Longer life spans and rising costs per federal health care enrollee
will exacerbate the huge burden that will be placed on
future generations unless entitlement programs are
reformed. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid costs
are set to rise so quickly that major budget cuts will be
needed across the entire government to avert a massive tax
hike on tomorrow’s workers.
----------------------------------------
-Without reforms, combined spending on Social
Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will rise from 8.4
percent of gross domestic product this year to 15.6 percent
by 2040, according to Congressional Budget Office
projections.

-the budget will grow from 19.9 percent of GDP in 2003 to
27.1 percent by 2040—a 36 percent expansion in the
government's command over the U.S. economy.

Just to put this into context, the Cubans spend 26%, the Chinese around 13%, meaning the US would become instantly the world's largest socialist state. Although by 2040 I would imagine Japan would be in that position.

-If such spending increases were thrust onto taxpayers
today, the result would be a huge $778 billion annual tax increase.

-Thus, without reforms, families in 2040
will face a tax increase more than seven times larger than
the size of Bush’s tax rate cuts.

-A July 2002 CBO projection showed that federal
spending would grow to 23.8 percent of GDP by 2040.


http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-0306-15.pdf

Now for those of you who support the Bush tax cuts, how would feel by paying about $700 billion more in tax per annum? The timing of the tax cuts could not have been worse, alas the US can save itself by not making these tax cuts permanent. Doubling the tax burden and cutting social spending in half would make the US go into surplus by 2040. We both know that's not going to happen.

Dump Social Security.

You know as well as I do that is not going to happen. The geriatric voting block is already too powerful, and any party that cuts social security has put itself into the grave. The solution is to cut the Soviet-esqe military expenditure (literally they are the same size), and to decrease the tax cuts.

So basicly, keep a flawed system that no longer works and is going to be bankrupt at the expense of national security?
Along with Medicare??
So basicly, you propose we become a socialist country with a 50% tax rate.
I'll pass on that.
The Military is what, 14% of the budget? Social Services 40%+ !!! Maybe we should stop spending Billions of dollars to keep grandma alive another month.
Besides, the Military budget tends to stay at a fixed rate while Medicare and Social Security are starting to spiral out of control. There is no way the working population can give old farts money every month and pay for their medical care. Medicare is a FRAUD.
It is economicly impossible to support them.
That is why Greenspan and everyone other non-partisan individual will tell you SS and Medicare will NOT work.
We need a change.
Maybe youre solution could be a temporary fix?? Boost taxes up the Ying-Yang and all the young voters will get their heads straight and they'll get rid of SS and Medicare....not a bad idea.

the spending on healthcare will only increase, as the babyboomers are getting older and need more care

privatizing the care for them would free up medicare for young people with real diseases and injuries, as opposed to spending it on those grandmas crazy drinker mentioned

So basicly, keep a flawed system that no longer works and is going to be bankrupt at the expense of national security?

The system worked, I don't know what you are necessarily talking about. The system had surpluses for as long as the eye could see with Clintonian levels of tax and spending. The budget deficit did not start until the US tax cuts to ridiculous levels, and boomed the Military budget into the stratosphere. The military consumes up to 17% of the budget, and it is increasing faster then any other program in the US. Actually social programs growth is actually less then inflation. The military budget is expected to balloon to $1 trillion by 2010, sucking up much more then 17%. National security is the budget.

So basicly, you propose we become a socialist country with a 50% tax rate.

You are numerically more socialist then China so don't fool yourself.

Social Services 40%+ !!! Maybe we should stop spending Billions of dollars to keep grandma alive another month.

So when you are that age you would like to left to the dogs? How easy it is to say such idiotic things when we aren't affected.

Besides, the Military budget tends to stay at a fixed rate while Medicare and Social Security are starting to spiral out of control.

:bugeye: Wow, I am liking the rhetoric’s.

It is economicly impossible to support them.

It is democratically impossible not to. You decide...

That is why Greenspan and everyone other non-partisan individual will tell you SS and Medicare will NOT work.

Nor will the tax cuts, the tax cuts need to have the budget trimmed in tandem to keep the US on a level footing. By the looks of it by 2040 you will be at the whim of Beijing, and Tokyo.

Maybe youre solution could be a temporary fix?? Boost taxes up the Ying-Yang and all the young voters will get their heads straight and they'll get rid of SS and Medicare....not a bad idea.

There are more older voters, thus making it irrelevant what we the younger generation think. The demographic shift is occurring.

crazy151drinker,


Dump Social Security.

[color=red][b]HOw about the Congress, Senate and Executive Branch just pay back the billinons (if not trillions) they have stolen from the system since its enception. The SSSystem was put in jplace with the jpromise of it not be used for anything but to draw interest as an investment for your retirement.

As soon as it had surplus they began to "Brorrow" from it and have drained your investments dry. It is simply theft pure and simple and they should be held accoutable.

Stop claiming SS is bankrupt and simply tell the truth, both the Dem's and Rep's have stolen your money (Yes, literally robbed the bank where your money was taken from you with or without your will and has been syphoned off - STOLEN).

HAs anybody taken the time to calculate how much money would be in the system if the Fed's repaid the debt with interest that they have "Borrowed" from SSI?

Yes there has been stealing but the grand larceny is being staged now.
There are enough funds in SS to last 25 years but and its a big but...
plans to make it the private slush fund for Wall st. will siphon it all to the largest investors.

Health care costs increased 35% between 1998-2002! With all the baby boomers getting old+ the life expectancy increasing yearly it is impossible to pay for it! Medicare is BUST. When SS was implemented hardly anyone lived long enough to make a dent in it. It was a political deal and was not designed to support people for 30+ years. It doesnt work! The amount of money you take out is more than the amount you put it!! How can that be economicly feasable??

And as far as us being a socialistic state:
1) You are talking pure dollars vs GDP. Being that our health care costs are a little bit higher than some back woods farmers in China your stats are mis-leading
2) Policy not $$$ is what makes a country socialist.

We also spend more money than Sweeden on healthcare, does that make us more socialist than Sweeden where the tax burden is 50%?? HARDLY

Solution= kill the baby boomers 2 years after they retire.

Who cares about 2040? I reckon we're due at least a plague, 3 recessions one of them a huge depression, loss of oil reserves, quite a few messy wars before then. Worrying about it now is pointless. Maybe fraggle rockers predictions for the utility of nanotech will come true and GDP will double in the next 15 years, in which case there wont be anything to worry about. Or maybe not, come back to me in 10 years time and we'll see.

"We also spend more money than Sweeden on healthcare, does that make us more socialist than Sweeden where the tax burden is 50%"

Just less efficient.

gutherie i totally agree with you but we spend money on viagara, prozac, & other attribute enhancers or psychiatric drugs that are serving as substitutes to hallucinogens americans are druggies and thats a fact. That doesn't mean we aren't effiecent it just means we spend more on other things that aren't exactly necessary or improve our health

also the more you tax the people that are working the more likely you are to force them to vote with their feet ergo leave and go someplace else.
True the demographic shift is occuring but the more you put on the backs of the young and the working the more likely you are to make them go someplace that doesn't or create and use loopholes to escape being overtaxed.

Health care costs increased 35% between 1998-2002!With all the baby boomers getting old+ the life expectancy increasing yearly it is impossible to pay for it! Medicare is BUST.

Well I have problems with this explanation, Canada you know us here to the North. Yes we have a budget surplus, and we have a universal healthcare system. We in Canada have not only a lower population, but we have less ppl to care for our seniors then you do. The US has a growing population Canada does not, there is a correlation. You are in the budgetary mess yes partially due to the SS system, but the vast majority of the growth in gov't expenditures is the military industrial complex. Spending $466 billion in '04 on the military is ok if you cut spending somewhere else, which is not happening. Secondly if you cut taxes in a gov't whose expenditures are growing at 15%, you are setting yourselves up for those later tax increases in the future. The GAO is correct with current trends the US economy would collapse.

When SS was implemented hardly anyone lived long enough to make a dent in it. It was a political deal and was not designed to support people for 30+ years. It doesnt work! The amount of money you take out is more than the amount you put it!! How can that be economicly feasable??

Ask Bush he is doing that with your budget! I agree with you totally there has to be reform, but in a democracy where most of the votes are concentrated on the older population who are dependant on SS, or are just going to be dependant, parties would be committing political suicide.

1) You are talking pure dollars vs GDP. Being that our health care costs are a little bit higher than some back woods farmers in China your stats are mis-leading

That doesn't matter, the countries are being compared as if they were all 100%, and 19% of the economy in the US is going to pay for things. The US has increased her consumption of the GDP from 14% in 2000 to 19% in 2004 one of the largest increases ever. Socialism is not only Marxist. I can bring out the Oxford if you so need...

2) Policy not $$$ is what makes a country socialist.

What do you think SS is? Medicare? Socialist!

We also spend more money than Sweeden on healthcare, does that make us more socialist than Sweeden where the tax burden is 50%?? HARDLY

Gross numbers mean absolutely nothing, what is the per capita spending in Sweden compared to the US, and consumption of the GDP? I'll tell you:

Public expenditure on health(as % of GDP)2000

Sweden: 6.5
United States: 5.8


So really Sweden spends more then the US... don’t let the numbers fool you.

bear in mind all those attribute enhancers that healthy people purchase such as gnc vitamins , carrotine for body builders , viagara , cialis (does same as viagara) + behavioral stimulats for made up disorders in the psychiatric industry.

All these count into it and sweedes arent as insecure about the size of their dick,ego,or mussle mass. We on the other hand consume them like crazy.

Eluminate

Does the US gov't actually pay for things like Viagara? Or do Americans on their own? Because if so... Americans should be in fighting against it.

"sweedes arent as insecure about the size of their dick,ego,or mussle mass"

But they are insecure in other areas like socialization! Their children are raised by daycare people and they are told to spy on the parents so that any minor infraction can be used to take away the children. One of the most unhappy group of people on the planet!

Our system is broken and we have yesterday's think tanks for todays problems. Until we get rid of these deadwoods....nothing will get fixed.

if being obesee is considered a disability and a stomach staple operation is an expense provided for by the gov't i m sure viagara can be considered a medicene fore people with low blood pressure. I dont think I'm too far off here kinda. Remember being obese is now a recognized disability and everything. And doctors are like accountants these days they oversubscribe medicines because they are corrupt and they can write in OCD (obsesive compulsive disorder). I think the real number of (ocd kids like 1/10th of the amount of medicine they are writing out. (and yes for most of them the gov't foots the bill) (the more you give the more corrupt and more abused the system gets.)
And lets not forget all those mental medicines either prozac, ludes, & the like for all those emotianally unstable people. Oh yes and I remember seeng a poll on either msnbc, cnn, or fox which country consumes the most tranqualizers turns out its France. All those frenchies are hopped up on something, cause its free......

And yes I did see that poll not exagurating.
Pretty sure viagara was developed as medicene for low blood pressure (about 75% sure)
When I became depressed in high school and began to do poorly (grade wise) they called up my parrents we came sat with a guidence counselor and she suggested i go see a psychiatrist (for which the school/gov't would foot the bill maybe they could write out some meds that would help me I am dead serious. Thats just my experience.)

Birdflu to the rescue!

"Here he comes to save the day..." but instead of Mighty Mouse, it's Sick Chicken. Just as the withered oldsters are about to destroy the developed socialist economies of the western world (and the clumsy capitalist ones), here's comes our hero in the form of H5N1 to cull the herd.

And as an added benefit, it should kill off some of the non-Baby Boomer cretinous young that surely need their numbers reduced as well. If we're lucky we'll be left with a world not only bereft of the crotchedy old "Greatest Generation" whose time has come (and passed) but also the annoying under-25ers as well. "Indigo children" my pink tookus.

What a delightful world it will be, with a population of nothing but those aged 30-60. No diapers at all, young or old! And if we have any damn sense, we'll not be so bothered to repopulate the world as quickly again.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-0306-15.pdf

Now for those of you who support the Bush tax cuts, how would feel by paying about $700 billion more in tax per annum? The timing of the tax cuts could not have been worse, alas the US can save itself by not making these tax cuts permanent. Doubling the tax burden and cutting social spending in half would make the US go into surplus by 2040. We both know that's not going to happen.

Once the baby boomers die off, I'd say we might have a shot at making the right choices.

""""Social Services 40%+ !!! Maybe we should stop spending Billions of dollars to keep grandma alive another month.""""""

Maybe you should stop spending hundreds of billions of dollars on your bullshit war in Iraq - At the moment its estimated as costing $221 Billion USD.
then you could do whatever you like with grandma.

And stop building under water or stop spending $200 Billion cleaning up New Orleans - give the money to the folks to relocate. The place will be under water again next year.

Once the baby boomers die off, I'd say we might have a shot at making the right choices.

There is a catch though...those tacit knowledge in Nation Building in Japan and Germany died off with the dad's of the baby boomers. When the mini-ice age comes, the technology knowledge will die off with the baby boomers....then the right choices will end up back to square one....14th century life style....the beginning of the mini-ice age :D

Some interesting facts...It's funny how people are so mislead. Thinking that the poor amoung us are the problem. Well, if you own the media, you can pretty much make people think whatever you want.

Those who advacate killing off granny, start at your own house - if I see you coming toward mine, you'll be taking my grannys place!!!

"The $150 billion for corporate subsidies (http://www.corporations.org/welfare/) and tax benefits eclipses the annual budget deficit of $130 billion. It's more than the $145 billion paid out annually for the core programs of the social welfare state: Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), student aid, housing, food and nutrition, and all direct public assistance (excluding Social Security and medical care)."
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"After World War II, the nation's tax bill was roughly split between corporations and individuals. But after years of changes in the federal tax code and international economy, the corporate share of taxes has declined to a fourth the amount individuals pay, according to the US Office of Management and Budget." --Boston Globe series on Corporate Welfare

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"If you cut 26 percent of the welfare now given to the rich you have instantly balanced the budget."

"If you cut out weathfare, you could pay off the national debt in 11 years."

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The Archer Daniels Midland Corporation (http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa241es.html) (ADM) has been the most prominent recipient of corporate welfare in recent U.S. history. ADM and its chairman Dwayne Andreas have lavishly fertilized both political parties with millions of dollars in handouts and in return have reaped billion-dollar windfalls from taxpayers and consumers. Thanks to federal protection of the domestic sugar industry, ethanol subsidies, subsidized grain exports, and various other programs, ADM has cost the American economy billions of dollars since 1980 and has indirectly cost Americans tens of billions of dollars in higher prices and higher taxes over that same period. At least 43 percent of ADM's annual profits are from products heavily subsidized or protected by the American government. Moreover, every $1 of profits earned by ADM's corn sweetener operation costs consumers $10, and every $1 of profits earned by its ethanol operation costs taxpayers $30.
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