GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR (ready to vomit?)

NEWSWEEK
Them Go Bankrupt, Soon
Solving Social Security and Medicare.


When the trustees of Social Security and Medicare recently reported on the economic outlook for these programs, the news coverage was universally glum. The recession had made everything worse. Social Security, Medicare face insolvency sooner, headlined The Wall Street Journal. Actually, these reports were good news. Better would have been Social Security, Medicare risk bankruptcy in 2010.

It's increasingly obvious that Congress and the president (regardless of which party is in power) will deal with the political stink bomb of an aging society only if forced. And the most plausible means of compulsion would be for Social Security and Medicare to go bankrupt: trust funds run dry; promised benefits exceed dedicated payroll taxes. The sooner this happens, the better.

That the programs will ultimately go bankrupt is clear from the trustees' reports. On pages 201 and 202 of the Medicare report, you will find the conclusive arithmetic: over the next 75 years, Social Security and Medicare will cost an estimated $103.2 trillion, while dedicated taxes and premiums will total only $57.4 trillion. The gap is $45.8 trillion. (All figures are expressed in "present value," a fancy term for "today's dollars.")

The Medicare actuaries then dryly note what would happen once the trust funds for Social Security and Medicare's hospital insurance program are depleted: "No provision exists under current law to address the projected and financial imbalances. Once assets are exhausted, expenditures cannot be made except to the extent covered by ongoing tax receipts." Translation: benefits would fall. Social Security checks would shrink; some Medicare bills wouldn't be paid in full—and the shortfalls would progressively worsen. Retirees would scream. Hospitals might shut. No president or Congress would abide the outcry; even the threat of imminent bankruptcy would rouse them to action. But restoring the programs' solvency would confront Congress and the White House with fundamental questions.

In 1940, life expectancy at birth in the U.S. was 61.4 years for men, 65.7 for women; by 2008, the comparable figures were 75.4 and 80. So, as health and longevity improve, when should people stop working and be entitled (from which comes the noun "entitlement") to receive government retirement subsidies? Stripped of popular euphemisms ("social insurance," "entitlements"), that's what Social Security and Medicare mainly are. If that's so, how much should wealthier retirees be subsidized?

Or: how much should obligations to the old displace other national needs—for, say, defense, education, research, housing, transportation or adequate family incomes? In 1990, Medicare and Social Security represented 28 percent of federal spending; in 2019, their share will be almost 40 percent, projects the Obama administration. As this spending grows, pressures to raise taxes, increase budget deficits or cut other programs intensify. What's the right balance between the past and the future?

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/199167

They've been doing it since after they abandoned progressive politics and embraced Reagan.

Than they'll lecture their kids how great they were in the 60s because of classic rock

Yawn.

Just think ...you won't have to look after your parents when they get old ...just turn them out into the streets. Maybe we should have large camps for people over 35 and feed them LSD. pffft

but they are one of the worst generations in American History.

Now would be a good time.

With little regard to the future, they've been doing it since 1980. Why stop now.

and totally disabled Vietnam Veteran let me offer a big FUCK YOU for Memorial Day.

"they've been doing it since 1980" ...are you trying to say that the Reagan lovers are all boomers?

of that generation that put up the good fight.

My mother volunteered for McGovern in 1972. She voted for Carter in 1976. Than this guy Reagan came along and she was a Republican till Barack Obama.

In 1993 my mother would hear nothing of national health care. Bought the Harry and Louise ads hook line and sinker. Now because she'd like to retire at 62 instead of at 65 she is suddenly thinks its a good idea because I sneakily told her to go ahead and quote private insurance rates for those 3 years.

I love my mother. However, her and her friends are the perfect example of the I got mine in a good portion of that generation.


There are some very good baby boomers. Than you have baby boomers who suffer what I call the Paul McCartney syndrome. As a whole I think that a good portion of that generation bought into it.

For all I know I might be looking back at my generation in 30 years and saying, God most of you were assholes.

that your mother went nuts and voted for an idiot.

Not all of us were that fucking lame.

However, I grew up with way to many "converted" republicans from that generation. I'd hear their stories on how liberal they were and how "young and foolish" they were.

My generation and the generation coming up behind us, appears to be pretty liberal right now. Time will only tell if they stay that way or if they get the I got mine syndrome.

Yep... it's my fault because I embraced Reagan. Yawn. That's what I did alright ...

As I recall, I am one of the asswipes that protested the Vietnam war and all without wearing a single shred of tie dye.

My husband must be a dirtbag too after doing the same as me... except for the many years of service to the USA while voting Democratic.

And there was a lot of great music but my kids make up their own minds about what to listen too.

Jeeezuz.... paint everything with an industrial size brush why don't cha.

I think it's more like Gen-X is fucking us over... the whole lot of them. :eyes:

see mine.

above....

for someone who wrote a thought provoking op about how Democrats will lose it all if they don't make some changes, your sweeping, broad brush strokes here make you look myopic.

:shrug:

4 years ago my mother was at a Cheney rally, this year she's begging me to get her the special tickets for the Obama rallies.

I'm judging my parents and their friends for being political flakes. Not all of you guys are. The remarkable thing about it is, they are both pretty intelligent people.

http://www.nwsub.com/newsweek/public/contact.asp
1-800-631-1040

251 W 57th St
New York, 10019-1802
www.newsweek.com
212.445.4000


Please quit publishing irrelevant tripe on "life expectancy at birth." The big improvements in this statistic are due almost entirely to the dramatic reduction of infant mortality, which makes not the slightest bit of difference to the solvency of Social Security. If you die before you reach age 2, you are irrelevant, since you will never contribute to it nor collect from it.

The meaninful numbers here are life expectancies for those who have already attained the age of 65. There have been increases since 1940, but not very scary ones.

http://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html
Further life expectancy of 65 year old men in 1940-- 12.7
Further life expectancy of 65 year old men in 1990-- 15.3
Further life expectancy of 65 year old women in 1940-- 14.7
Further life expectancy of 65 year old women in 1940-- 19.6

So men have gained about 2 years and women about 5. That can be readily handled by raising the income level subject to FICA, and that would more than justify the continued receipt of benefits by people with higher incomes.

Samuelson's presumed alternatives for old people are for them to either rely on investing in financial bubbles or drop dead. Lots of luck with that politically.

Are these idiots nuts? Seventy-five years ago was 1934. Nobody, and I do mean nobody, knows what it's going to be like in 2084. Any program that is OK until 2084 has awesome funding. Who that is alive now will still be alive in 2084? Damn few baby-boomers, I can tell you that.