Debt at 74% of GDP? Where does he get that figure?
Every figure I see indicates that the USA’s present $16.4 Trillion in direct liabilities (not including Soc. Sec.) is 103% of GDP.
Every time they trot out these articles, the mention Medicare. It’s not Medicare, it’s MEDICAID, WIC, TANF, Section 8 housing, Social Security Disability for “mental disorders” (referred to in urban areas as “crazy money”), Obamaphones, Pell Grants and the like. Not to mention the gigantic, bloated federal and state bureaucracies that “administer” these programs (which I refer to as “employed welfare”).
Don’t pare them back, ELIMINATE them. And while you’re at it, eliminate minimum wage laws. Then you will find plenty of Americans willing to do the jobs “Americans aren’t willing to do.”
Any you’ll have a balanced budget, too.
This solution to our problems is so obvious as to be self-evident. And it has absolutely no chance of ever happening in our current political and social climate.
Mr. Brooks didn’t you endorse the “crease-in-his-pants” Kenyan and his tax and spend policies?
A decade?
At the current spending rate, more like two years.
my mil did not work, did not contribute to SS or medicare except for about 2 yrs...
my fil has been retired for nearly 30 yrs....
both have had multiple big surgeries, spent time in a nursing home, take multiple meds and have had countless mri's and ct's for aches and pains....throw in many rounds of physyical therapy....
seeing as SS was once just a pittance, the amt they have "paid" in is miniscule and almost sacriligeous to what my husband and I have paid it, and we're still working....
oh, and I have "disabled" sil/bil with bil on the take for about 20 yrs now....
the takers have really stolen the golden goose....
not that I want anyone to die, but I don't run to the dr for every little pain, and I don't take multiple pain meds for my bad back and knees nor feel I need to get on abx for every sniffle....but this is exactly what my inlaws do....because they're not paying....
I’ll bet Brooks is not discounting the cash flow in and out for inflation.
Ultimately, we should blame the American voters.
Really? We just had a year of listening to con man telling the voters they have a right to all trhis largesse from DC.
He told them they could have whatever they wanted if the rich would just pay a little more.
It was the rag this clown works for that let the grifter get away with the lies
It is the “american voter” who pays nothing in taxes that is willing to bankrupt the producers children.
I can foresee a future where our grandchildren are lining up old people against the wall and shooting them.