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Old 11-21-2007, 02:24 PM
Borodog Borodog is offline
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Default Re: Washington Post Fact Checker Questions Paul\'s plans.

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Fact: Individual IT is only 40% of the Federal spending, that much could be saved in pork and empire without touching entitlement programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and SS, returning the Federal budget to 199X levels...,


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This statement is only true if you define "pork and empire" as literally everything that the government does, except SS/Medicare and a fraction of interest payments.

Why do you keep dancing around with %ages of spending and %ages of receipts and 199X budget levels? Why don't you cite any actual numbers? Here are some numbers:

$1,009.5 billion: the total amount collected in 2006 from "non-income tax" sources (keeping in mind that the vast majority of this amount was from the payroll tax, which is a regressive income tax)

$1,050 billion: the total amount spent in 2006 on SS, Medicare, and Medicaid. There's also $200 billion in annual interest accruing, which is not included in this amount.

source See page 334 for mandatory spending table and 239 for receipts.

Now question #1 is, how does Ron Paul plan to pay for this quarter-trillion dollar annual shortfall? Question #2 is how he plans to pay for everything else the government does (including paying his own salary)? Question #3 is why the only explanation of his plans has been the [censored] trifecta of "We were fine for years without the IT"; "Cost of empire and pork blah blah blah go back to 199X levels"; and "Maybe we'll have a flat tax or a sales tax or something"? Question #4 is why usually skeptical people of reasonable intelligence are buying into this stuff so eagerly just because he criticizes current foreign policy and talks about the constitution a lot?

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And AGAIN you are playing fast and loose. Tax revenues do not cover spending *right now*. Where does the extra money come from *right now*? Why do you insist on comparing the spending level to *only* tax receipts when that isn't a relevent comparison?
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