak our budgets, not Middle Class "entitlements".

Social Security and Medicare are obviously considered part of middle class entitlements, to the extent that the recipients are middle class (or above).

You can't ignore it - it will need to be reformed:

That is interesting, because I pay over 6% of my gross wages and my employer pays over 6$ of my gross wages to Social Security. So 12% of my income taxed away. One what planet does this make Social Security an entitlement?

 

[arkirk]

Social Security and Medicare are obviously considered part of middle class entitlements, to the extent that the recipients are middle class (or above).

You can't ignore it - it will need to be reformed:

That is interesting, because I pay over 6% of my gross wages and my employer pays over 6$ of my gross wages to Social Security. So 12% of my income taxed away. One what planet does this make Social Security an entitlement?

On planet Axulus.

 

[Axulus]

Social Security and Medicare are obviously considered part of middle class entitlements, to the extent that the recipients are middle class (or above).

You can't ignore it - it will need to be reformed:

That is interesting, because I pay over 6% of my gross wages and my employer pays over 6$ of my gross wages to Social Security. So 12% of my income taxed away. One what planet does this make Social Security an entitlement?

On the planet where words are defined by their common usage in discourse

entitlement
noun en·ti·tle·ment \-ˈtī-təl-mənt\

2: a government program providing benefits to members of a specified group

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/entitlement

On which planet are words defined not by their common usage in discourse but by the whims and fancies of the person using the words?

 

[arkirk]

I'd like to take a moment to say that this statement is so bullshit that I looked up jpeg's to demonstrate just how bullshit it was. But then I thought better of it.

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, military make up what 75 to 80% of our budget? These are what soak our budgets, not Middle Class "entitlements".

Overall, I thought the discussion was an example of civility that can be had when conservatives and liberals enter into conversation.

Yeah, imagine what we could have accomplished with ACA if the Republicans decided to get involved?

They are involved....trying to kill it and make Obama and Pelosi look like fools, and also make any kind of healthcare improvement an impossibility. I think we need to flush these Republicans out for what they are...political whores of the richest Americans.

 

[Rhea]

I'm surprised that the graph predicts no decline whatsoever in medicare upon the demise of the baby boom. That is very odd, don't you think? There is a huge boom of people entering the medicare system. The final year of that boom is 1964, typically. And so one would expect by 2060, al most all of that boom would be done spending, you know?


http://www.indexmundi.com/graphs/population-pyramids/united-states-population-pyramid-2014.gif
(can't post graph)

If you look at that graph and realize that the endo of the boom is those aged 50-54 right now, you'll see that there is no subsequent boom. There is one bulge that suggests the 25yo cohort is only as big as the tail end of the boom after all of the 40yo decade mortalities. So in other words, the next biggest bulge in Medicare users is only just as big as the very end of a boom already diminished by all adulthood deaths.

And as a result, one's model should show a decline in medicare spending. Or a really good explanation why it doesn't.

 

[Axulus]

I'm surprised that the graph predicts no decline whatsoever in medicare upon the demise of the baby boom. That is very odd, don't you think? There is a huge boom of people entering the medicare system. The final year of that boom is 1964, typically. And so one would expect by 2060, al most all of that boom would be done spending, you know?


http://www.indexmundi.com/graphs/population-pyramids/united-states-population-pyramid-2014.gif
(can't post graph)

If you look at that graph and realize that the endo of the boom is those aged 50-54 right now, you'll see that there is no subsequent boom. There is one bulge that suggests the 25yo cohort is only as big as the tail end of the boom after all of the 40yo decade mortalities. So in other words, the next biggest bulge in Medicare users is only just as big as the very end of a boom already diminished by all adulthood deaths.

And as a result, one's model should show a decline in medicare spending. Or a really good explanation why it doesn't.

You are perhaps forgetting that the graph is based on a percentage of GDP, plus medical costs have been rising faster than the rate of inflation. Therefore, costs would be expected to rise even if the retirement population was steady. Furthermore, costs might rise as a percent of GDP if the working age population declined (due to people having fewer children) even if the retirement population held steady, depending on assumptions of GDP growth.