Posted on 06/01/2008 5:26:40 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
If you are 30 years of age or younger, pay close attention.
If the federal government maintains the status quo in spending, it will virtually assure that just when you are in your peak earning years, around 2030, your taxes will be at least 33 percent higher than they are now.
That 's just to maintain existing programs, without any new initiatives.
So much for your peak earnings.
So much for the lifestyle you expect.
And it gets worse for your children. A lot worse.
This is not a speculation. This is not about partisan politics.
This is math. Just add up the unfunded promises.
For too long Democrats and Republicans alike have been ignoring the fact that America will not have the money to keep paying the costs of its social insurance programs as the retiring baby boomers draw upon them.
Instead, Washington has piled on more spending while pushing the payments off to the future, where they accumulate like weights in an attic, waiting to crash down on future generations.
It's time to find a better way to run the government.
That's why U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., deserves support for proposing a sweeping reform of how the nation pays for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and health insurance. His plan also reforms federal income and corporate taxes.
Ryan understands the problem on both a national and a personal level. The 38-year-old Janesville native has three children. He sees a grim future for them, unless things change.
The specific elements of Ryan 's plan may or may not be the right answers. But the plan 's focus is exactly on target. It attacks the No. 1 national problem that almost no one else in Washington wants to confront -- the approaching fiscal calamity.
Ryan 's plan, which he calls "A Roadmap to America 's Future, " provides an opportunity to start the confrontation.
But he will need help.
None of the presidential candidates -- Republican John McCain and Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- is yet facing the challenge. In fact, their campaign promises would make it worse.
All have offered plans that would add at least $100 billion to the federal deficit. Their plans for offsetting added spending with cuts or more revenue are, to put it politely, nothing more than pipe dreams.
The presidential candidates, along with Ryan 's colleagues in Congress, owe America a frank and detailed explanation of how they plan to answer the long-term fiscal challenges the nation faces.
American voters ought to demand it.
5 reasons for reform
1. In 11 years Medicare 's trust fund that pays for hospital benefits will be empty.
2. Medicare and Social Security together over the next 75 years will fall $40 trillion short of fulfilling the promises made. That 's a burden of $353,000 per household.
3. The clock is ticking. In five years, the unfunded liability in Medicare and Social Security climbs to $54 trillion.
4. The United States spent $235 billion to pay the annual interest on the federal debt in 2007. That was more than the federal government spent on Medicaid, farm subsidies and foreign aid combined.
5. Since 2001 the United States has been relying on foreigners to buy 80 percent of the country's new debt.
Each one signed by the "conservative" Bush.
Ain’t gonna happen. The powers that be are simply going to kick the ball further down field for our kids to deal with.
But I’ll let you in on a bit of a dirty secret: the kids aren’t going to line up to pay the bill, either. You see, the kids who are growing up right now will have choices as well. In the short term, they’ll be able to vote with their pocket books. In the longer term, they’ll be able to vote with their ballots as the baby boomers start dying off. And ultimately, they will have the ability to vote with their feet.
Remember, most western countries are going through a population crash. In 20 years or so, a well-educated young person is going to be able to write their own ticket anywhere they want to write it.
What are you talking about, exactly? Young people moving to other countries? I don’t follow.
GenX Bump
Africa is a continent where the USA never had a colony.
It's entirely up to those European nations that had colonies that truly worked, then abandoned them to the squalor that Africa has become. South Africa was the only nation that made economic sense, but thanks to communism and America's doo-gooders the nation is a complete mess.
There must be a CONSERVATIVE leader that will take a giant meat axe to the central government in the way the barber takes the clippers to the head of a new recruit. Leave enough to defend us, but eliminate practically everything else.
We need a leader and a party that will call the UN what it truly is: an utter failure and force it to move completely out of the United States. It is an evil haven for tin horns who see America as the only evil.
Try as they might, I think the problem we are seeing in the present credit crisis is that the credit card is maxed out. The powers that be have already started us on the path out of this; repudiation of the debt, which can be done in one of two ways, default, or inflation. Our lords and masters have chosen option 2.
No doubt, but I hate to break the news to you. The cost of the UN is not even rounding error in the federal budget.
So, health care reform means making the system more efficient. It means getting all the paper pushing middle men off the health care payroll. Michelle Obama receives a $300K salary from the health care industry (more than many specialists working for an HMO. Is this because of her expertise in medical science, nursing or pharmaceutical development and production?
I've been thinking for a while now that there's a way to bring down the US Government without firing a shot, or uttering a single angry word. If all of us take every dime of entitlement money that they're willing to dole out, the whole miserable mess will come crashing down within ten years.
“4. The United States spent $235 billion to pay the annual interest on the federal debt in 2007.”
Sadly, we can thank the Big Government president currently in office for a sadly large chunk of the proportional amount of the current federal debt being maintained (25%?)
I knew the guy was a ‘compassionate conservative’ even in 1999/2000 when his campaign started that refrain, but who would have expected it would have been the 1-veto president, at least while his party was in office? (clue - his first veto after 1+ terms of nothing was NOT over spending)
“If all of us take every dime of entitlement money that they’re willing to dole out, the whole miserable mess will come crashing down within ten years.”
That thought has crossed my mind, as well. The minute I can grab SS money, Medicare/Medicaid, etc. I’m going to. It’s never appealed to me before, but it sure does now. I’d like to see this House of Cards fall, too, so we can start a-new.
It’s so incredibly annoying how MY money is wasted at the local, state and federal levels. I have to live within my means; government surely doesn’t. Grrrrr!
And I pay very little in, in taxes. Avoiding taxes (legally) is my hobby. :)
They don’t care. The goal for our Federal representatives is just to be fat, happy, and retired (with their wealth safely squirreled away somewhere) when it all comes tumbling down. And the only way to do that is to stay in office as long as possble. And the only way to do that is to keep getting re-elected. And the only way to do that is is to continue to spend, spend, spend our tax dollars. Because the guy who stands up and tells it like it really is will be gone in the next election. Because, frankly, We The People want our free stuff.
Xer Ping
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.
“What are you talking about, exactly? Young people moving to other countries?”
Yup. And it’s already happening to a limited extent. The highly talented/educated are and always will be in demand. That demand will increase as other western and developing countries deal with the repercussions of their baby busts and the fact that their economies are growing over time.
This is part of the reason why the immigration debate strikes me as a bit surreal. The problem is not with immigration per se, it’s that we’ve opened our doors wide open to those who are as much a liability as an asset.
“There must be a CONSERVATIVE leader that will take a giant meat axe to the central government in the way the barber takes the clippers to the head of a new recruit. Leave enough to defend us, but eliminate practically everything else.”
And with the GOP “representing” conservatives, the chances of that happening are nil.
“The powers that be have already started us on the path out of this; repudiation of the debt, which can be done in one of two ways, default, or inflation. Our lords and masters have chosen option 2.”
Yup, and don’t expect the kids to stand in line to pay the bill, either. They’ll inflate the currency in the short run and repudiate the entitlements in the long run. The only reason why medicare, social security etc. still exist is because the population is disproportionately older and more socialist due to the baby boomers. Once they are not, the equation changes drastically.
I would not want to have to rely on social security in 20 years.
In 20 years or so, a well-educated young person is going to be able to write their own ticket anywhere they want to write it.
I'm graduating next year with a degree in computer science from a top-50 university. There is no way that I will voluntarily pay the bill for the stupid liberals' charlie foxtrot.
As for writing my own ticket, with some graduate study in the same field and an MBA, I can write my own ticket in less than twenty years.
Yes, that's exactly what he is talking about. Young, educated, and productive folks will not stick around here to get repeatedly financially raped by the unproductive and uneducated majority, if and when it gets to that point.
Thirty-three percent...nominally or in real terms, i.e. after inflation? I strongly suspect it will be the former.
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