If You Think The Riots Are Bad Now, Wait Until America Goes Bankrupt In A Few Years

Medicare is functionally insolvent, people are getting way more from entitlements than they paid in, and Congress has been spending like drunken sailors for decades with no signs of stopping.

Two data points explain the current debate in Washington on more rounds of COVID spending. The Biden administration’s repeated statements that “the risk is not…going too small, but…going not big enough” reflects a position Joe Biden publicly articulated while serving in the Obama administration a dozen years ago:

As to the cumulative effects of these policies, the budget resolution itself tells the tale, with its projected estimates of the total national debt over the coming decade:

To provide some sense of perspective, the most recent gross domestic product estimates show the size of the American economy at $21.5 trillion on an annual basis. In other words, our total national debt (including IOUs placed in the Medicare and Social Security Trust Funds) already exceeds the size of our economy. A decade from now—after an additional $13.6 trillion in deficits under the Democrat budget—our debt will approach twice the size of our economy now.

Contra Biden circa 2009, that’s not “spending money to keep from going bankrupt”—that’s already bankrupt.

Dishonesty with the American People

Without a doubt, many American families and small businesses are hurting due to the pandemic, and the lockdowns associated with it. These individuals and businesses deserve some level of assistance to overcome the government-mandated lockdowns, reopen their establishments, and get on with their lives.

But a spending spree that would give $5,000 in “stimulus” payments to a family of five making $250,000, or Obamacare subsidies to households earning $300,000, far exceeds the reasonable or even rational limits of federal aid. Rather, it epitomizes a myth that politicians of both parties have perpetuated for far too long: That the American people can have more government than we can afford.

Mitch Daniels, the former Indiana Republican governor and Office of Management and Budget director now heading Purdue University, eloquently made this case in the Washington Post last week:

Because politicians believe they can profit by attacking anyone who proposes changes to entitlements—e.g., Paul Ryan throwing grandma off a cliff—leaders in both parties have abandoned any attempts at reform, such that we may have passed a fiscal “point of no return.”

Three Inconvenient Truths

Daniels cited the “noble lies” that politicians have used over the years to avoid making necessary but unpopular fiscal choices. To correct three of the most popular misnomers:

No. 1: You Haven’t “Earned” Your Medicare Benefits: According to the Urban Institute (not exactly a home for firebrand conservatives), a single male making average wages who retired in 2020 paid in a total of $81,000 in Medicare taxes over his working life, but will receive a total of $229,000 in Medicare subsidies. Those gaps will continue to grow over time, such that a retiree in 2060—someone just starting his or her working life at present—will pay $133,000 in Medicare taxes, but receive $573,000 in benefits.

No. 2: Medicare Is Functionally Insolvent: Not least because of No. 1 above, Medicare has already exhausted its trust fund. In 2009, the program’s last trustees report before Obamacare’s enactment showed an insolvency date of 2017. In other words, for (at least) the past four years, Medicare has stayed afloat only because the tax increases and Medicare reductions included in Obamacare have been used to both fund that law and address Medicare’s solvency—an illogical budgetary gimmick born of government trust fund accounting.

This fiscal sleight-of-hand not only didn’t really improve Medicare’s fiscal condition, it also encouraged politicians to ignore the program’s underlying problems to this day. It also reinforces the pernicious Democratic policies that would raid Medicare to pay for other spending, whether the current “stimulus” bill or a single-payer health care system.

No. 3: Tax Cuts Don’t (Fully) Pay for Themselves: Yes, lowering tax rates, particularly on capital gains and investment, can unlock productivity gains in the economy that generate additional revenue. But that additional revenue only offsets part of the fiscal impact of tax relief, which is why conservatives must also work to reduce our unsustainable spending levels.

Politicians Reaping Americans the Whirlwind

Also last week, former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., took a tone similar to Daniels’s. In discussing Obamacare repeal in 2013 and the aftermath of last year’s election, Cantor in both cases blamed “an unwillingness to speak truth to power”—for politicians to tell their constituents facts their constituents didn’t want to hear.

Notably, Cantor’s exhortation for elected leaders to speak the truth didn’t include anything about the unrealistic and unsustainable fiscal promises politicians have made to their constituents for decades. In some respects, Cantor epitomized that problem, by his own admission nixing the chance of an entitlement “grand bargain” between then-House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and President Obama.

The rioting and violence at the Capitol a few weeks ago was both a horrific and tragic event in American history. Yet I fear the tumult throughout 2020 may pale in comparison to the not-too-distant future, when the American people finally realize their leaders have systematically lied to them for decades. To paraphrase the Book of Hosea, Congress and presidents have sown the wind—but on our current fiscal course, we all stand to reap the whirlwind.

The good news is that your SS payments are based on what you put in, at least to a degree.

Not really any good news at all. It's $0.15 on the $1 for anything over $6,002/month of income, but you're still paying 100% of the tax. From the SSA data below, you can see the awesome benefit someone gets if making just shy of $12,000/yr (90%), and then the complete rip-off it is when you make over $72,000/yr. Note too: this is the same # no matter how many quarters you actually put in, as long as you put in the minimum needed to earn a full benefit.

From the SSA.GOV site: https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/piaformula.html

For an individual who first becomes eligible for old-age insurance benefits or disability insurance benefits in 2021, or who dies in 2021 before becoming eligible for benefits, his/her PIA will be the sum of:
(a) 90 percent of the first $996 of his/her average indexed monthly earnings, plus
(b) 32 percent of his/her average indexed monthly earnings over $996 and through $6,002, plus
(c) 15 percent of his/her average indexed monthly earnings over $6,002.

DON’T STOP THE PRESSES! Keep printing Print Free Money !

Free from Goverment ! Free! Just really means let the kids pay for it
Where’s the commercial or video showing a toddler happily playing suddenly being demanded to pay its thousands of dollars share of the national debt ? When the toddler breaks into screaming” HOW COULD THEY DO THIS TO ME ???” in tears ? posted this in my website
http://www.theusmat.com/index.htm

If this fraudulent election wasn’t going on Trump should vetoed this. NOW I HOPE HE EXPLAINS AND BLAMES THAT SHAKEDOWN FORCING ITS PASSAGE.

That democrat controlled house 5000 or more page budget blaster hasn’t been examined but I bet there is Bailouts for sanctuary states and cities along with a mountain of other appropriations going for give-a-way projects where Swamp family members wind up being “bag men” for those that voted for this.

Watched Mark Levin tonight on Hannity. Mark Levin had several worthy arguments - including his often citing our US Constitution and Bill of Rights - against the Biden’s National Socialism.

Biden represents the corruption, vices, and violence of the harshly dedicated left-wing of the AFL-CIO.

The left-wing assault against both local governments and private property thru most of 2020, was an exercise of AFL-CIO guidance.

Such “bad” socialist unions are literally psychopathic in their carelessness: the viability of an enterprise is ignored, because such leftists *ALWAYS* believe in the final government solutions -— that *THEY* will prevail when in control of the government purse.

They do not need private, let alone capital enterprise.

Their methods of bullying, intimidation, “chilling effect,” “disenfranchisement,” destruction, and various proxy fights (for example, what we now see in the DC is Martial Law by Proxy) . . . are the leftist AFL-CIO toolkit.

Their thinking abhors examination, reflection, and study. That is why they are fanatic jingo-ists.

There is no constitutional form nor democratic-republic. There are simply a rage of the day followed by another and “something must be done about it!”

Victor Davis Hanson was also a guest on Tucker Carlson tonight. Mr. Hanson did a good job in a short time, trying to explain the left’s pathology re these matters.

IOW, when Joe Biden says “to the lifeboats!” . . .

Remember that Biden’s back-supports (John Kerry, Mitt Romney, Ben Rhodes, and a lot of people with portfolio), will declare lifeboats to be harmful to the environment and deflate the boats while you are mid-pacific.

Leaving you to sink or swim.

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