“ There is no reasonable hope for US federal government finances if deep cuts on outlays are not soon made in CMS.”
I have an alternative: instead of cutting aid to America’s seniors through Social Security and Medicare, cut foreign aid, foreign war spending (Ukraine money laundering) and services for illegals. Also, if we’re still running short after all that, raise taxes on Disney and other big corporations. Most of them are terminally woke, and many used their tax breaks from the Paul Ryan tax cuts to send subsidies to BLM and other subversive organizations. Also, start taxing hedge fund billionaires, as Trump proposed when he ran in 2016.
“In 2022, Social Security’s cost is projected to exceed total income (i.e., tax revenues plus interest income). Trust fund reserves are projected to decline steadily from their peak of $2.9 trillion to zero in 2035.
Following the depletion of trust fund reserves, scheduled tax revenues are projected to be sufficient to pay 80% of scheduled benefits initially, declining to 74% by 2096....
Over the next 20 years, the worker-to-beneficiary ratio is projected to decline as the baby-boom generation moves into retirement and is replaced with workers from lower-birth-rate generations.
Although projected increases in life expectancy play a role, the trustees point to the shift in the population’s age distribution due to lower birth rates as the dominant factor in increased program cost over the next 75 years....
To illustrate the magnitude of changes needed to maintain Social Security solvency over the next 75 years, the trustees point out hypothetically two options that it would take:
1 - an immediate 3.24 percentage point increase in the payroll tax rate (from 12.40% to 15.64%) or
2 - an immediate 20.3% reduction in scheduled benefits for all current and future beneficiaries (or a 24.1% reduction for newly-eligible beneficiaries only).
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IF10522.pdf
Doing NOTHING means the pain is deferred, but will be greater when it arrives. Minor changes NOW might do a lot - such as ending SS for anyone who entered the USA illegally, cutting the “disability” (fraud) payments, etc. Changing retirement ages that are 20 years out - by a year or two - would help. That has been done in the past.
Heck, it could be solved if AMERICANS started having BABIES again!
NO ONE is talking about cutting benefits immediately. But they will be cut in 12 years (when I’m in my 70s) if nothing is done now.
That's too simple. Too America first.
Instead of taking care of our own people and our own country, the lawyers/politician globalist in D.C., blow *trillions* on BS adventures in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, foreign aid, et al.
If we took care of our own people and our own country, we would all be doing great.
Instead, these dirty sons of bitches go after all the old folk, the grandparents who paid SS taxes for 40+ years.
Eff them all.
Where is your numbers analysis, if any, that excludes CMS outlay cuts from a solution that credibly solves the problem?