AND it begins.........

news.yahoo.com/republicans-signal-cuts-s...urity-175927429.html


“But we all have to be honest about sitting at the table and figuring out how we’re going to make those work, how we’re going to deal with defense spending and how we’re going to deal with nondefense discretionary spending.”

The Republican Study Committee proposed a budget for fiscal 2023 that would gradually increase the eligibility ages for Social Security and Medicare, and change the Social Security benefit formula for people 54 and younger, while not changing it for people closer to receiving benefits.

Democrats are likely to oppose those changes, as well as any cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and an ensuing standoff could result in another government shutdown. The 2018-2019 lapse in federal funding lasted 35 days after a fight over former President Donald Trump’s border policies and immigration.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, warned last week that Republicans were “all but guaranteeing a shutdown” by demanding to cap spending at fiscal 2022 levels.

“These types of cuts would harm communities and families across the United States who are already struggling with inflation and the rising cost of living,” DeLauro said in a statement. “They put support for our Veterans, law enforcement, small businesses, and military families at risk.”

Arthur Delaney contributed reporting.

France is also looking at raising its retirement age. The US has to do something! When Social Security were writing their first checks in the 1930's, there were forty people paying in for every check going out. Now it is 2-1, and going lower. As the population ages much older than expected, and more Americans refuse to go back to work, most of the budget will be entitlements. And this is a problem all over the world, especially Europe and Asia.

www.politico.com/news/2023/01/26/obama-e...ng-standoff-00079574

“Boehner may have been willing to put more of his ass on the line. He did intellectually and substantively understand why default was terrible,” Pfeiffer said. “I’m not sure that McCarthy understands that, that McCarthy cares, that McCarthy would value the full faith and credit of the United States over his own job.”

The U.S. has never intentionally defaulted on its debt, a track record that has made its Treasury securities a safe haven for investors globally and allowed the government to borrow money at low interest rates.

There is universal consensus that a debt ceiling breach would be a historic catastrophe. Interest rates would skyrocket and the stock market would tank. The economy would spiral into a recession, shaking consumer confidence and decimating the nation’s financial credibility on the world stage. The impact could ripple across the globe, prompting debt crunches in lower-income countries with foreign currency reserves held in a suddenly weaker U.S. dollar.

At the Treasury Department, officials would be forced to prioritize what payments it could make to bondholders — a logistical challenge the government has never attempted before, and one sure to invite blowback for funneling money to foreign investors while Social Security and other benefits go unfunded.
Sanders: GOP won’t ‘get away with’ cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid

“You’re shaking the bedrock of the global financial system to the core,” said Mark Zandi, the longtime chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, who projects that just a few weeks of default would double the unemployment rate and wipe out $12 trillion in household wealth.

Without your take on the article I have no interest in reading any of it. Care to weigh in?