Posted on 11/14/2010 1:07:03 PM PST by La Enchiladita
Baby boomers withdrawing funds from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are going to "crush the system" in a matter of years, a member of President Obama's blue-ribbon commission on the debt warned Sunday.
David Cote, CEO of Honeywell and one of a handful of private-sector chiefs appointed to the 18-member fiscal reform commission issuing its final recommendations on Dec. 1, said he didn't realize -- even perched at the top of his field -- that the next decade will be disastrous to the nation's accounts ledger unless something drastic is done.
"It scares me that as a financially conversant CEO, I didn't know how bad this was going to get in the next 10 years," Cote said on ABC's "This Week." "The thing that everybody misses is it's my generation, the baby boomers, who are going to flow through Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. It's going to crush the system."
"Social Security is going to go cash negative in five years. It's going to go broke in 2037," added Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., another member of the commission who appeared with Cote.
Medicare is "prepared to go permanently cash negative in just 10 years. So, obviously, those things have to be reformed; there have to be some changes," Conrad said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
The reason that medical care is so expensive is largely because of Medicare. If you track when medical costs started going up much higher than inflation you will find it was right about the time that Medicare started. Medicare is currently running $450 BILLION per year of which at least $60 billion is basically stolen through fraud. The liberals don’t care if it is stolen because they just think of it as “spreading the wealth around”.
So when lying politicians make a promise we are stuck paying the bill because people rely on those promises? So we were not suckered in by the gas taxes that go for roads, or property taxes that go to schools, or the cigarette taxes that go for fighting smoking, etc.? Seems like I just heard that a carbon tax will make the Earth safe for my continued habitation and give me a nice paying green job.
Is there a limit on what future generations must pay for the promises made by politicians to such a guilible electorate? Do I have to pay +15% of my income because FDR promised it?
So your argument is simple: People need the money. At least it is an honest argument. Take from one person and give it to another.
I don't doubt that some people “need” the money and I am sure a kinder person than I can define who has “need” and who does not have “need”. And by so doing, we can call SS what is...welfare. Once we treat it as such then we can pay SS to the truly needy.
Eliminate undesirables; Never Again could be back.
Also, if Bernie Madoff can be prosecuted for what he did, why haven't we held our own government accountable for the thievery in which they have been involved?
Thank you for adding a voice of sanity.
You're speaking to people who ignored the SS time bomb for years...people who wanted to believe the lies they were told by their employees...office holders they describe and think of as "those in charge."
You're talking to those who would never hit someone over the head and take their money...those who would condemn stealing food from the mouths of babes...who bought the political lie, and who are now seemingly willing to pay someone else to do the clubbing. They say you can't con an honest person...
You will not get them to admit their folly. The price of their integrity is small when compared to their monthly checks, real or hoped for.
But, you are right.
The money was stolen from day 1. It never went anywhere except the general fund, it was always a Ponzi scheme. All that LBJ did was to adjust the accounting to better hide the theft.
“My husband and I have put a lot of our money into the social security system over our lifetime. If we had been able to invest that same money as we saw fit....we’d be much better off today.”
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You would probably be millionaires. Seriously.
When there are lies involved, then yes it is stealing.
And it wasn't clear from the beginning that this wasn't an insurance program with any rights to a benefit. It was clearly sold as an insurance plan, and folks fought for that right up to the Supreme Court.
Yep. We worked our fingers to the bone, and what did we get? Bony fingers.
There were promises, or to put it better, out right lies that suggested promises.
Too true.
“So when lying polticians blah, blah, blah”
Yes, we are stuck paying the bill.
None of the taxes you mention exact an implied monetary return to the person that pays them at some future date. If so please explain. I have never paid my income tax or property tax with some hope of a future return.
“Do I have to pay 15 per cent of my income because FDR promised it?”
Yes, you and I do. It should never have been....but it is. Until there is some kind of reform.
Your first post was pretty intersting...but I already gave the premise that SS was sold on. Reference that post.
It isn’t a matter of “people need the money”. I’m not quite sure why you don’t get what the government sold to get a program instituted.
“Take from one person and give to another”.
Yep...that was the premise of SS. And to take from a whole, boatload of people that have contributated all their lives and say..too bad..so sad...is wrong. I just really hate that the government spent the money for their raises..but the deduction was taken out of peoples’ checks for a reason. (Do you know what kind of hell employers can get into for not submitting their p/r taxes? You might as well commit murder.)
I have to wonder how you would feel if you were 70 years old and payed all your life and a 35 year old thinks it is no longer their responsibilty. Both people are correct. The 70 year old that paid all their life and the 35 year old that has to pay now.
I have never said things shouldn’t change. But it should be done in an orderly fashion.
Like I said...your argument sounds like it is all about you.
Slight difference: you can choose to stay out of the casino.
“Well, I’m just telling you, most Americans through the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, up to probably the late 80s, or 90s never even thought about SS or gave it little thought..”
Most Americans never gave a thought about government spending generally, except they wanted more benefits while paying lower taxes. But if you were conscious during Reagan’s presidency, there was a Social Security crisis then, and Alan Greenspan was put in charge of a panel that recommended raising the rates substantially to put SS on secure footing until 2040. Which happened.
But the government under Reagan, Bush1, Clinton and Bush2 kept spending more and more and we gave ourselves a big tax cut and kept spending even more and then we had a financial crisis to rival the Great Depression so we had to spend even more and now we’re going to pay the piper. Which is what happens in the real world.
Do you work for the government? Where do you get this?
Sorry, but some of us who work for a living also haven't had raises in the past two years. My sympathy muscles just ain't working like they used to. Life is hard everywhere. I suppose you should get what you can while you can, because it ain't gonna last.
I do not understand how allegedly educated people can be that stupid. Its simple freaking demographics. This isn't rocket science, calculus, and doesn't have anything to do with dark matter or string theory. The system is a ponzi scheme and has been since day one.
The fact that it has gone on as long as it has is a testament to the strength of America, the robustness of our economy, and the sheer inertia built up in our system by all of the above until about the 1960s. It's been all downhill ever since, and will crash in a stinking, smoking hulk when it is all over and done with because TANSTAAFL is not just a catchy saying, it's a fundamental property of the universe.
Oh really! Where did you get that? From the beginning the intent has been to take money in small amounts to provide a fall back retirement benefit. Now you say it was just a f'n tax... so get over it? Well there will major hell to pay across this land if that ever happens. Are you OK with that?
[There are more than 50,000 people a day signing up for SS. It doesn’t take a computer scientist to understand the problem with that.’
Somewhere in the US a man is signing up for Social Security every .6 seconds.
He must be found and stopped!
Nam Vet
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