The Scary Message for Everybody in Obama's Budget

"Most Americans will ignore the dickering over the federal budget that President Barack Obama wants Congress to pass this year. But there's an important message for just about everybody in that budget: The pain is going to get worse." Austerity measures are never easy, but often they are never taken unless absolutely necessary. Reforms to entitlement programs are needed desperately to keep them alive, but no one wants to go about the complicated problem of fixing them until now. This article says that "Obama would still change entitlements in ways that would have a direct impact on people enrolled in them, in many cases reducing benefits and requiring enrollees to spend more of their own money." Not what he said when he was campaigning but an interesting idea since most entitlement programs are a safety net and not designed to be a way of life. What I find most interesting is that he is actually proposing things that make economic sense ie. changing the way that the Social Security payments are calculated. However, he is also proposing some dangerous things as well.

According to this article, "Obama wants to make some administrative changes in the program that might lower payments to healthcare providers, while also reducing benefits or raising premiums for wealthier Medicare patients." This is problematic because most doctors' offices have been absorbed by hospitals for this reason, government programs make it impossible for doctor's offices to practice because they force doctors to treat people for pennies and then cannot meet overhead costs. I know this because my mother is a doctor. Getting (maybe) paid $30 for a $90 procedure costs everyone money because it raises prices that need to be asked of from other insurances as well. Also the question of "Who is considered wealthy?" will continue to be a problem and may run us all into a class warfare state if it continues.

This is especially true because of the last paragraph of the article, "Obama, for example, has said he'd only agree to cutbacks in Medicare and Social Security if Republicans agree to further tax increases on the wealthy." While compromises can be made, I find this pandering more ridiculous. Everyone is going to hurt and everyone needs to share the burden. The top 50% of people pay 97.6% of income taxes with 70.6% being paid by the top 10% (Source: http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2012#table1). There is a need for tax increases and spending cuts so bite the bullet and hurt now before everything gets even worse. A balanced budget and under-control spending will only help the United States regain its footing and that is worth a little pain.