Regarding the recent Associated Press report about proposed Medicaid cuts worrying those in nursing homes: I wondered why the focus on lawmakers was in cutting Medicaid, so I went to www.nationalpriorities.org for a primer on the federal budget. Here we learn that 71 percent of the total budget is mandatory spending (Social Security, Medicare and interest on the national debt). The remaining 29 percent is discretionary spending, of which 54 percent is for military spending.
So if military spending was frozen at current levels there would still be only about 15 percent of the total budget up for discussion which includes Medicaid as one of the items. While my heart is with those who might be affected by Medicaid cuts, my head tells me there is a bigger issue here than Medicaid expansion or contraction and that is the ever ballooning national debt.
It is not discussed much because it is not as interesting as congressional scandals or Trump tweets, but it will eventually severely debilitate or kill the patient. The U.S. has had deficit spending for 45 of the last 50 years as the national debt has expanded from $1 trillion (31 percent of GDP) to nearly $20 trillion (104 percent of GDP). This is not fiscally responsible and not sustainable and yet we will not elect representatives who promise to cut programs or raise taxes to deal with this issue.
I was already quite uneasy with where this leads us as a country and then I turned the newspaper page and saw Michelle Singletary’s Color of Money book club selection this month, a dystopian novel about what life would be like for people if the U.S. defaulted on its loans. I intend to read it. i am sure it is not pretty.
Steven Epple
Mill Creek
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