When the next President takes offices in 2009, he or she will inherit a more than $400 billion deficit (almost half of which will come from the recently passed economic stimulus). Worse, as the National Taxpayers Union has calculated, a President Barack Obama will come to office with $287 billion in promised additional spending while a President Clinton would bring $218 billion in similar promises. And it gets worse. A new federal study estimates that Government spending on health care could nearly double to more than $2 trillion by 2017. …
Moments ago, President Bush fulfilled his legal obligation under the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) by submitting a Medicare cost containment proposal to Capitol Hill. MMA obligated the president to submit a proposal after the latest Medicare trustee report found that Medicare spending will exceed 45% of total outlays. This was a golden opportunity to take substantive steps to deal with the nation’s long-term entitlement problem, yet the proposal is a bit of a disappointment. The White House plan consists of a codification of the administration’s “values based purchasing” …
USA Today’s Dennis Cauchon wrote an insightful front-page story today showing that the cost of government benefits for seniors reached $27,289 per senior in 2007. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits continue to grow much faster than inflation, and as 77 million baby boomers reach retirement in the coming decades, the taxpayer costs of these programs will be enormous. The article highlights the fact that these programs are unsustainable in their current form and that we are on the leading edge of a large intergenerational transfer of wealth from younger …
The United States passed a generational milestone yesterday when 62-year-old Kathleen Casey-Kirschling became the first baby boomer to receive a Social Security payment. A life-long Democrat, Casey-Kirschling (pictured to the right on her yacht) proudly told reporters from her winter home in Vero Beach, Fla., “I trust Social Security.” A summer resident of Earleville, Md., Casey-Kirschling is the first of an estimated 7,900 baby boomers turning 62 each day this year — making them eligible for the federal retirement benefits averaging $1,079 a month. If only those who studied our …
Brian Darling previews President Bush’s final State of the Union address, noting that Iraq, free trade and taxes will be major themes of the speech. Darling also appeared on the National Association of Manufacturers’ “American Business With Mike Hambrick” to share his thoughts about the speech. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIwPLTGppis[/youtube] The White House, meanwhile, released excerpts from the address moments ago.
