>For the record, no, I am not prejudiced against senior citizens. My point was that they are very attached to their Social Security and Medicare benefits and that any politician who tries to scale them back is going to encounter a lot of resistance from them. Do you dispute that?
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>No, I do not dispute that. For the record, I did not say anything about scaling back the benefits to people who are already receiving them. I was talking about phasing out these programs gradually for future recipients to try to prevent this country from going bankrupt. People may not like it, but look at the alternative. Take a look at what is going on it Greece - that's where we are headed if we do not get all of this spending under control.

Well, our economy is a lot more robust than Greece's to begin with. The current deficit is unsustainable, agreed. I view it as an aberration in response to a truly scary financial crisis two years ago. IMO vigorous action by the Bush and Obama administrations averted a much larger crisis. Now it is time to get government spending back to a more normal, manageable level. Even Obama says this. He is not some wild eyed free spending Democrat.