Comments on: Discretionary?

By: Brad Warbiany

Brad Warbiany — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 06:44:57 +0000

Agreed with TerryP. “Non-discretionary spending” is basically entitlement spending (medicare, medicaid, social security). This isn’t paid for by appropriations of Congress, but rather pre-determined according to the rules of the plan.

This doesn’t mean it can’t be changed (i.e. given life expectancy, Congress could mandate a retirement age for SS/Medicare benefits of 72 years instead of the current), but it’s not something that is decided to be spent or not spent on a normal Congressional budget process.

By: TerryP

TerryP — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 04:16:29 +0000

Non-deiscretionary spending or entitlement spending is so high because it is on autopilot. It goes up no matter what. There are no votes in congress each year to vote on the spending unlike the discretionary spending. This is why our economic problems will just get worse with SS, medicare, medicaid and other entitlement programs just on autopilot the spending for these will just keep increasing overtaking everything else and demolishing our economy in the process.

By: Peter

Peter — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 23:21:31 +0000

I am not an expert or anything, but I thought there was some sort of difference in the budgeting process for “discretionary spending” and “non-discretionary spending”. Perhaps we should look into why the “non-discretionary spending” is so high, and how to lower it?

By: Akston

Akston — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:00:18 +0000

Excellent point!

Dollars are dollars, spending is spending. When one is bankrupt, all spending should be reviewed and justified.