Getting Honest About Social Security – Part 3

We begin with the Congressional Budget Office’s Estimate of the President’s Budget (above). Why wait until tomorrow? It’s on the CBO’s website at http://cbo.gov/?

You will recall from Part 2, that entitlement spending (aka mandatory spending) is comprised of the following:

Entitlement Spending, at $1.595 trillion in FY 2008, is over half of the U.S. Federal Budget. The largest entitlement spending programs based on FY 2006 were Social Security and Medicare, as follows:

Social Security – $544 billion
Medicare – $325 billion
Medicaid – $186 billion
All other mandatory programs – $357 billion. These programs include Food Stamps, Unemployment Compensation, Child Nutrition, Child Tax Credits, Supplemental Security for the blind and disabled, Student Loans, and Retirement / Disability programs for Civil Servants, the Coast Guard and the Military

In FY 2009 and 2010 alone, entitlement spending is projected to exceed government revenue by some $290 billion. So the United States is facing a budget deficit, in just two years, before spending one dime on our defense, education, veterans pensions, and other vital programs. And this wasn’t supposed to happen for another 31 years?

Is anyone still seriously considering dumping another $1 trillion dollars into this government-run ponzi scheme?

Obama said he wanted an ‘honest debate’ on his health care proposal. Well, here’s the problem. We can’t afford to waste another dollar on some misguided government program, no matter how noble. Social Security is little more than a government-run Ponzi Scheme. Medicare is only 1/2 funded by premiums. Isn’t Medicare an example of government-run health care?

What kind of health insurance company would only collect 1/2 of what it spends on claims year-after-year, after year? I’ll tell you. A government-run health insurance company. Like that commercial says Mr. president, “You Need A Plan!”

Solutions abound, but what Obama is proposing isn’t one of them.

To even begin an ‘honest’ discussion on Social Security, Medicare, Government Option Health Care, or any other ‘reform’ proposed by ‘government workers’, you first need to get honest with the public, and then your proposals had better include the following:

Reductions in government spending
Reductions in government programs
Privatization of government entitlement programs
Budget balancing initiatives
Incentives for private investment
Incentives for private business growth
Incentives for private job creation
and, Policies that promote individual liberty

3 thoughts on “Getting Honest About Social Security – Part 3”

Larry I agree with your seven steps to a more Just Economic model…

Reductions in government spending
Reductions in government programs
Privatization of government entitlement programs
Budget balancing initiatives
Incentives for private investment
Incentives for private business growth
Incentives for private job creation
and, Policies that promote individual liberty

I do beleive, no I know, they are all articulated in the mission statement of CESJ.org and the four pillars of the – Center for Economic and Social Justice. And much of what you have articulated yourself is supported by the Just Third Way Blog. Linked on cesj main page.

Give it a good going over… and while your at it review Louis Kelso – The New Capitalist & The Capitalist Manifesto co-authored by Mortimer Adler

Just a nail in the wall

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