>Jake, seems to me that a lot of this rhetoric is junk science: people make their decision then compile evidence for it, rather than the other way around. When it comes to politics it's easy enough to do this for practically any viewpoint. In this case, nobody is proposing a National Industrial Recovery Act (most production has been exported anyway) and while some here may not approve of social security, what about other New Deal initiatives such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Deposit Insurance, even Fannie Mae?

Fannie and Freddie should be demolished, never to return. I'm ok with the SEC to a point, however, we must acknowledge that having government oversight means also accepting crony-driven goverment overstepping and understepping. Recent history provides any number of awful examples from the lax (removing glass-steagal) to the market-skewing (Fannie/Freddie upping subprime involvement), which when they blow up are readily acted upon with another layer of crony-written overstepping (see Dodd-Frank). FDIC should not exist, we can and should insure our own money.

>There seems to be a major focus on attacking any ideas that come from the designated opponent. People seem to be fantasizing about the OK Corral while ignoring the ranch burning to the ground.

You cannot suggest the Hoover Dam as a great return or "infrastructure" investment through the power of inflation as a way to spark the economy without discussing the reality of paying for the pump priming. Any number of Keynesian money schemes have been tried and failed through history. The "we'll do it better" argument doesn't fly. Government does not "make" it "takes". That's not rhetoric, it's simple economic fact. Every single dollar, confiscated by the government, is one less being put to use by the more efficient private sector in pursuit of expanding the value of said dollar. By contrast, every dollar confiscated and reallocated by the government is of less value to start with owing to the cost of the bureaucracy it must travel through before being deployed in scattershot manner to whatever the current politicians favorite project happens to be. They are deployed without regard for return nor a bottom line and as such less value is nearly ensured. Government programs do not have to answer to the cold realities of the market or the fiscal restraint provided by the bottom line. They are created and grow via mandate through time, regardless of efficiency and without regard for the "unintended" consequences. All programs skew the market in some way and we're at a point now where the market, for most items, is so heavily influenced by government regulations that it's impossible to judge actual value. Only when one looks to new industry, untainted by regulation, can one see true value, for now.

>At some point it's better to form a bucket brigade with the opponents to save the place rather than ending up the Lord of Ruin, which is what the status quo *will* deliver for Medicare,

How about we use a bomber load of foam and put the fire out all at once rather than an endless stream of buckets? Medicare & Social Security are broke and the current models are a costly failure. It's time to accept that lesson and end the bleeding.

My preferred solution would be to start weaning people off the government teet by phasing out the programs, however, with 47% of the citizenry paying nothing in, I realize that's near impossible.

>affluence and the right to pursue the good things in life unless people will focus on fixing the problem rather than the blame.

The blame lies with the citizenry, after all, we get the government we deserve. People cannot come together to "fix" the problem unless they agree about what the problem is. The current debate is about the problem and whether or not there is one. The solutions being offered tell us exactly which problem the individual is focused on.