Unfunded Liabilities. Another way of viewing the government’s disastrous budgetary situation is by looking at its fiscal position the way a private company would. To do so, analysts focus on the “unfunded liabilities” of the Federal Government’s major benefit programs. These liabilities reflect the excess of projected spending in these programs over the amount of revenue currently estimated to be available for them.
The problem is most acute in Medicare. Like Social Security, Medicare faces the daunting demographic challenge of supporting the baby boomers as they retire. But its much larger problem is that of medical costs, which are rising at roughly double the rate of growth in the economy. Today Medicare has an unfunded liability of $38 trillion over the next 75 years (see Figure 1). This means that the Federal Government would have to set aside $38 trillion today to cover future benefits for the three generations of Americans: retirees, workers, and children. This translates to a burden of about $335,350 per U.S. household. Moreover, the problem worsens rapidly: in just the next 5 years, by 2014, Medicare’s unfunded liability is projected to grow to $52 trillion – or about $458,900 per household.
When Social Security and Medicare are taken together, the total unfunded liability is
$43 trillion, or about $379,475 per household (see Figure 2). In the next
5 years, that total will grow to $57 trillion, or $500,414 per household.
Without fundamental changes, the government would have to finance these obligations with higher taxes, higher debt, or a combination of the two. Either way, the results would be crippling for the U.S. economy: they would entail shifting unprecedented amounts of economic resources away from growth-generating activities of the private sector . . . .
Editor's notes: the new GOP has ideas and they have been posted for well over a year. Surprised? Maybe that has to do with the Minion Media's concerted effort to repress such information, giving the illusion that the GOP has no ideas and has not "been at the table " with solutions and a bi-partisan willingness to get something done. That, of course, is a lie.
It has not gone unnoticed by some that the new FinReg financial reform legislation did not address Fannie and Freddie and the malfeasance clearly present in those organizations. Neither was the problematic issue of transparency addressed with regard to "the Fed."Most amazingly, Obama and Comrades have had two excellent opportunities to deal with the growing liability issues in Medicare and Social Security. Rather than deal with the impossible debt of Medicare, ObamaCare decided to add 16 million more people into that program, all of us poor and old folks, but not provide for increased medical staff -- all the while claiming there will be no rationing. Lies and more lies. This should have been addressed in the healthcare idiocy but wasn't. "No time." "We had to act fast." And, my favorite, "Doing something is better than doing nothing." Understand that all of these statements could have been written by someone with an I. Q. of a piece of shoe leather. The actual reason why real solutions were not offered is this: the Dems have no solutions if the answers do not have anything to do with spending money, greasing palms, increasing legacy packages and earmarks for the hometown crowd.
Funny how we have time to create more debt - at four times the rate of Bush but not enough time to deal with the problems that "got us into this mess." As an aside, let's not forget that Obama VOTED FOR ALL OF THE BUSH SPENDING and took time out of his campaign to support the TARP legislation, making him as responsible for that spending nut as Bush.
Point of post: the Dems have nothing and the GOP is being ignored. There are good ideas out there, on the left and the right, but the Marxist Media is not interested in anything but the "fundamental transformation of the United States."
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