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The US must reform the entitlement programs. They are unsustainable. SS will go permanently in the red in 2017, i.e., it will be paying out more than it is taking in. Medicare is already in the red. We have been cashing in the HI trust fund (Medicare Part A) IOUs since 2008. By 2014, 45% of all Medicare expenditures will come from the General Fund. By law, the General Fund pays 75% of the costs for Medicare Parts B and D. The revenue collected pays for only 25% of the costs.

I think the panel is a reflection of the lack of political leadership in this country, which cannot make the hard decisions. The politicians don't want to be held responsibile for the inevitable cuts in benefits and an increase in taxes.

A SUMMARY OF THE 2009 ANNUAL REPORTS Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees

I think the panel is a reflection of the lack of political leadership in this country

By the Trustees:

Timothy F. Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, and Managing Trustee
Hilda L. Solis, Secretary of Labor, and Trustee
Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Trustee Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, and Trustee

The obama administration can't seem to keep their facts straight- here's a LIBERAL obama worshipper in her own words refuting what obama is claiming Barbara Kennelly: Well, Lindsey is reporting as people report and say, “Hey, the number went from 2041 down to 2037″. And yeah, that is a drop and are we surprised? No, we have a recession. Are we surprised that tens of thousands people have been laid off and are not paying into the payroll tax. But the Social Security program has been designed specifically to have these economic going up and going down. I was on the committee in 1983 the last time we reformed it. We raised the payroll tax, we raised the age because we knew the baby boomers were coming. So no, Social Security is not going bankrupt. Do we have a problem right now? We have a fiscal problem. We’ve got a deficit problem. We don’t have a Social Security problem because we have that surplus. Think of the good years we had in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008. So much more money was coming in to Social Security from payroll taxes than was going out. That built up the surplus. So that’s the base we have right now. That’s why we can go up to 2037 and say Social Security can still pay its benefits. http://www.ss.com/2009/barbara-kennelly-on-social-security-and-medicare-trustees-report/