I commented because it isn’t true that the US has only spent 5% of our defense budget on the Ukraine war. It’s probably about double that. People saying that we’ve sent 5% of our defense budget on “direct military aid” are the ones splitting hairs. March 1 2022 to March 1 2023 we’ll probably have spent 100 billion dollars or so on the war in Ukraine. Plus whatever the black ops budget is.
I don’t think supporting Ukraine is worthwhile at any price.
Biggs and Boebert still voting Jordan.
looking good for McCarthy but the last few holdouts DGAF about anything, so we’ll see
13th vote fails. McCarthy has secured the vote of Andy Harris. Down to 6 rebels.
Plus like weren’t the Dems in power when the House had so much trouble electing a Speaker so whose fault is it REALLY 
https://twitter.com/sarahnferris/status/1611435958871724063
Gonna be so many cuts to social security, medicaid, and medicare.
Average voter response: “If my house has to survive on a balanced budget, the federal government sure as hell should to.”
Another miss?
Eh seems like kind of an own goal because these sorts of budgets always provide unlimited campaign fodder
I don’t think you need Congress to approve budgets for social security since it’s paid for with payroll taxes? Maybe I’m wrong, it’s been a long time since I’ve looked at the mechanisms of the social security funding and where the money goes when it’s collected from employees and employers. In Canada our national social security pension has an actual pension fund where the money goes.
https://twitter.com/marcrod97/status/1611430423673933825?s=20&t=ylV_p4KsLPzgdxYDjdJKRA
The Reading Clerk:
I also don’t know exactly how the mechanics work. But the payments do show up as expenditures in terms of the federal budget, as far as I can tell:
What’s odd is that the SS site says that “Congress does not set the amount of benefits we pay each year”. When I initially read that, I interpreted it as saying “Congress can’t change the benefits we pay out”. That obviously isn’t right, so I assume the correct reading is narrower: Congress doesn’t make a discretionary decision each year about how much to spend on Social Security because that spending is determined by the Social Security Act; but they can change payments by amending the Social Security Act.
So my read is that Congress can amend the SSA to reduce benefits, and that doing so would get them closer to a balanced budget.
From that chart, the Social Security, Health Insurance and interest wedges are mostly automatic. The rest is subject to appropriations, which nowadays is handled by continuing resolutions.
For those not watching live, CSPAN says Rs are trying to get their missing members back to DC to try to get McCarthy over the line. So maybe the adjournment motions/votes will flipflop.
Right. Maybe we’re all talking past each other, but I thought that @mosdef’s point was that reducing SS spending wouldn’t affect the budget deficit. And my view was that if the GOP is promising a balanced budget, they would almost certainly have to included an amended SSA with lower benefits to get there. But I could have misinterpreted him.
Right, like the social security payroll taxes come in and go out as part of the program without Congressional approval each year/month/week/day or whatever. The SS “program” is already approved by Congress.
I don’t think Congress can just refuse to pay the benefits out unless the actuary’s report says that we need to reduce current payments to ensure the program will survive long term.
I guess the other angle on all this is that in the event of a Federal government shutdown SS benefits might not be paid simply because the Federal civil servants that are necessary to make the payments actually happen won’t be their to do their Big Government business.
Yeah I think that’s probably correct. What I was getting at is that absent Congressional action the SS payments would theoretically just keep being made. They don’t naturally require a Congressional approval to keep collecting SS taxes and keep paying SS benefits.
The 5% of budget reference kind of obscures the insanity of the US defence budget though.
I.e. if I’m about to nail my hand to the wall. But I’ve already nailed it to the wall 20 times. Saying it’s only 5% of the nails doesnt stop the whole thing being absurd.
For reference.
Exactly. We’re going to give Ukraine almost twice Russia’s entire defense budget in a single year.
Good.
