[proxy_user]

"Particularly troubling are the many big-ticket items that taxpayers will eventually have to reckon with, including Social Security, Medicare, civilian and military retirement and health care benefits, and veterans' medical care. Despite their serious implications for future budgets, tax burdens and spending flexibility, these future obligations get short shrift in the government's financial statements and in budgetary deliberations.

These are not real obligations. Congress is sovereign and has the power to reduce or eliminate them at any time. If there is no money to pay for them, that is exactly what they will do.

[Kozak]

These are not real obligations. Congress is sovereign and has the power to reduce or eliminate them at any time. If there is no money to pay for them, that is exactly what they will do.

Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha. Will that be in the year before or after Congressional elections?

[Gunslingr3]

These are not real obligations. Congress is sovereign and has the power to reduce or eliminate them at any time. If there is no money to pay for them, that is exactly what they will do.

They're real in the sense that people expect to be paid them. And Congress has the power to borrow money by selling bonds, which the Federal Reserve can print money to buy. They can print their way out of this fix, and given the history of fiat currency regimes, it seems the most likely.