[joebob42]

I think the naming on the split is a little disingenuous. It's "mandatory", but it's still just laws. I get that the funding is decided differently, and I'm not making any claim one way or the other regarding whether Medicare, ss, etc should be changed, but it isn't like there's some law of nature we can't adjust if we wanted.

[IX-103]

If you think of the government like a business, Social Security and Medicare are like pensions. Should companies be allowed to include pensions in their operations budget, or should pension planning be entirely separate?

I can guarantee you that if companies were able to include the pension fund in their operations budget there would be a massive increase in pension shortfalls as their reserves get raided for operations expenses. The whole strategy of including "entitlement" spending in the budget conversation is a part of a conservative plot to get rid of Social Security and Medicare. That's why we shouldn't include it as part of the budget.