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All the money the .gov pays out comes from somewhere. The consumer and .gov have come to the point where both are in debt beyond the point that it can be serviced (the mathematical law of exponents isn't wrong). Obama should be $hitting himself right now. He promised to bailout GM and now GMAC and the big treasury fail today gave him the finger. Note the 10 year move today. Bond market dislocation coming soon? Who knows, but things don't look good.

Obama didn't pass a law (like you claim that you could), he just made promises that he can't cash. The people and countries that pay for his promises (and the laws you pass) have reached the “no mas”point. At the end of the day the tab has to be paid or at least the people who pay the tab to service the debt have to believe you are “good for it”. We are reaching the point that the world isn't believing that we are good for it. Clinton received the same bond market beatdown when he tried Hillarycare. So, your theory of passing laws to give away free money is flawed. The market has the final say.

Entitlements will soon be over. Bernanke has followed his thesis on how to avoid a depression and every step has been a fail up to the latest one, quantitative easing. That one has been thoroughly shoved up his a$$.

So, I will stick to my original comment. Sure a bunch of people have paid in expecting to get it back via SS. Reality will soon be here and many people are in for a shocking (and simple) lesson in math. Our government is heading for default if this keeps up or they will simply not have money for their programs anyway and have to cut them severely. If the .gov defaults, no one will get paid. Social security, done. Medicare, done. WIC, done. Buildings with Byrd's name on them, done. Best case scenario at this point (no .gov default) is a 50% cut in all social programs. The leech*%&ks in our society will no longer be able to sit on their couch. Voting for the latest Idol winner and collecting checks for producing carbon dioxide will not cut it when this happens.

Reality is here, it's just not evenly distributed.

You are almost entirely correct. But, the government cannot default on SS. It has no contractual obligations on which to default. The same is true for most welfare programs. Todays beneficiaries are legally owed nothing. The government has made contractual obligations on most of its debts. But then it has only guaranteed to pay its dollar debts in more dollars.

The only crisis that exist here is political. I am guessing that we will trim benefits, raise taxes, and write down our debt via inflation. After inflation (slow default versus instant default) ravages about 50% of our individual wealth, most of which is what other people owe us such us bonds, treasuries, mortgages, CDs, etc. and not real physical assets, then we will go on the next borrow and spend binge.