Let's take Medicaid/Medicare/SS The problem is many baby boomers will soon retire and become a drain on economic resources while the remainder of the population has to support it. Very similar to the legacy auto companies which have 1 worker for every 4 retirees. There are some really scary numbers about how much money it will take today to fulfill future obligations. Let's just say that $1 trillion dollars will be needed today in order to gain interest and pay for all future obligations. So my question to ETers is... Which of the below would solve the problem (A) Raise taxes, cut spending, and deposit $1T into the trust-fund (B) Return to the "pay-as-you-go" method where taxes collected equal outlays for that year (C) The Federal Reserve prints one (1) note in the domination of $1 trillion dollars and gives it to the trust fund; or 50 billion twenties. (D) Your own method and rational behind it. Part two of question, let's say the next president picks option "A". The trust-fund also earns a high interest rate. Is the crisis averted?
Means test Up the retirement/qualification age Privatization of SS Higher taxes Spending cuts in other areas It will require all of these most likely in order to fix the future debt obligation problem.
We don't need to raise taxes folks, we need to trim the massive bulging fatty tumor of excess government. Fire about 70% of government, the efficiency in the end would amaze you. Everything the government buys must go through a public bid that is viewable online, thus eliminating $100 toilet seats. The list can go on and on with the same theme, cutting the excess off the gov.
Check this shit out... http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=18746 Just reducing the pay to the private sector par is a $12 per hour savings. $12*40hours=$480*52weeks=$24,960*15,788,784workers=$394,088,048,640 per year. There is a start.
Anyway... my thoughts on the matter... It's going to be nearly impossible to deliver all these promises, regardless of the money, simply because the economic resources required would be too great. Example There are current 2.5 million nurses in the land. Assume new nurses replaced the ones that retire. And let's say current Medicard/Medicaid benefits/regulations would require 5 million nurses to take care of the baby boomers and remainder of the population. The only practical option would be to change the benefits/regulations to allow the 2.5 million nurses to care for the remainder. As there is no way a gap that large is going to be filled, regardless of the amount of money thrown at it. This is just for nurses, so repeat for services such as Doctors, Surgeons, Pharmacists. On the other hand, Goods required to support the baby boomers such as medical supplies and drugs can be solved with money, but it will be very costly. This non-sense these days about x trillion is needed to save SS/Medicare/Medicaid assumes that kind of money will be able to hire enough medical professionals and provide enough resources to solve the problem. In reality the only way this will work is by cuts to the current program and less benefits. Be it by means test, emergency-care only, or other creative ideas the politcans will think of when the time comes. SS is the same story, even if the money existed to pay all retirees. The fact that they'll be out of the workforce, but still using economic resources is going to put a strain on the rest of the population. Inflation will devalue the purchasing power of everyone money to a point where demand equals supply.