Rush asserts that the "10-to-1" (spending to tax) question was a 'gotcha,' and would have been a sign of a "cave" had any candidate answered in the affirmative.
He's somebody's shill, but it ain't anyone with common f'ng sense.
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The 10-1 formulation is a stupid one anyway. The real question isn't the ratio, it's doing things right. If you gave me a 10-1 ratio that cut the wrong spending and raised the wrong taxes, it would be a bad deal. I might be persuaded to take a deal with a worse ratio if it did the right things -- the cuts, that is, being chiefly from entitlement and pension reform.
Agreed, of course.
But I think you understand the general point: it is STILL the spending.
What kind of pension reform?
The key problem with government pensions -- Federal and otherwise -- is that they aren't accounted for properly. The government requires businesses to account for its already-agreed-to pension promises as current expenses. The same government doesn't follow that practice itself, because government promises (unlike legal contracts) remain open to renegotiation, at the government's pleasure.
What we need to do with Federal pensions -- military and otherwise -- is apply the usual accounting rules, so that we have an honest accounting of how much the government really owes the people it has promised money in their retirement. If we can't afford it, the time to make any reforms is now (i.e., before we get any closer to those people actually retiring and being dependent on the pension). If we can, we still need an honest accounting in order to know how much has to be trimmed elsewhere in the budget in order to pay for it.
If USAToday is right about the numbers -- and they've been writing about this since about the middle of the Bush II administration -- we're talking about a substantial sum. Even if they're wrong about the numbers, though, they're right about the principle. We should be demanding proper accounting.
Grim, there is one government entity that books its pension liability like a business - the Postal Service. Of course, since they're booking your typical government pension, it's bankrupting them.
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