chambero said:
This isn't the politician's fault, it's ours. The reason it doesn't change is because we don't want it to - and I do mean you and me. The costs associated with Medicare and Social Security dwarf every single other item we spend money on - because we all get it (us or our parents or our grandparents). And none of us pay in nearly enough to cover it. And it will only get worse.
Are you willing to shorten your parent's lives because you won't take them to the doctor/hospital if they or you can't personally pay for their medical bills when they are in their 70s and 80s. It's that simple. Otherwise, we keep doing what we're doing.
Stop and think about it, how many of us will die before we spend $500,000 to $1 million + on medical care? You don't have to have much go wrong with you to run up a hospital bill of several hundred thousand. How many people will run up more in medical bills than they will ever make in salary? A lot......
How much of people's social security checks go toward paying for medical costs that medicare doesn't cover?
We could cut out all foreign aid, all military spending, all subsidies, all stupid scientific studies, etc and it still won't make a difference till we address the issue of the true cost of much longer lives after retirement.
The elephant in the closet is that retirement is probably a fatally flawed concept. The costs of medical care and pensions are breaking most countries. If you stop and think about it, the idea of retirement is less than 100 years old and we all think of it as a God-given right.
My bet is that in 20-50 years our families will look a lot more like they did 75 years ago - parents living with their kids and people having to take care of themselves.
Federal politicians have to spend a lot more money to get to and be in Washington than they ever make. Some are power hungry, but few do it for the money. The majority are smart people who don't lack in common sense. Everyone thinks they could do someone else's job better, but nobody thinks someone else could outperform yourself in your own job.
This is a real big mess with no easy answers. If people could recognize that it would make it much easier to put aside partisan politics. But the real answers are in our own homes, not in Washington.
Social Security is solvent. It was originally set up as a "pay as you go" system, where current workers pay a percentage of their income to social security to pay for the current retirees. In 1938 they set up a "trust fund" to basically put away excess money in an account to cover the baby boomers that will be retirement age soon. That "trust fund" is nothing more that a bunch of file cabinets full of government bonds. Reagan started the "borrowing" of the social security "trust fund," where in times that social security had a surplus, they would borrow money to pay other parts of the budget. They don't expect social security to be "upside down" until 2036, some projections say 2041.
I agree that Medicare and Medicaid, as the chart shows, do make up a large percentage of what the federal budget consists of. I disagree that they are the biggest problems. These entitlement programs most definitely need reform. Medicaid the the biggest joke that I have had personal dealings with. The froud that surrounds that program would sicken you.
I don't know about you, but I am forced to live within my means. The problem with our current deficit isn't because I haven't paid my taxes, it's not because I don't pay my share of social security every two weeks. The problem is in Washington. Our government has gotten to big, plain and simple. If you read the founding fathers outline for the government and the branches of government, the idea that they had for the United States of America, it is nothing like the politicians have created the past few decades. The states have NO power, according to Thomas Jefferson, the states is where the power should lie. The United States Government spent 20 million dollars educating Chinese prostitutes in the country of China the dangers of alcoholism. Explain to me how that is my fault? We need to downsize the national government. We need to eliminate wasteful spending. A couple weeks ago when the country of Pakistan was doing what they also do, we cut off all money being sent to them for aide. After a week, I heard a report that said Pakistan is getting close to withdrawing their demands now that they have lost billions in UNITED STATES MONEY because we quit sending it to them. When will we quit trying to buy countries support with money we don't have. I'm tired of it, i'm fed up. We are in a budget crisis, we need new road all across America. We are in a drought, Send us billions of dollars because we are losing our livelihoods. When I left for college, and at other times throughout my life my dad has told me something that has stuck with me, "Take Care of You." The United States Government needs to "Take Care of You."
