Posted on 03/08/2007 7:28:59 PM PST by FLOutdoorsman
David Walker, Comptroller General at the Government Accountability Office, appeared on the show “60 Minutes” last evening to discuss the federal budget outlook. If you saw the show, you know that he painted a very sobering picture regarding the federal government’s ability to meet its future obligations.
If you didn’t see the show, Mr. Walker’s theme was simple: government entitlement spending is like a runaway freight train headed straight at American taxpayers. He singled out the Medicare prescription drug bill, passed by Congress at the end of 2003, as “probably the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s.”
When it comes to Social Security and Medicare, the federal government simply won’t be able to keep its promises in the future. That is the reality every American should get used to, despite the grand promises of Washington reformers. Our entitlement system can’t be reformed- it’s too late. And the Medicare prescription drug bill is the final nail in the coffin.
The financial impact of the drug bill cannot be overstated. Government projections that the program would cost $400 billion over the next decade were a joke, as everyone in Congress knew even as they voted for the bill. The real cost will be at least $1 trillion in the first decade alone, and much more in following decades as the American population grows older.
The Medicare “trust fund” is already badly in the red, and the only solution will be a dramatic increase in payroll taxes for younger workers. The National Taxpayers Union reports that Medicare will consume nearly 40% of the nation’s GDP after several decades because of the new drug benefit. That’s not 40% of federal revenues, or 40% of federal spending, but rather 40 % of the nation’s entire private sector output!
The politicians who get reelected by passing such incredibly shortsighted legislation will never have to answer to future generations saddled with huge federal deficits. Those generations are the real victims, as they cannot object to the debts being incurred today in their names.
The official national debt figure, now approaching $9 trillion, reflects only what the federal government owes in current debts on money already borrowed. It does not reflect what the federal government has promised to pay millions of Americans in entitlement benefits down the road. Those future obligations put our real debt figure at roughly fifty trillion dollars- a staggering sum that is about as large as the total household net worth of the entire United States. Your share of this fifty trillion amounts to about $175,000.
Don’t believe for a second that we can grow our way out of the problem through a prosperous economy that yields higher future tax revenues. If present trends continue, by 2040 the entire federal budget will be consumed by Social Security and Medicare alone. The only options for balancing the budget would be cutting total federal spending by about 60%, or doubling federal taxes. To close the long-term entitlement gap, the U.S. economy would have to grow by double digits every year for the next 75 years.
The answer to these critical financial realities is simple, but not easy: We must rethink the very role of government in our society. Anything less, any tinkering or “reform,” won’t cut it. A good start would be for Congress to repeal the Medicare prescription drug bill.
I hope my generation has the balls to default.
I really don't care if the government's credit is ruined. It deserves to be ruined.
We need a separate branch of the legislature that represents tax-payers and decides how the money will be spent.
If you don't pay anything in taxes, you don't get a vote.
Yeah,
But all the spending in the 60s, 70s, 80s and even the 90s was from the greatest generation. They did well against Nazism, facism and communism, but they embraced Keynesianism...
And the current generation is busily embracing socialism.
NOTE: Please Ping me or FReepMail me to be added to the Great Ron Paul Ping List.
Thansk for the ping!
We need a separate branch of the legislature that represents tax-payers and decides how the money will be spent.
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I was taught in grade school that all "money bills" (appropriations) must originate in the house of representatives. We used to allow voting only by male heads of households who owned property and paid taxes, seems they had it right from the start if we just had brains enough to leave well enough alone!
Thanks for the ping.
"If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed." —
George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
But he's criticizing Bush! Shame on him!
Now this is really an inconvient truth unlike owlwhore's lying sack o bs
Excellent article. The Pill Bill needs to be repealed. Hopefully, RP will find other congressmen with the courage to co-sponsor a repeal.
Not to mention the No-child left behind crap
The real solution to the health care crisis is to require people pay for it themselves.
That's fine as long as the federal payroll taxes for medicare are taken out.
The welfare system needs to be cancelled, not reformed. No more food stamps, wic, subsidized housing, medicare, medical, and whatever the heck else is handed out.
Social program, is Communism pure and simple.
Be prepared for a flaming by people who have their feelings hurt by such statements. They would rather have an emotional reaction than objectively consider the matter. Another example that shows why universal suffrage is bad.
the baby boomers are histories most irresponsible generation.
The baby boomers have destroyed this country, taken it too far into the field of socialism, opened pandora's box with the sexual revolution and have shown themselves to be the most ego-centric & self absorbed generation in history.
I would compare them to the monarchs of old Europe, fancying themselves possessors of a Divine Right to make the world into something that is inoffensive and comfortable to thier delicate self image. They flippantly tell the world what it must do and what it must sacrifice but are unwilling to lead by example. They pursue philosophies that have utterly failed at the cost of millions of lives and immense suffering deluding themselves that they can do it the right way because they have good intentions, as if they were the first one's to try marxism with good intentions.
They have destroyed our moral fabric and ability to reason with the post modernism of moral relativism. They have turned our schools into indoctrination centers formulated to raise a generation of yes men and women unable to learn from failure and unwilling to try from fear of it. They have gelded the men and put women on the front lines to defend them. They have extended childhood to the age of 30 and withhold the idea of personal responsibility from thier children.
They have murdered a whole generation before it could take it's first breath because kids are inconvenient.
They have made patriotism a sin and American History a tale of despair and betrayal instead of progress and freedom.
They have stolen by social security money and have doomed my kids to a life of economic servitude, we will be working until the day we die so that they can retire comfortably. </rant>
I have to agree. As a younger worker, I wouldn't mind seeing the federal government just file for bankruptcy, shut down, and go home. If other countries we owe money to want to collect, they can just come and try to take it. We have grown far beyond our survivability in national debt through entitlements. It's time to start over.
Thanks for the flag.
Works for me.
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