The economic effects of progressive policies will be worse than a tactical nuke, I'm afraid. With a nuke, at least you can maneuver around the affected area. The general economic malaise caused by years of unbridled spending and debt creeps into every nook and cranny - there's simply no place to hide from its pernicious influence.

I'd argue that Medicare is indeed a huge entitlement program. Why? Because even though we "pay in" to the program via payroll taxes, people are either in the camp where they pay and get nothing or pay little and receive far more in payout.

Not to mention that the system is set up to provide "welfare" to lawyers. My bro-in-law is a wealthy SS lawyer. Seriously. All he does is help clients who have been denied SS disability that they should have been accepted - with back pay. And his settlement fees come straight out of taxpayer pockets. It's a huge racket since the government pretty much encourages these kinds of legal appeals (my bro-in-law hasn't ever had a claim denied).

The other major problem is that government is involved in the first place. Full stop. If you have government involved in handing out money to people, it IS an entitlement program. The Federal Government shouldn't be involved in healthcare, retirement planning, income taxes, unemployment, Food Stamps, WIC, etc. They are all entitlement programs that James Madison as President specifically vetoed claiming that it was a danger to our system of government. He was 100% right.

I could easily be wrong because this is definitely not my strongest conversation topic, but I thought "entitlement" meant that one was considered "entitled" to a payment EVEN THOUGH they haven't paid into it. Let me go do some searching.... Well it turns out that basically, any payment Govt to person, is considered "entitlement." As you do, I take issue with that. I'll go with Moocher Payments, along with you!

You have hit upon a pet peeve of mine. many times I see 'entitlements' listed as Social security, Medicare, Welfare, and Medicaid. There should be two separate categories.

Social Security and Medicare could be rightly called 'entitlements'. I paid into them (actually was FORCED to pay into them) and therefore I am entitled to the benefits from those programs.

Welfare and Medicaid (as well as EBT and I'm sure several others) are NOT entitlements. The beneficiaries have done nothing to earn any benefit from these programs. They are government sponsored give-aways. I suggest the term "Moocher Payment" for these programs. /rant off

Since retiring I've fostered the same attitude, especially as applied to the SS Ponzi. I was forced to pay into it since I started working as a teenager back in the '60s. The payment I receive now is simply "ROI" (Return On Investment). The ROI on my private investments are better so I wish I could have invested the Ponzi take on my own as well.

IF, and it's a big IF, the destruction being perpetrated by the democrats ends up destroying the communist party after the 2022 and 2024 elections, we will come out of this in much better shape than we have been in for years. Two very important things must happen. Democrats and all the RINOs get sent packing.

IMO the Woke will give way to the awakened majority. Lincoln famously said "you can't fool all of the People all of the time." As long as the Republicans sweep Congress we will have a wall that the Prez and Pelosi can bang their brainless heads against. Biden will sniff burning hair.

For high treason. Not to mention the biological warfare genocide Fauci helped to fund.

Biden has admitted twice in the last week, most recently at G7, that he plans another pandemic within the next year -- and by implication, that he planned the first. I'm going to stay home but fortify and prepare for both another lockdown and another attempt to force the poisonous "vaccines" into all of us.

The senseless war in Ukraine may also play a part in the next series of phony emergencies.

And when it's over, there must be another set of Nuremberg Trials.

the "Feedom and Liberty Car" is already over the cliff...you cannot rely on RINOs to reverse it...prepare now for the crash landing....

If we survived Jimmy Carter and 8 years of Obama, we can survive anything. Of greater concern is the brainwashing of an indifferent electorate who will believe anything they are told.

Been asking that question since approximately January 21, 2021. Still don't have an answer I can bear to contemplate. I am seriously afraid we can't survive as a country, though in truth I'd be okay with a national divorce. I just would be concerned about the terms. In Texas, we'd probably be okay. Other states, well, I guess that'd be their problem.

One word for them..."Looters"

What choice you have.. look at who is waiting in the wings.. giggling Gertie.. then is something happens there.. got forbid.. who is NEXT in line...

I don't really think of Medicare as a a welfare entitlement, since we paid for it, and then some. AND most of us would have been happy to give it up so we could manage our own money m(Edit to add: Social Security, too). But now they have already taken it, I AM going to get every penny I can out of my Medicare.

EBT? Yes. All those other entitlements, Yes. Medicare, No.

Individually we can refuse a lot. But that won't keep them from trying to put their nooses around our necks. The harder we refuse, the harder they push.

Time to round the wagons. It's going to be a rough ride the next couple years. We could see WWIII. Could see a tactical nuke going off. Inflation should continue to get worse...actually STAGFLATION. The POTUS will continue to step up to the mic and say really outlandish, marble-mouthed things. I can't guess where we'll be in two more years...

"Consider the wreckage they have created in less than two years..." The Neo Communists and others have been at the destruction of America for a lot longer than two years. I believe we are seeing the masks come off and the fruition of their efforts, which are accelerating.

Are we so cowardly that we don't do anything to change it?
Government can't rule unless we consent to be ruled.

the basic problem is that no matter what biden does
no matter if the dems loose Congress in a few months

they ARE ALWAYS out there, waiting to lie/buy their way back to power

and look at the RINO traitors

i do not know the full solution, but we need REAL term limits, no more than a certain number of terms in office and all money left over given to pay down the national debt the politicians caused to grow



this started a long time ago, with allowing the vote for those with nothing to loose, allowing welfare parasites to vote more welfare

LBJ's Great Society was also a major cause, it is 100% unconstitutional, but no one cares, no one now wants to give up their medicare/medicaid for eample

There is always hope that we can rise from the ashes.

Individually, yes we can survive but the quality of life will dramatically decline (more than it already has). Those not willing participants in the 'party' will be more outcast, a peasant class in the eyes of the ruling 'elite'. It is We The Living all over again.

The saddest part is we allowed this to happen here even allowed a generation or two to be led to thinking its well and good despite the safeguards built into the constitution to prevent it.

Wish me dino could answer that.
All I know is that's the outcome our Puppet-In-Chief''s Marxist handlers and obliging vile globalist greedy creatures of The Swamp are gunning for.
The only Utopia we're to then be disarmed and led by the nose to will be where only the pigs on top are more than equal like in George Orwell's Animal Farm.
That will be kinda like the two-tiered justice system the corrupted DOJ already runs.