-4gh.,b12-1 - June 7, 2018
We all will—in about eight years.
On June 5, Medicare’s trustees published a report warning that the health insurance program will be unable to pay scheduled benefits, not in 2029 as previous thought, but in 2026. The same report maintained the previous year’s estimate that Social Security will become insolvent by 2034. These two programs, Medicare and Social Security, together with their correlative for low-income Americans, Medicaid, are far and away the largest recipients of public money in the federal budget. They bear overwhelming responsibility for the federal government’s $20 trillion debt and nearly $700 billion yearly deficit.
But who cares?
We ask the question literally. Who actually cares? Left unchecked, these programs will swallow the federal budget and require dramatic tax increases to sustain them, leading in turn to permanent economic lethargy. But almost no one cares. For elected officials in Washington, the problem is never sufficiently urgent actually to do anything about it, and in any case, the assumption holds that tampering with benefits is a pretty certain way to lose your next election. For Americans outside Washington, the problem is too abstruse and too complicated to get exercised about. If no one was alarmed by the prospect of an insolvent Medicare in 2029, no one will care about its insolvency in 2026.
Meanwhile the cost of the programs keeps rising—partly because more and more people qualify as beneficiaries, partly because benefits are set by federal statute and rise automatically (hence the apt term “entitlement”). If lawmakers do nothing, taxpayers will have to bail the programs out, and do so again and again, until entitlement programs eat almost the entire non-defense federal budget. That means discretionary spending on infrastructure, research and development, and a vast array of grants to state governments and other institutions—they all get axed or deleted in order to keep paying for retirement benefits and health insurance for the elderly.
The American economy just can’t keep up with our entitlement programs. The Democrats’ answer to this problem, on the rare occasion they offer one, is always the same: Raise taxes. After all, Europeans have partially succeeded in paying for their burgeoning welfare states; why not here? Leave aside the political question of whether Americans, accustomed to greater political freedom and less intrusive government than their European counterparts, are prepared to pay higher taxes to pay for an entitlement state. Americans also have to pay for a superpower military to counter the global foes of Russia, Iran, China, North Korea, et al. Europeans are not thus burdened.
American liberals regard last year’s individual and corporate tax cuts with incomprehending rage. Republicans, they complain, fashion themselves as the part of fiscal responsibility, and yet they’re starving the government of revenue at a time when our largest entitlement programs are about to go bust. It’s a reasonable, if misguided, question. Entitlement programs were racing towards disaster long before the tax cuts. Why? In part, because of huge demographic shifts and the programs’ poor structure. But also because the American economy had hobbled along at 2 or 3 percent growth for a decade. Productivity gains have fallen for even longer than decade. To put it plainly: The Obama-era economy, shackled by punitive corporate taxes and stultifying regulation, was never going to rise to the challenge.
It’s not clear yet that tax reform will escalate growth in the long term. But it has a better chance than the status quo ante.
The bigger question is whether Republicans any longer have the will to make entitlement programs sustainable. The reform ideas are well known on Capitol Hill: raising the eligibility age for Medicare recipients, reducing Medicare subsidies for beneficiaries with higher incomes, altering the formula for Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustments. George W. Bush bravely tried to allow Americans to privatize part of their Social Security savings. (He failed at that effort, but succeeded, alas, at adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare.) Paul Ryan proposed an ambitious plan that would have replaced Medicare’s absurdly inefficient direct-payment system with one that supports insurance premiums of plans chosen by beneficiaries.
But Ryan is retiring, and Capitol Hill lawmakers no longer seems interested, if indeed they ever were. President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed fierce opposition to anything resembling “cuts” to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. It’s a hopeful sign, perhaps, that Howard Schultz, retiring CEO of Starbucks and likely Democratic presidential candidate, called the debt the most pressing domestic policy challenge facing the country. But candidates have often shown interest in such reforms—then lost it as officeholders.
One thing is guaranteed to spur reform: the collapse of one, two, or all three of our major entitlement programs. When 62 million people don’t get their Social Security checks in the mail, we may be sure that major changes will take place—along with a great deal of governmental upheaval and political chaos. If you’re reading this, you’ll likely see it happen. Two thousand twenty-six is just eight years away.
source-The Editors-wkly std-
thebigp wrote:
-4gh.,b12-1 - June 7, 2018
We all will—in about eight years.
On June 5, Medicare’s trustees published a report warning that the health insurance program will be unable to pay scheduled benefits, not in 2029 as previous thought, but in 2026. The same report maintained the previous year’s estimate that Social Security will become insolvent by 2034. These two programs, Medicare and Social Security, together with their correlative for low-income Americans, Medicaid, are far and away the largest recipients of public money in the federal budget. They bear overwhelming responsibility for the federal government’s $20 trillion debt and nearly $700 billion yearly deficit.
But who cares?
We ask the question literally. Who actually cares? Left unchecked, these programs will swallow the federal budget and require dramatic tax increases to sustain them, leading in turn to permanent economic lethargy. But almost no one cares. For elected officials in Washington, the problem is never sufficiently urgent actually to do anything about it, and in any case, the assumption holds that tampering with benefits is a pretty certain way to lose your next election. For Americans outside Washington, the problem is too abstruse and too complicated to get exercised about. If no one was alarmed by the prospect of an insolvent Medicare in 2029, no one will care about its insolvency in 2026.
Meanwhile the cost of the programs keeps rising—partly because more and more people qualify as beneficiaries, partly because benefits are set by federal statute and rise automatically (hence the apt term “entitlement”). If lawmakers do nothing, taxpayers will have to bail the programs out, and do so again and again, until entitlement programs eat almost the entire non-defense federal budget. That means discretionary spending on infrastructure, research and development, and a vast array of grants to state governments and other institutions—they all get axed or deleted in order to keep paying for retirement benefits and health insurance for the elderly.
The American economy just can’t keep up with our entitlement programs. The Democrats’ answer to this problem, on the rare occasion they offer one, is always the same: Raise taxes. After all, Europeans have partially succeeded in paying for their burgeoning welfare states; why not here? Leave aside the political question of whether Americans, accustomed to greater political freedom and less intrusive government than their European counterparts, are prepared to pay higher taxes to pay for an entitlement state. Americans also have to pay for a superpower military to counter the global foes of Russia, Iran, China, North Korea, et al. Europeans are not thus burdened.
American liberals regard last year’s individual and corporate tax cuts with incomprehending rage. Republicans, they complain, fashion themselves as the part of fiscal responsibility, and yet they’re starving the government of revenue at a time when our largest entitlement programs are about to go bust. It’s a reasonable, if misguided, question. Entitlement programs were racing towards disaster long before the tax cuts. Why? In part, because of huge demographic shifts and the programs’ poor structure. But also because the American economy had hobbled along at 2 or 3 percent growth for a decade. Productivity gains have fallen for even longer than decade. To put it plainly: The Obama-era economy, shackled by punitive corporate taxes and stultifying regulation, was never going to rise to the challenge.
It’s not clear yet that tax reform will escalate growth in the long term. But it has a better chance than the status quo ante.
The bigger question is whether Republicans any longer have the will to make entitlement programs sustainable. The reform ideas are well known on Capitol Hill: raising the eligibility age for Medicare recipients, reducing Medicare subsidies for beneficiaries with higher incomes, altering the formula for Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustments. George W. Bush bravely tried to allow Americans to privatize part of their Social Security savings. (He failed at that effort, but succeeded, alas, at adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare.) Paul Ryan proposed an ambitious plan that would have replaced Medicare’s absurdly inefficient direct-payment system with one that supports insurance premiums of plans chosen by beneficiaries.
But Ryan is retiring, and Capitol Hill lawmakers no longer seems interested, if indeed they ever were. President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed fierce opposition to anything resembling “cuts” to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. It’s a hopeful sign, perhaps, that Howard Schultz, retiring CEO of Starbucks and likely Democratic presidential candidate, called the debt the most pressing domestic policy challenge facing the country. But candidates have often shown interest in such reforms—then lost it as officeholders.
One thing is guaranteed to spur reform: the collapse of one, two, or all three of our major entitlement programs. When 62 million people don’t get their Social Security checks in the mail, we may be sure that major changes will take place—along with a great deal of governmental upheaval and political chaos. If you’re reading this, you’ll likely see it happen. Two thousand twenty-six is just eight years away.
source-The Editors-wkly std-
-4gh.,b12-1 - June 7, 2018 br We all will—in abou... (
show quote)
First of all if no cares this is why.One year one report claims that they have solved the problem of social security and that it is solvent through the year 2053.The next year some nut claims sounds the impending social security disaster alarm about it's coming insolvency.
When some politician crys out -My God!!-we're spending more money than any other time our country's history,!!!,not factoring in the fact we are a third of the size larger,we have more people to accomodate,and factoring in the inflation factor-things costing more than they did in the past,one should have a tendency to ignore him/her because they don't know what they're talking about,since the top one percent,principally the owners of the goods and services we buy and use arbitrarily raise their prices,and do not compensate proportionaly their laborers whom are the same people whom patronize them commercially,and the governments responsibility is to do for the people what they cannot do for themselves,help them afford the ownners goods and services,subsidizement/some people call it welfare,takes place,since during the election cycle the governmental politicians depend heavily on the one percent to finance their election campaigns,their willingness to regulate their egregious arbitrary greed,can one really trust or believe their reports about anything.
thebigp wrote:
-4gh.,b12-1 - June 7, 2018
We all will—in about eight years.
On June 5, Medicare’s trustees published a report warning that the health insurance program will be unable to pay scheduled benefits, not in 2029 as previous thought, but in 2026. The same report maintained the previous year’s estimate that Social Security will become insolvent by 2034. These two programs, Medicare and Social Security, together with their correlative for low-income Americans, Medicaid, are far and away the largest recipients of public money in the federal budget. They bear overwhelming responsibility for the federal government’s $20 trillion debt and nearly $700 billion yearly deficit.
But who cares?
We ask the question literally. Who actually cares? Left unchecked, these programs will swallow the federal budget and require dramatic tax increases to sustain them, leading in turn to permanent economic lethargy. But almost no one cares. For elected officials in Washington, the problem is never sufficiently urgent actually to do anything about it, and in any case, the assumption holds that tampering with benefits is a pretty certain way to lose your next election. For Americans outside Washington, the problem is too abstruse and too complicated to get exercised about. If no one was alarmed by the prospect of an insolvent Medicare in 2029, no one will care about its insolvency in 2026.
Meanwhile the cost of the programs keeps rising—partly because more and more people qualify as beneficiaries, partly because benefits are set by federal statute and rise automatically (hence the apt term “entitlement”). If lawmakers do nothing, taxpayers will have to bail the programs out, and do so again and again, until entitlement programs eat almost the entire non-defense federal budget. That means discretionary spending on infrastructure, research and development, and a vast array of grants to state governments and other institutions—they all get axed or deleted in order to keep paying for retirement benefits and health insurance for the elderly.
The American economy just can’t keep up with our entitlement programs. The Democrats’ answer to this problem, on the rare occasion they offer one, is always the same: Raise taxes. After all, Europeans have partially succeeded in paying for their burgeoning welfare states; why not here? Leave aside the political question of whether Americans, accustomed to greater political freedom and less intrusive government than their European counterparts, are prepared to pay higher taxes to pay for an entitlement state. Americans also have to pay for a superpower military to counter the global foes of Russia, Iran, China, North Korea, et al. Europeans are not thus burdened.
American liberals regard last year’s individual and corporate tax cuts with incomprehending rage. Republicans, they complain, fashion themselves as the part of fiscal responsibility, and yet they’re starving the government of revenue at a time when our largest entitlement programs are about to go bust. It’s a reasonable, if misguided, question. Entitlement programs were racing towards disaster long before the tax cuts. Why? In part, because of huge demographic shifts and the programs’ poor structure. But also because the American economy had hobbled along at 2 or 3 percent growth for a decade. Productivity gains have fallen for even longer than decade. To put it plainly: The Obama-era economy, shackled by punitive corporate taxes and stultifying regulation, was never going to rise to the challenge.
It’s not clear yet that tax reform will escalate growth in the long term. But it has a better chance than the status quo ante.
The bigger question is whether Republicans any longer have the will to make entitlement programs sustainable. The reform ideas are well known on Capitol Hill: raising the eligibility age for Medicare recipients, reducing Medicare subsidies for beneficiaries with higher incomes, altering the formula for Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustments. George W. Bush bravely tried to allow Americans to privatize part of their Social Security savings. (He failed at that effort, but succeeded, alas, at adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare.) Paul Ryan proposed an ambitious plan that would have replaced Medicare’s absurdly inefficient direct-payment system with one that supports insurance premiums of plans chosen by beneficiaries.
But Ryan is retiring, and Capitol Hill lawmakers no longer seems interested, if indeed they ever were. President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed fierce opposition to anything resembling “cuts” to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. It’s a hopeful sign, perhaps, that Howard Schultz, retiring CEO of Starbucks and likely Democratic presidential candidate, called the debt the most pressing domestic policy challenge facing the country. But candidates have often shown interest in such reforms—then lost it as officeholders.
One thing is guaranteed to spur reform: the collapse of one, two, or all three of our major entitlement programs. When 62 million people don’t get their Social Security checks in the mail, we may be sure that major changes will take place—along with a great deal of governmental upheaval and political chaos. If you’re reading this, you’ll likely see it happen. Two thousand twenty-six is just eight years away.
source-The Editors-wkly std-
-4gh.,b12-1 - June 7, 2018 br We all will—in abou... (
show quote)
One skewer, though...baby boomers are now approaching 70 and are dying off more and more these days. There were 76 million of us.
thebigp wrote:
-4gh.,b12-1 - June 7, 2018
We all will—in about eight years.
On June 5, Medicare’s trustees published a report warning that the health insurance program will be unable to pay scheduled benefits, not in 2029 as previous thought, but in 2026. The same report maintained the previous year’s estimate that Social Security will become insolvent by 2034. These two programs, Medicare and Social Security, together with their correlative for low-income Americans, Medicaid, are far and away the largest recipients of public money in the federal budget. They bear overwhelming responsibility for the federal government’s $20 trillion debt and nearly $700 billion yearly deficit.
But who cares?
We ask the question literally. Who actually cares? Left unchecked, these programs will swallow the federal budget and require dramatic tax increases to sustain them, leading in turn to permanent economic lethargy. But almost no one cares. For elected officials in Washington, the problem is never sufficiently urgent actually to do anything about it, and in any case, the assumption holds that tampering with benefits is a pretty certain way to lose your next election. For Americans outside Washington, the problem is too abstruse and too complicated to get exercised about. If no one was alarmed by the prospect of an insolvent Medicare in 2029, no one will care about its insolvency in 2026.
Meanwhile the cost of the programs keeps rising—partly because more and more people qualify as beneficiaries, partly because benefits are set by federal statute and rise automatically (hence the apt term “entitlement”). If lawmakers do nothing, taxpayers will have to bail the programs out, and do so again and again, until entitlement programs eat almost the entire non-defense federal budget. That means discretionary spending on infrastructure, research and development, and a vast array of grants to state governments and other institutions—they all get axed or deleted in order to keep paying for retirement benefits and health insurance for the elderly.
The American economy just can’t keep up with our entitlement programs. The Democrats’ answer to this problem, on the rare occasion they offer one, is always the same: Raise taxes. After all, Europeans have partially succeeded in paying for their burgeoning welfare states; why not here? Leave aside the political question of whether Americans, accustomed to greater political freedom and less intrusive government than their European counterparts, are prepared to pay higher taxes to pay for an entitlement state. Americans also have to pay for a superpower military to counter the global foes of Russia, Iran, China, North Korea, et al. Europeans are not thus burdened.
American liberals regard last year’s individual and corporate tax cuts with incomprehending rage. Republicans, they complain, fashion themselves as the part of fiscal responsibility, and yet they’re starving the government of revenue at a time when our largest entitlement programs are about to go bust. It’s a reasonable, if misguided, question. Entitlement programs were racing towards disaster long before the tax cuts. Why? In part, because of huge demographic shifts and the programs’ poor structure. But also because the American economy had hobbled along at 2 or 3 percent growth for a decade. Productivity gains have fallen for even longer than decade. To put it plainly: The Obama-era economy, shackled by punitive corporate taxes and stultifying regulation, was never going to rise to the challenge.
It’s not clear yet that tax reform will escalate growth in the long term. But it has a better chance than the status quo ante.
The bigger question is whether Republicans any longer have the will to make entitlement programs sustainable. The reform ideas are well known on Capitol Hill: raising the eligibility age for Medicare recipients, reducing Medicare subsidies for beneficiaries with higher incomes, altering the formula for Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustments. George W. Bush bravely tried to allow Americans to privatize part of their Social Security savings. (He failed at that effort, but succeeded, alas, at adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare.) Paul Ryan proposed an ambitious plan that would have replaced Medicare’s absurdly inefficient direct-payment system with one that supports insurance premiums of plans chosen by beneficiaries.
But Ryan is retiring, and Capitol Hill lawmakers no longer seems interested, if indeed they ever were. President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed fierce opposition to anything resembling “cuts” to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. It’s a hopeful sign, perhaps, that Howard Schultz, retiring CEO of Starbucks and likely Democratic presidential candidate, called the debt the most pressing domestic policy challenge facing the country. But candidates have often shown interest in such reforms—then lost it as officeholders.
One thing is guaranteed to spur reform: the collapse of one, two, or all three of our major entitlement programs. When 62 million people don’t get their Social Security checks in the mail, we may be sure that major changes will take place—along with a great deal of governmental upheaval and political chaos. If you’re reading this, you’ll likely see it happen. Two thousand twenty-six is just eight years away.
source-The Editors-wkly std-
-4gh.,b12-1 - June 7, 2018 br We all will—in abou... (
show quote)
============
When Social Security and Medicare Funds were co-mingled with the general funds, it was impossible to manage the solvency of the system.
That was a wrong accounting practice.
Did President Kennedy use Social Security assets to fund NASA
Roosevelt used SS funds to build the Atomic Bomb, Truman used SS Funds, Eisenhower used SS to build the Interstate and Kennedy and every President since has used SS Funds. The so called Social Security Trust Fund exists in name only, and they are comingled with the general fund.
During the prior years of Obama administration, million more people were collecting SS benefits and Medicare, with fewer people contributing to the system. The reason for that was there was very high unemployment, rate posted by BLM was fake. it should be 21%. Why? BLM counted million part time employees as employed without considering their status of PT only. Therefore those employees though contribute to the system, but due to their under employment, contributes only very little.
In addition, in 2010 when Obama launched the ObamaCare, he took
$716 billion to fund Obamacare.
Obamacare Robs Medicare of $716 Billion to Fund Itself
Alyene Senger / @AlyeneSenger / August 01, 2012.
Obamacare still got bankrupt, so Obama raided the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for several hundred billion dollars. The money belong to the stockholders.
Obama then reduced SS for those high income retirees, and increased Medicare premium to partially cover the cost of his Obama funds he raided from Medicare.
There are more people collecting SS and Medicare because people live longer. More people now are living up to 90's and even hundred years old.
Partially with high employment record of president Trump, this could help but partially, because the gravity of the prior problems still persist.
Millions of people now collect SSI (Social Security Income). These are benefits provided to those people who did not work in their lives but poor. And there are tens of millions of them.
Since the tax rate on the very rich is 60% less than it was in 1950 there is room to raise taxes.
Chocura750 wrote:
Since the tax rate on the very rich is 60% less than it was in 1950 there is room to raise taxes.
===============
You are really so stupid. The 1% to 10% high income tax payers pays 70% of the federal income tax. The next 30% is paid by the lower Middle Income Zero tax is paid by those below the lower middle income.
You trying to make up fake news, SOP of every one among the democrats-liberals and the MSM's. Deceptive and liars.
Again the tax rate on the very rich is 60% less than it was in 1950.
Chocura750 wrote:
Again the tax rate on the very rich is 60% less than it was in 1950.
==============
Typical liar and deceptive liberal-democrat brain. Your SOP's are LYING. Just like what Muslims do to deceive the unbelievers of Islam.
Yep they do the usual give it lip service and do nothing.Come on Trump straighten this mess out.Fix it so the damn politicians can't get their Fing hands on it.
thebigp wrote:
-4gh.,b12-1 - June 7, 2018
We all will—in about eight years.
On June 5, Medicare’s trustees published a report warning that the health insurance program will be unable to pay scheduled benefits, not in 2029 as previous thought, but in 2026. The same report maintained the previous year’s estimate that Social Security will become insolvent by 2034. These two programs, Medicare and Social Security, together with their correlative for low-income Americans, Medicaid, are far and away the largest recipients of public money in the federal budget. They bear overwhelming responsibility for the federal government’s $20 trillion debt and nearly $700 billion yearly deficit.
But who cares?
We ask the question literally. Who actually cares? Left unchecked, these programs will swallow the federal budget and require dramatic tax increases to sustain them, leading in turn to permanent economic lethargy. But almost no one cares. For elected officials in Washington, the problem is never sufficiently urgent actually to do anything about it, and in any case, the assumption holds that tampering with benefits is a pretty certain way to lose your next election. For Americans outside Washington, the problem is too abstruse and too complicated to get exercised about. If no one was alarmed by the prospect of an insolvent Medicare in 2029, no one will care about its insolvency in 2026.
Meanwhile the cost of the programs keeps rising—partly because more and more people qualify as beneficiaries, partly because benefits are set by federal statute and rise automatically (hence the apt term “entitlement”). If lawmakers do nothing, taxpayers will have to bail the programs out, and do so again and again, until entitlement programs eat almost the entire non-defense federal budget. That means discretionary spending on infrastructure, research and development, and a vast array of grants to state governments and other institutions—they all get axed or deleted in order to keep paying for retirement benefits and health insurance for the elderly.
The American economy just can’t keep up with our entitlement programs. The Democrats’ answer to this problem, on the rare occasion they offer one, is always the same: Raise taxes. After all, Europeans have partially succeeded in paying for their burgeoning welfare states; why not here? Leave aside the political question of whether Americans, accustomed to greater political freedom and less intrusive government than their European counterparts, are prepared to pay higher taxes to pay for an entitlement state. Americans also have to pay for a superpower military to counter the global foes of Russia, Iran, China, North Korea, et al. Europeans are not thus burdened.
American liberals regard last year’s individual and corporate tax cuts with incomprehending rage. Republicans, they complain, fashion themselves as the part of fiscal responsibility, and yet they’re starving the government of revenue at a time when our largest entitlement programs are about to go bust. It’s a reasonable, if misguided, question. Entitlement programs were racing towards disaster long before the tax cuts. Why? In part, because of huge demographic shifts and the programs’ poor structure. But also because the American economy had hobbled along at 2 or 3 percent growth for a decade. Productivity gains have fallen for even longer than decade. To put it plainly: The Obama-era economy, shackled by punitive corporate taxes and stultifying regulation, was never going to rise to the challenge.
It’s not clear yet that tax reform will escalate growth in the long term. But it has a better chance than the status quo ante.
The bigger question is whether Republicans any longer have the will to make entitlement programs sustainable. The reform ideas are well known on Capitol Hill: raising the eligibility age for Medicare recipients, reducing Medicare subsidies for beneficiaries with higher incomes, altering the formula for Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustments. George W. Bush bravely tried to allow Americans to privatize part of their Social Security savings. (He failed at that effort, but succeeded, alas, at adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare.) Paul Ryan proposed an ambitious plan that would have replaced Medicare’s absurdly inefficient direct-payment system with one that supports insurance premiums of plans chosen by beneficiaries.
But Ryan is retiring, and Capitol Hill lawmakers no longer seems interested, if indeed they ever were. President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed fierce opposition to anything resembling “cuts” to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. It’s a hopeful sign, perhaps, that Howard Schultz, retiring CEO of Starbucks and likely Democratic presidential candidate, called the debt the most pressing domestic policy challenge facing the country. But candidates have often shown interest in such reforms—then lost it as officeholders.
One thing is guaranteed to spur reform: the collapse of one, two, or all three of our major entitlement programs. When 62 million people don’t get their Social Security checks in the mail, we may be sure that major changes will take place—along with a great deal of governmental upheaval and political chaos. If you’re reading this, you’ll likely see it happen. Two thousand twenty-six is just eight years away.
source-The Editors-wkly std-
-4gh.,b12-1 - June 7, 2018 br We all will—in abou... (
show quote)
You really need to examine a chart of federal expenditures to see just how our money is being spent, not rely on partisan reports or journalists Opeds. The top three expenses, accounting for nearly 3/4 of the total, are Defense, Retirement ( not SS ) and healthcare. Now, take the healthcare expense and subtract Medicare premiums and Medicare withholding taxes and healthcare drops down to #8.
The US Treasury owes the Social Security Trust fund over a trillion dollars, that's due to the Congress "borrowing" SS payroll withholding taxes since 1955. The Congress also "borrows" Medicare taxes. The government mismanages your money, spends money that isn't theirs to spend...............and blames you for the problem.
thebigp wrote:
-4gh.,b12-1 - June 7, 2018
We all will—in about eight years.
On June 5, Medicare’s trustees published a report warning that the health insurance program will be unable to pay scheduled benefits, not in 2029 as previous thought, but in 2026. The same report maintained the previous year’s estimate that Social Security will become insolvent by 2034. These two programs, Medicare and Social Security, together with their correlative for low-income Americans, Medicaid, are far and away the largest recipients of public money in the federal budget. They bear overwhelming responsibility for the federal government’s $20 trillion debt and nearly $700 billion yearly deficit.
But who cares?
We ask the question literally. Who actually cares? Left unchecked, these programs will swallow the federal budget and require dramatic tax increases to sustain them, leading in turn to permanent economic lethargy. But almost no one cares. For elected officials in Washington, the problem is never sufficiently urgent actually to do anything about it, and in any case, the assumption holds that tampering with benefits is a pretty certain way to lose your next election. For Americans outside Washington, the problem is too abstruse and too complicated to get exercised about. If no one was alarmed by the prospect of an insolvent Medicare in 2029, no one will care about its insolvency in 2026.
Meanwhile the cost of the programs keeps rising—partly because more and more people qualify as beneficiaries, partly because benefits are set by federal statute and rise automatically (hence the apt term “entitlement”). If lawmakers do nothing, taxpayers will have to bail the programs out, and do so again and again, until entitlement programs eat almost the entire non-defense federal budget. That means discretionary spending on infrastructure, research and development, and a vast array of grants to state governments and other institutions—they all get axed or deleted in order to keep paying for retirement benefits and health insurance for the elderly.
The American economy just can’t keep up with our entitlement programs. The Democrats’ answer to this problem, on the rare occasion they offer one, is always the same: Raise taxes. After all, Europeans have partially succeeded in paying for their burgeoning welfare states; why not here? Leave aside the political question of whether Americans, accustomed to greater political freedom and less intrusive government than their European counterparts, are prepared to pay higher taxes to pay for an entitlement state. Americans also have to pay for a superpower military to counter the global foes of Russia, Iran, China, North Korea, et al. Europeans are not thus burdened.
American liberals regard last year’s individual and corporate tax cuts with incomprehending rage. Republicans, they complain, fashion themselves as the part of fiscal responsibility, and yet they’re starving the government of revenue at a time when our largest entitlement programs are about to go bust. It’s a reasonable, if misguided, question. Entitlement programs were racing towards disaster long before the tax cuts. Why? In part, because of huge demographic shifts and the programs’ poor structure. But also because the American economy had hobbled along at 2 or 3 percent growth for a decade. Productivity gains have fallen for even longer than decade. To put it plainly: The Obama-era economy, shackled by punitive corporate taxes and stultifying regulation, was never going to rise to the challenge.
It’s not clear yet that tax reform will escalate growth in the long term. But it has a better chance than the status quo ante.
The bigger question is whether Republicans any longer have the will to make entitlement programs sustainable. The reform ideas are well known on Capitol Hill: raising the eligibility age for Medicare recipients, reducing Medicare subsidies for beneficiaries with higher incomes, altering the formula for Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustments. George W. Bush bravely tried to allow Americans to privatize part of their Social Security savings. (He failed at that effort, but succeeded, alas, at adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare.) Paul Ryan proposed an ambitious plan that would have replaced Medicare’s absurdly inefficient direct-payment system with one that supports insurance premiums of plans chosen by beneficiaries.
But Ryan is retiring, and Capitol Hill lawmakers no longer seems interested, if indeed they ever were. President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed fierce opposition to anything resembling “cuts” to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. It’s a hopeful sign, perhaps, that Howard Schultz, retiring CEO of Starbucks and likely Democratic presidential candidate, called the debt the most pressing domestic policy challenge facing the country. But candidates have often shown interest in such reforms—then lost it as officeholders.
One thing is guaranteed to spur reform: the collapse of one, two, or all three of our major entitlement programs. When 62 million people don’t get their Social Security checks in the mail, we may be sure that major changes will take place—along with a great deal of governmental upheaval and political chaos. If you’re reading this, you’ll likely see it happen. Two thousand twenty-six is just eight years away.
source-The Editors-wkly std-
-4gh.,b12-1 - June 7, 2018 br We all will—in abou... (
show quote)
Your post shows you are sincere about the information sources you read and follow...you are to be applauded.
2 points: 1) eleven million of the eighteen million original Obama-Care sign-ups were placed in Medicare which obviously caused it stress. By design, it is the main reason The Affordable Care Act cannot be precipitately dismissed. 2) in 2005 GWB made a plea to the private sector for privatization of social security proposals. I was 1 of 5 civilians selected to present. All things being equal had the proposal survived Obama to its 10th anniversary (2018) I've no doubt President Trump would've already blessed it as the undeniable math shows a 4% ROI in sprite of quantitative easing and 0% return on savings. If enough OPPers have an interest in reading the original work I'll pull it from the archives and share it here. Thanks for listening
dongreen76 wrote:
First of all if no cares this is why.One year one report claims that they have solved the problem of social security and that it is solvent through the year 2053.The next year some nut claims sounds the impending social security disaster alarm about it's coming insolvency.
When some politician crys out -My God!!-we're spending more money than any other time our country's history,!!!,not factoring in the fact we are a third of the size larger,we have more people to accomodate,and factoring in the inflation factor-things costing more than they did in the past,one should have a tendency to ignore him/her because they don't know what they're talking about,since the top one percent,principally the owners of the goods and services we buy and use arbitrarily raise their prices,and do not compensate proportionaly their laborers whom are the same people whom patronize them commercially,and the governments responsibility is to do for the people what they cannot do for themselves,help them afford the ownners goods and services,subsidizement/some people call it welfare,takes place,since during the election cycle the governmental politicians depend heavily on the one percent to finance their election campaigns,their willingness to regulate their egregious arbitrary greed,can one really trust or believe their reports about anything.
First of all if no cares this is why.One year one ... (
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I don't think it's true that no one cares. Instead I think it's several reasons: 1. So many really do not understand how it works. 2. Most have always trusted our government to do right by them. 3. They have paid it our of every single paycheck all their working lives, so certainly it will be there for them. It's their money. 4. Working people are simply too busy trying to survive, to make ends meet, to take care of their families, they simply don't have the time or energy left over to deal with such things. 5. We all feel helpless to do anything about it. 6. Most regular working folks have no idea that their government has been using their Ss/Medicare fund as its very own piggy bank. 7. Most folks also do not realize that when immigrants , through chain migration, bring their parents here, before nany years, those parents are old and on the SS/Medicare rolls even though they are probably not citizens. 8. And most folks gave no idea about the fraud in these two programs, especially the disability part. I am old and retired and have plenty of time, plus the internet makes getting information much easier today. But back when I was working fulltime, raising children and striving to keep home and hearth together, I didn't pay attention either. By the time I got to bed at night I was simply too exhausted to care. This is why we have a representative government and we SHOULD be able to trust them to always do the right thing. Unfortunately, today, they deserve NO trust from us. So, I guess those of us oldies can still contribute to our country by keeping up with the truth of things, sharing it with others who don't have the time, and by constantly staying after our Congress. Maybe we can make a difference for everyone. Most days I am doubtful, but who knows for sure what tomorrow may bring. Maybe God is paying attention and will take a hand to save America and all that is good about it.
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