Posted on 05/13/2009 11:05:27 AM PDT by Conservative Coulter Fan
Entitlements, fueled by demographic changes and rising heath care costs, will cause federal spending to explode. Medicaid spending will more than double, increasing from 1.5 percent of GDP in 2005 to 3.1 percent in 2050. Medicare spending will more than triple, increasing from 2.7 percent of GDP in 2005 to 8.9 percent in 2050.
As the baby boomers age, the nation's demographic makeup will change greatly. Currently, there are approximately 3.3 workers for every Social Security beneficiary, while in 1945 the ratio was approximately 42 workers per retiree. This declining ratio means that fewer and fewer workers will be left to support more and more beneficiaries.
Under current law, the costs of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will rise substantially. If this spending were funded solely through federal income tax increases, tax rates would more than double, even for the lowest tax bracket.
If the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire and the AMT is not fixed, taxes will soon grow to unprecedented levels. Even this massive increase in federal revenue will not solve the spending imbalance driven by Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
Historically, tax revenues have hovered around 18.4 percent of GDP. If taxes are kept at these levels, spending from the three major entitlements, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, will push spending levels to unsustainable heights, crowding out all other programs by 2052.
Spending on the three major entitlements, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, will more than double in the next 40 years. Without major reforms, entitlement spending will consume all federal tax revenues by 2052.
Recently, massive federal government spending on programs such as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the 2009 economic stimulus bill, and the bailout of AIG has dazzled the nation with their enormous price tags. However, the cost of the unfunded obligations for Social Security and Medicare are more than 61 times the cost of TARP alone.
Yep, maybe we can get Ross Perot out again to break out charts on the deficit. As much as people ride Perot, he did help pave the way for Budget deficit reduction.
In 2008, publicly held debt as a percentage of the economy (GDP) was 40.8 percent, nearly five points below the historical average. Under President Obama's budget, this figure would more than double to 82.4 percent by 2019, and interest payments alone on this debt would be $100 billion more than Obama projects to spend on the entire Department of Defense.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projects that publicly held debt will reach 56.1 percent of GDP under current law. If President Obama's budget is implemented, CBO projects debt to reach 82.4 percent of GDP.
Under current law, the budget deficit is projected to grow to 24.5 percent of GDP by 2082, even if the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are allowed to expire and the AMT is not fixed. This will be driven by entitlement spending for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, with deficits well above the 30-year historical average of 2.5 percent. Deficits of this size have never been seen in the U.S. and illustrate the need to reform these programs.
What budget deficit reduction? The only attaempt was the Republican Congress did balance the budget against the efforts of Bill Clinton (who later tried to steal credit), but those days are far gone...now we’re jumping from hundreds of billions to trillions in deficits every year.
How is it possible that we are not Bankrupt already?
We are witnessing a massive trainwreck and are absolutely powerless to stop it.
Powerless.
Conservatives can’t outspend and out promise liberals ...they simply aren’t stupid or irresponsible enough.
No business or country can survive with this much overhead. China understand it and will out produce us if they have not already and they are branching out. They plan to open car manufacturing in Bulgaria now.
There will be only ashes left after this year. Ms. Carrie Prejean was wrong last night on Hannity ...this WAS the greatest country on earth. It is now gasping for survival and the patient is terminal. We shall now let the scavengers over-run and take what is left while the overlords in the government preside from on high and away from the halocost.
Insanity, Complete INSANITY!
We need to get Ross Perot out of retirement and out there talking again 24/7 about Deficits...
I don’t believe we are powerless...I believe we are unwilling to advocate and pursue the end of the Welfare State. We are bankrupt...we’re spending money we don’t have and printing money that inflates the money we already have...perhaps we should have focused on on our country’s monetary policy and return to a gold standard, which would automatically make the dollar the most valuable and stable currency in the world.
I am sorry and wish I were wrong but it is you who are starry eyed. We are willing to end the Welfare State but we are now outnumbered and out promised. The Welfare State has spoken and their benefactors are setting things up to make more of the Welfare State.
The only reason we continue (we conservatives and workers) to work is that we will not accept defeat and just quit trying to achieve our dreams. The Welfare State are counting on us to continue to strive against decreasing odds we will ever succeed.
I see more and more of my business going for taxes, fees and regulations that the rest of the world we compete with DO NOT PAY. Raising prices is not possible, foreign competitors make money without raising prices. In fact, foreign competitors are pushign prices down. The United States have simply created a non-competitive environment for busines and personal prosperity.
This is where I strongly disagree with you...not even someone like Sean Hannity would come outright and say that we need to end the Welfare State...the Republican Party as a whole wouldn’t advocate it...and even the Heritage Foundation that supplied such graphs are content to reform entitlements. No one I’ve seen publicly articulates ending the Welfare State...I’ve never seen a forcful case presented to the public recently. Anyhow, I don’t believe the Welfare State will end until the country can no longer borrown tax n spend.
Social Security and Medicare are NOT entitlements! We pay and our employers match for both in thefts from our paychecks. When you retire, you still pay for both. SS is considered taxable income and retirees pay into Medicare fund.
Both SS and Medicare are liabilties owed to the retirees. I say go ahead and stop paying and their won’t any place in this universe for you to hide. Osama bin Laden would turn them in!
Wrong, Socialist INsecurity is a transgenerational ponzi scheme...there is no trust fund...the government confiscates money from you to redistribute it to another group of people....with only the promise that it will rob future generations to pay you...that’s if you live long enough while alternatively you could just as easily take care of your retirement.
The fact of the matter is that, perceived or not, believe that it is a retirement SUPPLEMENT. I agree that it is an unconstitutional and illegal system of wealth redistribution. That said, you are NOT going to get away with eliminating SS & Medicare to a whole generation!
Imagine the “welcome home” that any politician will get if it is eliminated. He, his property and his family would be forfeit. It would be 1789, 1861 and 1917 all rolled into one mess.
I think we are just going to have to go bankrupt and end the capacity to tax and spend and pay the Welfare State.
Nobody that wants to win an election can either profess to desire ending the Welfare State nor end it and hope to win again so long as the opposition won’t join them. The voting power of the Welfare State(WS) outnumbers those of us who the power brokers steal from (TAX) to pay the WS.
No, I must continue to disagree with you ...when the founders only provided the vote to “landed individuals” they knew what they were doing. They were preventing the end of the Republic that must arrive when the masses figure out that they can vote themselves appropriations from the treasury (stealing through taxation from those who actually produce something)
And just another collateral tidbit... Average Federal Employee compensation $75,000/yr ...Average US Household compensation $52,000 ...just great.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009 Michael D. Tanner, senior fellowmtanner@cato.org: The Social Security Trustees report released today shows that the program's financial crisis is growing worse while Congress has continued to duck the issue. Moreover, critics of personal accounts for Social Security have pointed to the decline in the stock market over the last few years as an argument against allowing younger workers to privately invest a portion of their Social Security taxes. Yet as the new Trustee's Report shows, the same poor economy that hurts the stock market, hurts Social Security's ability to pay its benefits. In the end, there are only three possible solutions to Social Security's problems. Taxes could be raised (and the Social Security payroll tax would have to be nearly doubled to keep the program afloat). Benefits could be cut. Or younger workers could be allowed to invest privately. We can have an honest debate about which of those options is the best choice. But, as the Trustee's Report makes clear, we cannot afford to avoid that debate.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.