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This is why the scope of government matters.

I do not understand why people have this idea that it's the job of the government to do things like speculate on the economy via quantitative easing, or save money overall on healthcare costs. The federal government ought to have a few simple jobs --- the ones laid out in the constitution, and everything else can be left up to the people and to the states.

I would rather live in a country where healthcare maybe costs more than it otherwise could, and where the economy maybe recovers slower than it otherwise would have, than to live in a country where the government takes lots of our money trying to fulfill promises that it cannot keep.

Medicare is projected to be insolvent in 2026, and Social Security is projected to be insolvent 8 years later. We're due for an economic downswing in the next few years (if not the next few months). Our economy will not keep up with the developing world powers; NATO is increasingly irrelevant and the petrodollar is threatened.

What are we going to tell the people who depend on these dying programs? "I know that you worked your whole life in a factory, and I know that you are too old to work, and I know that you paid into this system your entire career, and I know you aren't getting enough to get by. But we had the best intentions in mind!"

America is rich because we won WWII, not because of American Exceptionalism. The comfortable life that American culture was built on (while the rest of the world needed half a century to recover) is going away quickly. The social programs that we already have in place have less than 6,000 days remaining before they fall apart, and in these last hours, we're seriously talking about adding on?

No thanks. I'm okay with living in a poor country. I'd prefer for my government to not fail as a result, though.




Medicare and social security won't be insolvent. They can go on for a long time by doing some adjustments that account for life expectancy and other factors. Unfortunately the people in DC are more interested in fighting each other than running the country in a responsible manner.




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