During the 2008, I posted 3 reasons to support McCain:
1) The war on terror;
2) Judicial appointments; and,
3) Reform entitlements.
Will Obama go after entitlements? He may have to! How can you ever have a budget surplus again if 58% of the federal budget is mandated by law?
IBD has a very bad prognosis for entitlements.
It may be the kind of information that will push Obama to ask for a recount of the 2008 election.
There is a tsunami about to hit the Oval Office.
It won't come from the ocean.
It will be the economic reality of putting off Social Security reform.
It is bad:
"Social Security and Medicare are headed for the pecuniary ditch, and they could take the U.S. economy down with them.
In less than 10 years, Social Security will begin to pay out more in benefits than it takes in in tax revenues.
By 2017, it will need $20 billion from taxpayers to meet its obligations.
In 2020, Social Security will be underfunded by $96 billion.
Five years later, it will owe $280 billion more than it generates in tax revenues, and only 2.4 taxpaying workers will support each retiree, down from the 3.3-to-1 workers-to-retiree ratio of 2007. (In 1945, by comparison, 42 workers existed per beneficiary.)
In 2030, the gap swells to a half-trillion dollars, with only two workers per retiree.
By 2041, Social Security will be essentially broke, having exhausted its trust fund, those dollars amassed through decades of surplus payroll tax revenues that Congress will have already squandered on general budget expenditures." (Can Social Security Get A New Deal?)
There aren't any pretty solutions.
You can't "hope and change" your way out of this one:
"Cut benefits (a possibility Obama hinted at, though it is likely to be politically impossible);
Raise incomes taxes by as much as 150% or payroll taxes significantly (both of which would have devastating economic effects);
Slash general budget spending and use the savings to fund entitlements (almost as politically difficult as cutting benefits); and
Employ some combination of the three.
There is a another way, however, at least with Social Security, which is the larger of the two problems.
That way is privatization."
In 2005, Pres. Bush proposed giving young workers an opportunity to invest in private accounts.
The Dems reacted to the proposal by saying that Bush wanted to steal our grandmother's money and throw it in the stock market!
Of course, Bush's plan did not propose such thing. In fact, Bush's proposal did not apply to anyone over 55.
The Dems are now in charge. It will be interesting to see how they handle Social Security.
The Social Security tsunami is coming!
I don't think that we can put it off any longer!
