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From: mms1646@acf4.UUCP (Michael M. Sykora)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Social Programs Cause the Deficit
Message-ID: <1340018@acf4.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 12-Apr-85 20:39:00 EST
Article-I.D.: acf4.1340018
Posted: Fri Apr 12 20:39:00 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Apr-85 03:42:24 EST
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Organization: New York University
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>/* mjk@ttrdc.UUCP (Mike Kelly) /  6:45 pm  Apr 10, 1985 */
>
>When Ronald Reagan entered office in 1981, the Federal deficit totalled
>approximately $70 billion.  Today, it is about $200 billion.  In the
>past five years, *real* spending on social programs as a group has 
>remained frozen or declined.  Real defense spending has gone up
>approximately 30%.   It was approximately $170 billion during the last
>year of the Carter presidency; this year it will be approximately $314
>billion.
>
>It doesn't take a f**king genius to see what has caused the bulk of
>the deficit problem.

I may not be a "f*ckig genius," but it seems to me that the deficit is not
the problem.  Remember that the deficit is not a real quantity but the
difference between two real quantities, revenues and spending.  Thus,
either revenues (taxes, etc.) are too low, spending is too high, or taxes
are too low and spending is too high.  Note, it may be that spending
and taxes are both too high (spending being much more so), or that both
spending and taxes are too low (taxes being much more so).

>If you're against social programs on principle, fine.  I'd suggest to
>you that most people in this country have benefited from them.   If you
>doubt that, ask yourself what kind of shape your older relatives would
>be in without social security; what kind of education you would have had
>without federal aid to primary and secondary schools, as well as the
>federal loan, grant and work-study programs for colleges; what your health
>would be like without federal support for disease research and universal
>vaccination.  For some reason, people think social programs are what
>the government gives *someone else*; what you get are *rights*.
>
>Mike Kelly
>/* ---------- */

Whether or not social security benefits some people or not is beside the
point.  What you must consider is if we'd be better off if people pro-
vided for their old age themselves, through savings, counting on their
children or whatever.

I went to private primary and secondary schools that received no federal
aid, but my parents still had to pay taxes to support public schools.
So, it's hard to see how my family has benefited from federal aid to
primary and secondary schools.

I currently attend graduate school and receive no federal aid, yet I am
required to finance the education of others thru taxes.

I speculate that my health would be the same without all the federal
spending on health, provided of course that the taxes being used for
this spending were returned to the private sector.

Don't forget about the potentially beneficial drugs that the FDA has
managed to keep off the market for long periods of time.

AS you can see from the above, I do not feel that I would be any worse
off without the socail spending.  In fact, I believe I would be BETTER
off, since I would be the one decidin how to spend MY money.

As an aside, why are these prorams called social programs and defense
appropriations not.  Ostensibly, the defense programs are to defend
people.

					Michael Sykora