Social Security & Medicare Collapse

Trustees for the Social Security and Medicare trust funds announced Monday that the two programs would run out of money in 2041 and 2019, respectively. The trustees also reported that by 2017, the Social Security program will be giving out more money than it is taking in, resulting in a steadily-increasing deficit that could exhaust the program entirely in less than 35 years. The problems with funding of Medicare are much more serious and immediate, due to increasing health care costs for aging Americans.

The funding problems for the two programs, caused by the impending retirement of about 78 million "baby boomers" born between 1946 and 1964, have been a long time coming, as the government has used excess tax revenues for other projects, rather than saving them in anticipation of future costs.

It is plainly unacceptable that the federal government has cast aside all economic logic and chosen to spend excess revenues that have accumulated for years, rather than saving them in anticipation of future rising costs. Unsurprisingly, the state has once again blithely broken its promise to the American people that their tax money would be used responsibly and for the benefit of the American people. As a result of this total failure of the government, Americans now must choose between depriving baby boomers of the services they believed they were paying for through years of Social Security and Medicare taxes, or the government must substantially raise taxes to make up the lost revenue. Either way, the American people and economy will pay the price for government incompetence.

If a bank took all the funds deposited by its customers and spent them elsewhere, it would of course be incapable of giving these funds back when its customers attempted to withdraw them. Similarly, if an insurance company foolishly spent all of its income from fees, it would be in deep trouble when its customers attempted to file claims. What the government has done in this situation is basically no different from either of these examples -- it has taken money that it promised would be available for one purpose, and spent it elsewhere. Since, unlike corporations and banks, the government is completely unaccountable for its actions, it will simply take more money from the American people to cover up its total failure, or tell them that they simply don't get what they have earned through years of payments.

If a private company attempted to pull a stunt like this, every one of its executives would likely (and rightly) end up in jail. This is a willful violation of contract, plain and simple, but since one party to the contract is the state, the agreement is void simply because the state says it is. Once again, we see that the state is fundamentally criminal and negligent, and that there is no way to hold it responsible for its predations. It is a mystery how anyone claims that the state is a responsible or effective provider of essential services -- whether entitlement programs or even security -- in light of this, and similar, constant failings of the government.

Add this to the list of blatant, massive thefts by the government, maybe right after the trillions of dollars that so conveniently have gone "missing". I'm sure there's no way all this money has made it into the pockets of our beloved "civil servants" in Washington.