A $53 trillion problem
The nation’s failure to address runaway spending on Medicare and Social Security is threatening our standard of living.
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
Imagine taking out a mortgage for a whopping $455,000 but getting no house in exchange. Just a monthly payment.
Who would do such a thing? The federal government would -- to you.
Federal commitments -- mostly for Medicare and Social Security -- totaled $53 trillion as of Sept. 30, or $455,000 for every U.S. household, and those commitments will grow rapidly over the next few years as more baby boomers retire and begin to draw benefits.
In 20 years, all of the government’s revenues will be needed just to pay for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the national debt. Unchecked, government profligacy will put more pressure on the slumping dollar, could lead to sharply higher interest rates and could result in higher prices for oil and food. As our debt grows -- half of it now is held by foreign creditors such as China -- the nation’s fiscal defenses are weakened.
John Schmid has more:
"Congress does not require itself to tell you what the long-term picture is," said Stuart Butler of the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Butler and three other think tank analysts from across the ideological spectrum appeared in Milwaukee on Monday on the latest leg of their Fiscal Wake-Up Tour, addressing a crowd of over 200 business leaders and students. Their message: America is accumulating a dangerous level of national debt with little debate by its elected leaders on its consequences.
The tour started more than two years ago and has visited 40 cities. The stop in Milwaukee was meant to bring the message to a key battleground state in the 2008 presidential election.
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An uninformed populace makes it easy to blame scapegoats and create distractions, with candidates saying they’ll eliminate budget waste and make the problem go away, Butler said. All concur that the U.S. mathematically cannot grow its way out of difficult budget choices.
Both John McCain and Barack Obama are well aware of the numbers even if neither addresses the underlying problems, the speakers agreed.
Posted by Jim Zellmer at July 1, 2008 5:11 PM
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