CBO paints bleak fiscal picture (long term fiscal woes)

[UpInArms]

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/print_story.asp?print=1&guid={CF92C1EC-B283-4CF7-B5DE-2B186DD18DF4}&siteid=mktw

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Under most long-range scenarios, the federal government will see bigger deficits and skyrocketing debt unless policymakers take steps to rein in expected growth in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid spending as baby boomers begin to retire, the Congressional Budget Office warned Thursday.

"As health care costs continue to grow faster than the economy and the baby-boom generation nears eligibility for Social Security and Medicare, the United States faces inevitable decisions about the fundamentals of its spending policies and its means of financing those policies," the CBO said in its biannual Long Term Budget Outlook.

The report's conclusions are little different than its last long-range report, issued in December 2003.

In a speech at the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank, outgoing CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin said the future burdens posed by federal entitlement programs are such that even in a world without hurricane relief, ongoing war spending, budget pork and the extension of recent tax cuts, "our country would face deficits as far as the eye can see and enormous fiscal challenges."

<snip>

The worst-case scenario sees federal debt equal to 130% of GDP by 2030, growing steadily after that, the report said, noting that the forecast doesn't take into account the harmful effect long-term deficits would have on economic growth.

...more...

[soothsayer]

1. they're counting on bird flu to kill off the seniors.

[henslee]

17. Be careful, you may be hired for their thinktank.

[FloridaPat]

2. So if the economy collapses it's MY fault! Just for being a baby

boomer? And not the incompetent repubs who only spend and cut taxes. Sure.

[UpInArms]

7. here's a link to lots of very interesting charts

http://www.heritage.org/research/features/budgetchartbook/contents.cfm

[RobertSeattle]

3. Blame: Bush and the GOP

...And the suckers who vote for them.

[UpInArms]

5. here's a timeline of the debt and the administrations

and here is a chart of the jobs that the tax cuts were to create

[ugarte]

4. Maybe every baby boomer should just join the military

since the Pentagon has all the money. That would solve the Social Security problem and the recruitment problem at the same time.

[Double T]

6. 2nd generation voodoo economics by the.......

leaders of the coup d'rich, bushco and the repuke congress

[BR_Parkway]

8. So, cut back SS just as your pension fails? Wow, how fucked are

seniors and do they even realize it yet?

[Double T]

9. No, they don't realize it yet. The majority of the population in the USA

will have to work from 'cradle to grave'. Retirement is no longer a viable part of the American dream for many people.

[Angry Girl]

10. And Bush wonders why no economists will work for him...

The chairmanship of the Council of Economic Advisers will soon be vacant, and two spots on the Federal Reserve Board that were recently filled by academic economists already are. There is no assistant secretary of the Treasury for tax policy, and the director's chair at the Congressional Budget Office, currently occupied by Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin, will soon be empty, too.

The White House and Congress need as many as five academic economists of high caliber, and it's not obvious where they will come from. The Republican Party may be facing something of a shallow bench.

"Bush's reputation in at least the academic community is about as low as you can imagine," said William A. Niskanen, who was a member of the council during President Ronald Reagan's first term and is now chairman of the Cato Institute, a libertarian research group. "A lot of people would not be willing to give up a good tenured position for a position in the White House."

From the NYT via http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/002434.html

[DELUSIONAL]

12. but but . . . bushie has a MBA

never mind he didn't EARN it -- it was bought for him by his daddy.

He has no clue -- no clue about people who have to work for a living.

His slut daughters are just as clue-less.

[BR_Parkway]

16. Most Brainless Asshole? (eom)

[brentspeak]

11. Let's see...Bush has spent $400 billion in Iraq so far

with another $100 billion on the slate. That $500 billion would would have covered Social Security and the other programs together for years.

Brilliant thinking by Bush and Cheney: help your cronies become billionaires by handing over to them the our hard-earned tax dollars, while simultaneously killing off Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid.

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

[lovuian]

13. Stop the Iraq war and Billions will comeback to give US citizens

Medicare & Medicaid and Social Security and tax the corporations

republicans want to bankrupt us

[SoCalDem]

14. Totally depressing.. MY generation FUELED the boom years,

suffered through at least 3 or 4 republican recessions, PREPAID our own social security payments, while bolstering the pathetic payments for our grandparents & parents, and now we are going to be "blamed" for actually expecting to withdraw our funds..

That's what this whole thing is about.. The admin simply must have a scapegoat, so it's gonna be "all our fault" for being greedy..

Generational warfare is always a convenient way for the government to steal money from all of us..
They remove the money, and then get everyone squabbling over who should "get the money".. The underlying problem? The money was stolen long ago.. Reminds me of heirs battling each other over the contents of Grandpa's safety deposit box...Family feuds that last forever..and when the box is opened?? nothing but pictures of stuff he bought with the money..

Shame on us for actually thinking that we were being good citizens all these years by being good little consumers (gotta keep the economy humming)and for being the ultimate "sandwich generation".. Lots of Boomers are caring for aging parents & grandparents AND their grown up kids and THEIR kids, because it costs too much for them to live alone. This is all being done while most Boomers are still working full time and desperately trying to get something set aside for themselves too..

Parents who might actually like to downsize and start saving money, cannot, because they still have 20 & 30-somethings living in their house, and then there's Grandma down the hall too.. It's hard to sell a house & move to a smaller place when you are the caretaker for 3 generations..

Lots of these 20-30 yr olds return to the nest with children of their own, and little money, so at 50 something, Boomers are still buying diapers...in ALL sizes from newborn to Granny-sized..

Once we move through the belly of the beast and are gone, don;t look for things to get all that much better.. At least some of us were still on the gravy train for a little while, but the jobs that we started careers with are going or gone, and I wonder how the masses of people who are content with $10 an hour jobs now, are ever going to retire or live in their old ages..

and once we are gone, how will the next generation care for their families without the help we have given them all these years?

Parents of Boomers were the first real generation to have "miracle drugs" & sophisticated medical care, so they lived very long lives, and medicare came along at just the right time for them.. The way things are going now, there will be lots of "losers" coming down the pike. People who cannot afford that miracle medicine and people who are broken by years of working 3 jobs with no medical benefits, will not be as healthy in their old age.

Boomers and parents of Boomers were also the last people who at least lived part of their lives eating unadulterated foods and (in some places) drank clean water and breathed clean air in their formative years..

Good luck to you young 'uns.. It might not be all that great for you when we are finally all gone..

[Historic NY]

15. Entitlement programs........well excuse me.............

I don't look at SS much as an entitlement. I think about it as all the payroll taxes paid over a lifetime of work. The taxpayer & employer monies were paid into a large fund. Yes, when there was a boom and a large surplus, our parents & grandparents allotments were increased. The big problem is the US Government & Congress decided that it was better to use our money for other things. They decided to make it part of the budget, when it wasn't for many years. The government began spending our money, borrowing it and leaving an IOU behind. Well, they now have brought it down to a point where they now say it has to be fixed. The simplest solution is to get them to start paying back those IOU's. The SS surplus would greatly increase and avert the problems.

As for medicaid & medicare, for the most part these programs work. Like any government program there is waste, but most of these are fixable.

We were on the way to a healthy government before Iraq and all the tax cuts which have drained government ability to pay down its deficits.

[Toots]

18. But but "Reagan proved Deficits don't matter" according to Dick Cheney

What are we supposed to think? The smart ones surrounding bush* say it doesn't matter...Remember he said it doesn't matter if he is not very smart or well read because he would surround himself with really smart men. I guess when you are George Bush* a brick seems really really smart..