Here’s a sobering thought for all of you Baby-Boomers to consider; the government trust fund responsible for paying Social Security benefits will begin paying out more than it collects in 2016, and will be totally depleted by 2037. In addition, the trust fund responsible for paying Medicare is in even worse shape, with funds projected to be depleted by 2017. This disturbing news comes at a time when the Obama Administration is grappling with various proposals on how to fulfill its campaign promise of providing universal health care for all Americans.
The President has made it known his priorities are to work with Congress to find ways to control the runaway growth in public and private health care expenditures, and to pass legislation this year that would provide health care coverage to 50 million uninsured Americans. Given the precarious financial conditions of both the Medicare fund and the Social Security fund, adding yet another huge government entitlement program is almost sure to bring about vociferous protest among Republicans.
It is extremely unlikely that the long term solutions to these problems will be tackled any time soon due to the negative political ramifications of significant increases in taxes that will be required. Without increasing taxes, the only options would be to cut back on benefits and/or raise the retirement age. In light of this disturbing news, the Obama Administration announced Monday that the revised Federal deficit forecast for this year is $1.8 trillion, with deficits remaining above $500 billion a year for the next ten years.
The U.S. has clearly entered a new and challenging era in its 233 year history. The decisions made and the direction set by the Obama Administration will have major ramifications for many years to come. If the “new Age of Liberalism” provides the right answers over the next four years then America will become a more prosperous and egalitarian nation, if not, the “new Age of Liberalism” will be like the Age of Aquarius; come and gone in the blink of an eye.
Cherlock, the problem is juggling. they juggled the fund to one side to pay for some previous flub during the bush adm. then they juggled it to pay for some other superflub during the next bush adm.
this juggling act is what has the entire economy up in the air right now. isn’t it funny we haven’t asked the circus, oops I meant congress where those extra Clowns are hiding our ducats ?
somehow I think Mr. Obama is gonna force em all into Spanx and put they asses on fiscal diets. look at him, not a inch of fat anywhere and lawd does our president look goooooddd.. baby.
I think we could all use a lil Congressional Dieting. let them take a 25% paycut, also loose all those perks, like lifetime pensions and top healthcare and then lets come back to the table and see how much we’re short.
I bet if the folks who came in before were retrofitted, we’d discover lots of missing ducats, stuffed into Secret Caribbean nooks and crannies.. I think thats’ why the Pres told em, they gotta give it up.
but who’s gonna sanitize that booty.
ooo I forgot, that’s what Biden’s for.
good Work Mr. President; cause Joe Knows FOLKS.
you saw my fiscally responsible post today, so did you enjoy the Video “Blame it on the Eeee Econ ome, blame it on the eeeeeee”..
Yeah Girl, we got a lotta work to get this budget back in order so we betta get our congressional watching caps on, tight.
btw, did that girl really look like michelle, or what ..
man, where do they find these folks.
I am so loving that video, oh yes I am.
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Cherlock,
You should read my latest post. I have some good ideas on how to fix social security. One word: lottery.
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Re,
Yes, to what you said. I especially like your interest in getting at those off-shore accounts. BTW, loved the video! Where do they find those people? Anyway, they were good and I was dancin’ in my office.
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Burro,
Well, a lottery might be the way to go but we do need a better structure than that. Promises, promises. Cannot possibly fulfill all of them but for those who are at or near retirement age, this is a serious issue. You work all your life with certain expectations and plan for them, then someone changes the rules in the endgame. What’s up with that?
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Yeah,, What is up with that ?
I’m that near retirement age chica you’re speaking about,,
so yeahhhh what’s up with that ?
btw, it probably won’t help me anyway, since I work for myself, Right ?
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Cherlock,
I am certainly being flippant in my post. I agree that this is a serious issue. At least the SSA is doing an effective job with my generation of not creating the false expectations that they mistakenly created for your generation. I imagine you must feel the same way that preferred bondholders of the failing auto companies must feel like.
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It is like every other hot potato, the last guy holding it is the one who gets burned.
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If cap and trade passes we’ll all be in the poor house and as it is we’d better learn to speak Cantonese.
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Windroot,
In the cases of Social Security and Medicare it will most likely be todays “40-somethings” who will be the first to get burned. For the time being these programs will be funded with deficit spending.
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Harrison,
It won’t be “cap and trade” that will have us all speaking Cantonese (by the way, Mandarin is more widely spoken outside of Hong Kong), it will be the selling off of America to foreigners due to American companies sending jobs overseas, and the resultant balance of payments deficits.
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@ admin
I was thinking more in terms of how previous administrations have pushed the problem off to future presidents and now it seems as though the hour of reckoning has struck on Obama’s watch. On the other hand, don’t be shocked if all these numbers change if we get a strong economic recovery. Revenues go up, social expenditures go down and I’ll be darned it wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be.
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Well Obama shot up the debt over $1 trillion when interest is included so I think he’s been doing his fair share and he ain’t gonna stop there, either.
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[...] a recent comment on a blog called Askcherlock. The owner of the blog, a Baby Boomer, was contemplating the current problems facing social [...]
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