Uncle Sam must rein in retirement benefits or we’re headed for economic disaster

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
Over the next 30 years, according to data from the Congressional Budget Office, Medicare will run a $40 trillion cash deficit, Social Security will run a $19 trillion cash deficit and the interest on the resulting program debt will be $23 trillion. (To inflation-adjust these figures, trim by one-third.)

CBO projects that, over the next 30 years, the national debt will grow from $20 trillion to $92 trillion ($52 trillion after inflation) — or much higher if interest rates return to historically typical levels.

Politicians brush aside the issue by promising easy fixes. Tax the rich? Doubling the 35 and 37 percent tax brackets to 70 and 74 percent would close just one-fifth of the long-term Social Security and Medicare shortfall. Even seizing all annual income earned over $500,000 would not come close. Popular proposals to more aggressively tax banks, investors, hedge-fund managers and oil and gas companies are a cumulative rounding error compared with these deficits.

On the spending side, slashing the defense budget to European levels would close just one-seventh of the gap. Cutting waste and foreign aid can close only a small percentage of it.

In reality, balancing the long-term budget without reforming Social Security and Medicare (and fast-growing Medicaid) would require either nearly doubling income-tax rates across the board or eliminating nearly every remaining federal function.


Uncle Sam must rein in retirement benefits or we’re headed for economic disaster
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
A lot of people receiving SS and Med aren't retirees and many of them have never paid into the system.

Anyway, the whole thing is a pyramid scheme that is bound to collapse at some point, especially since modern medicine makes us live longer and we like to warehouse our elderly in nursing homes and give them artificial body parts to keep them going instead of letting them die peacefully.

Socialism is a failure, ya'll. It doesn't work. It's never worked. Like, ever. The only reason the politicians keep pushing for it is because they're fascists who want everyone to be under government control, and half the voting population is dumb enough to buy the blather.
 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
Anyway, the whole thing is a pyramid scheme that is bound to collapse at some point, especially since modern medicine makes us live longer and we like to warehouse our elderly in nursing homes ....

'modern medicine' is a curse ...
that heart attack that would have killed Uncle Jack in the 1960s, when he was still cognizant.
now keeps him alive to waste away waiting to die in a nursing home ... a hollow shell of his former self

Taking my wife to see her mother when she was still alive ...
the most disturbing thing I have seen is old folks sitting around in the 'day room' staring blankly, drooling, slumped over, all but dead, but still breathing .....

:shocking:
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
the most disturbing thing I have seen is old folks sitting around in the 'day room' staring blankly, drooling, slumped over, all but dead, but still breathing .....

It's awful and pains me that we treat our elderly that way. If it were a dog you'd have it put down. Grandma? Eh, screw her, she can sit in her own feces and drool.
 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
It's awful and pains me that we treat our elderly that way. If it were a dog you'd have it put down. Grandma? Eh, screw her, she can sit in her own feces and drool.

Well I'm not for euthanasia of Humans ....
people should be allowed to expire without 'extreme' life saving measures ...
my wife had a DNR on her mom ...

but yeah people treat their family pet better than mom or dad in a nursing home ...
too scared to 'let' momma pass, instead keeping the hollow shell breathing just to say she is alive
 
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