Friday, February 20, 2004

Behind those inflation molehills is a mountain

of debt -- within 15 years Social Security IOUs will start to come due faster than the current workforce can keep up and payments on the national debt will double as deficits continue to mount and interest rates creep up past 7%. Coupled with projected Medicare benefit increases, it will cost a TRILLION DOLLARS A YEAR just to make these payments, resulting in either SOARING debt and/or HUGE TAX increases and/or SLASHED benefits.

Economic disaster looms that will put inflation worries in the deep shade.

Social Sec TrusteesReport: "The major demographic transformation that is fast approaching will have profound fiscal and economic consequences that reach far beyond Social Security alone. Between 2000 and 2040, the cost of the three major senior benefit programs (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) is due to double relative to the size of the economy, from 7.6 to 15.5 percent of GDP. To get an idea of the magnitude of this number, consider that 15.5 percent of GDP is about three-quarters of what we now devote to the entire budget. Absent reform, all other government spending will have to be slashed or taxes will have to be raised to unprecedented levels"

www.concordcoalition.org/socialsecurity/030520issuebrief.htm

Remember, there IS NO trust fund, just IOUs. Why did the national debt increase every year during the Clinton administration? Because we transferred the "trust fund" receipts to the current account. It's like carrying a loan on the books as an asset -- talk to Arthur Andersen about that.

Surging payments on Dubya's incredible exploding deficits at increasing interest rates + repayments of trust fund IOUs on demand as boomers retire + Medicare = trillion dollar hole in the budget.


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