agree Yoda, on the pork, and the subsidies, these are a form of special intersts too - from what I know about ethanol....well i'll go with your description since you do.
The entitlement crunch is real; not an expert on this, but we are going to butt up against it; the best way is not to make cuts in programs (means teasting,,etc), untile we do everything else to streamline our gov't/economy.
What we are seeing though is built in obstructionism - the 2 party system (duopoly) has a choke hold on any new ideas.
I haven't got any use for the Tea's, they are just stubborn reactionarys at this point; i'm thinking the new Republicans are going to be much more libertarian
-but that's just a guess.
Really hate thinking along 2 party lines but that is the curse of American politics.
Yes the entitlement crunch is real I agree and I am aware of that, where we differ is most likely in the way to repair it. The right wants to just cut it to the bone and I feel a mix of tweaks and raising the maximum payroll you pay it on and purging Disability SS recipients review their cases and put them in a separate program. Just by purging disabled SS from the regular SS will fix it for a 100 yrs. After all you can call it an entitlement because working americans paid into it all their lives and HAD NO CHOICE it was mandatory by law. So if your going to make changes it needs to be after the working boomers who were forced into a program given no choice and had to pay for the entire greatest generation who paid nothing into SS for their entire lives are all gone.
Working Boomers that didnt make a ton of money couldnt afford SS deductions Fed tax, state tax unemployment insurance taxs and still have enough to keep a roof over their families heads and save a bundle for retirement. These people need SS to live period. Look at the bright side though, the lionshare of babyboomers will be dead and gone in 15 yrs.
Annatta you cant tell me that the richest country in the world cant keep SS going for another 15-20 yrs, when the babyboomers are gone the problem is over but thats not what the right wants. They want us all to believe that social security all by itself is the cause for all the USAs woes because they want it GONE, they want to destroy the program, they hate anything that the rich pay a dime for that benefits anyone but the rich and thats why I loathe the teaparty ideals.