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 ...
I don’t have a problem with waging all out war on unaffordable entitlement programs.
The government has taken our social security and medicare ‘contributions’ by brute force. It galls me to no end when it’s called “entitlement” programs — implying we are getting something for nothing. Those bastard politicians and most government workers have their own little shell game going on outside of social security and we’re paying for that scam also. F them all. I want my money.
30 years?
I’ve been paying in for 40 years now and not my choice you know?
I have zero problem just replacing it with personal retirement accounts paid out in monthly tranches, but its not happening...
So basically you’re saying all social programs, no matter how leftist they are like socialized medicine and SS, are fine with you as long as you paid into them.
There’s an awful lot of ‘for me but not for thee’ type conservatives when it comes to collecting entitlements.
***Social Security is going to go cash negative in five years.
So only five more years of stealing the Social Security surplus and spending it.***
Oh come now, don’t you believe our government’s promises? Here is their promise from 1964 right off the Social Security web site.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssa/usa1964-2.html
Self-Supporting
“The program is designed so that contributions plus interest on the investments of the social security trust funds will be sufficient to meet all of the costs of benefits and administration, now and into the indefinite future—without any subsidy from the general funds of the Government. Both the Congress and the Executive Branch, regardless of political party in power, have scrupulously provided in advance for full financing of all liberalizations in the program.”
And here is where the money went...Read and weep.
http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/ProgData/fundFAQ.html#n4
Well, let’s not forget the Department of Energy, too.
Last time I checked, I pay for my energy and it doesn’t come from the DoE, so what good are they?
Bingo! You broke the code!!!
In 1983, our SS taxes were increased to save for just this day,remember—it was called the Reagan Commission.
So, instead of being put away, or invested APART from the general fund, the increased SS taxes were spent , IN ADDITION to the general fund expenditures in the annual budget.
So, the Congress spent the overage for their pet projects and empires,and gave SS a stack of government bonds to be redeemed when the big day came.
How does the government redeemed the bonds that have been “purchased” with the overage SS funds we paid in to the system already?
Oh, that’s—by taxing us AGAIn to pay for the funds to redeem the bonds we already paid for!
So, we Baby Boomers will pay TWICE for the same benefit. And if we don’t, our children will pay for the the benefits we already paid for!
Ain;t governemnt grand?
If the American people ever figure out how they have been looted by their own Congress, there would be a shortage of rope in DC.
We have been looted to pay for SS benefits twice; they crashed the real estate market, lowering the value of our homes; they crashed the stock market—lowering the value of our IRAs and 401Ks.
Now they are lowering the value of our currency by running up unsustainable debt and borrowing at a rate that can nevr be repaid.
Tar and feathers anyone?
Yes, that financial expert must be really on top of his field if the problem of the BBoom retirements is news to him.
Nothing rational or ethical will be done. It is all going to crash;the only question is when.
Leftist has nothing to do with it. I said I want my money back what is leftist about that? Where did you learn to read. Or, did you?
The money’s gone though. What you’re doing is saying ‘younger generation, pay me more than you can afford’.
That is leftist. A conservative should throw in the towel and say it’s gone and enough of this idiocy.
I was thinking more along lines of fashionably painted guillotines ... puce and pus, anyone?
That would way too kind. If they had to abide under the same set of rules as the rest of us maybe they wouldn't have screwed us as bad. Belay that thought. How stupid of me.
Whose frigging fault is that; Debt Commissioners?
“The money gone fools! And guess what? There are not enough people of working age to carry the load.”
If the money was stolen by the Rats then the Government will have to sell some of it’s property to cover the Debit!
I had talked about something almost like this (private investing my half of SS) close to twenty years ago when I was in my twenties and saw this day coming...now the pain is going to be much worse.
“But your money has gone to make other peoples lives better via big government handouts and payoffs to favored constituencies. Just like all good liberal programs.”
I wish we could blame all this on the liberals. But Republicans quickly learned it was easier to get elected by telling people they could have government benefits without paying for them. Cheney even came to believe in magic, saying that “Reagan taught us that deficits don’t matter.” So instead of tightening our belts and putting money away for the future that is now upon us, we gave ourselves tax cuts and ever more government benefits.
The pain doesn’t have to be worse, but it is likely to be. Radical thinking and brutal honesty with a heart of gold can pull it off.
“And, if somebody wants to offer to give me all the money I’ve contributed to SS and all the money my employers have contributed (ultimately it came out of my pocket), I’ll gladly take it and opt out of the system.”
Have you checked your records from Social Security to see how much you and your employers paid in over the years? I checked mine and it turns out that I am promised to be paid much more than what paid in, if I live out my full life expectancy.
Sooo,
A deduction made to the government, matched by your employer, with no personal consent in the matter. A promise is made to return your money when you retire. A similar deduction has to be made to the Wecheatumandhow Brokerage Firm (ceo, Bernie Madoff) using the same criteria.
When you you retire much to your dismay you discover Wecheatumandhow have misused your mandatory deductions...and surprise..there is no return.
Is this entitlement...or theft?
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