thebigp

All of this is straightforward. Our elected officials all know it. They also know that taking steps to avert the danger will only get more difficult the nearer it is allowed to approach. But the very unpredictability of the consequences of such unprecedented peacetime deficits and debt, combined with a longstanding pattern of failure to think clearly about medium-term risks, has meant that the danger has been permitted to grow.
Politicians have long been in the habit of describing these problems as somewhere off in the distance, so that worrying about them is a matter of not burdening our children and grandchildren. That used to be true, but it isn’t anymore. The 2030s are as close to us now as the 2000s. It’s no longer about our distant descendants. Today’s younger and middle-aged workers will experience the fallout from the unprecedented deficits and debts the CBO projects. And some of the solutions that might have been adequate had we taken them up a decade or two ago will no longer suffice even if we suddenly find the will. Gradual, responsible, politically plausible solutions would need to be started soon. But Washington has proven less and less able to take the problem seriously.
Entitlements Are the Problem
To take the problem seriously would mean, first of all, understanding its causes. Democrats would like Americans to believe that the nation’s fiscal problems stem entirely from a Republican obsession with tax cuts. They are right that reducing federal revenue certainly makes deficits bigger. But tax revenue could never keep up with federal spending on its current course. The real problem is the unrelenting growth of entitlement spending, which has been underway for more than four decades and will continue uninterrupted in the current century if reforms are not put in place.

Historical data and CBO’s long-term projections tell the story. Over the 50-year period between 1968 and 2017, average annual federal tax collections equaled 17.4 percent of GDP. That hasn’t changed. CBO projects that if the 2017 tax cuts are extended, revenue would still be 17.4 percent of GDP in 2028 and 17.9 percent of GDP in 2038. Meanwhile, entitlement spending grew from 5.5 percent of GDP in 1968 to 10.4 percent in 2008. Today, it exceeds 13 percent. CBO projects that federal spending on just Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare subsidies will amount to an additional 4.6 percentage points of GDP in 2048, compared with today.
The Trump administration and some Republicans in Congress would like to implement deep cuts in appropriated spending to help ease the budget crunch, but that is as inadequate a plan for fiscal discipline as the Democrats’ dream of balancing the budget by raising taxes on the wealthy. In 2017, discretionary federal spending (defense and nondefense combined) was just 6.3 percent of GDP, down from 7.7 percent in 2008. President Trump’s budget proposes to take that spending down to just 3.9 percent of GDP in 2028, including only 1.5 percent of GDP for nondefense discretionary spending. This is the category of the budget that funds everything from the National Institutes of Health to the FBI and the National Park Service. It is very unlikely that funding for these activities will fall anywhere near as low as the administration’s proposals suggest. And given the many security risks facing the country, it would be irresponsible in the extreme to plan for deep cuts in the nation’s military and national-security programs. But even if such unrealistic proposals could be enacted, growing entitlement spending would still eat up the savings and then some.
The inescapable conclusion from the historical budget data and all plausible projections is that entitlement spending will continue to be the primary cause of the federal government’s fiscal problems. Entitlement spending therefore needs to be the primary focus of any attempted solutions.
Entitlement spending growth is concentrated in three very large programs: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. And all three are heavily influenced by the nation’s shifting demographic profile. In 1965, when Medicare was created, there were roughly five workers for each beneficiary of that program and of Social Security. Today there are about three, and as the baby boomers rapidly exit the workforce over the coming years the number will continue to decline. This aging of the population also affects Medicaid, as about a fifth of that program’s money is spent on seniors, particularly on long-term care.
SOURCE--Yuval Levin and James C. Capretta—wky std Bernie Sanders speaks about saving Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call,Inc.

Lonewolf

it won't be long before baby boomers will be dropping like flys

Trooper745 Loc: Carolina

Yuval Levin's article in The Weekly Standard is a well researched and written column. It is above the attention span of most of the left, who think like Bernie Sanders, ... "HANDS OFF MY SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE & MEDICAID.", but raise taxes to pay for it!, ... is the only way to keep those programs.

It is too bad that most leftists approach any attempts to strengthen and save Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid with the attitude that the only thing needed is expansion of benefits and larger and more punitive taxes on the middle class.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/yuval-levin/the-entitlement-crisis-is-real-and-its-worse-than-you-think

Solutions are available and possible, but both the socialist democrats and the communists in our government have no interest in fixing the problem, at all. Since the only compromise the leftists see is totally increasingly taxes the working man into move those three programs into solvency, the Right is unwilling to even come to the negotiating table.

Besides, the socialist democrats and the communists believe that if the Republic can be forced into insolvency and collapse through inflation, a wonderful socialist/communist government will rise from the ashes. Obamacare was a big advance for that hope, and single payer is the next.

Fit2BTied Loc: Texas

And you can tell by the many pages of comments how important this critical issue is to a lot of folks, and why solving it keeps getting delayed. It isn't that nobody cares, it's just that the problem keeps being politicized and our elected officials don't think they can get re-elected if they take on the challenge.