It is clear that the next several years will be the economic equivalent of threading a needle. While we address the massive unfunded liabilities associated with Social Security and Medicare (now well in excess of $50 trillion), we will need to identify the moment at which our nascent recovery is self-sustaining and put on the brakes. If we are to avoid inflation, interest rates will need to go up and government spending will need to go down. Both of those things will be enormously unpopular, but the Federal Reserve and the Congress will need to remember that inflation is far more damaging.
Where does that $50 trillion-plus figure come from? Why from Pete Peterson, of course.
Sara Robinson at CAF:
"The $56 trillion number is what you get if you project the entire U.S. debt a full 75 years into the future, which is how far out you have to go before you can get into numbers that big….Peterson and his posse are laying bets that Americans are too mathematically and logically challenged to notice the flaws in his reasoning—even though the holes are big enough to drive an entire generation of retired Boomers through."
As Robert Kuttner said in the Washington Post, "Most of the number Peterson cites is a combination of the 75-year worst-case projections for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid."
There’s a huge run that Republicans and ConservaDems are going to make at cutting Social Security benefits. The Republicans because they’ve had a woody to undo the New Deal since it started, and ConservaDems from the Blue Dogs and New Dems (of which Himes is a member) as a way to take the heat off themselves for voting for a bunch of blank check bailouts so they can look "fiscally responsible" in 2010.
It appears Jim Himes is a part of that effort, because that’s where that language comes from.
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Well Republicans seem to be shifting even further right, and maybe that sudden evacuation is creating a vacuum that is sucking all these ConservaDems into the area previously occupied by Republicans…
Too bad there isn’t some sort of force to pull people to the left… I guess if we sucked as much as Republicans…
here’s the thing with social security;
they use it to fund tax releif for the wealthy, then they never get that money back
first thing I want to do is get the money back they took from social security
second thing I want to do is create that locked box that’s supposed to protect it
in all fairness, if they keep steeling from the fund then I don’t want the fund there for them to steel either
yes it’s marvelously efficient but they keep steeling from it, that has to stop
right in the heart !
and haven’t we had enough of Peterson, et al “laying bets” ?!?!
I am so using this in my LTE’s
p.s. that footage is probably a frickin’ whaling vessel
Once a Goldman, always a Goldman.
I regret to admit that I supported Himes last year.
He voted for the supplemental this week, and I had already written him off,
but this is still depressing.
The Blue Dogs and ConservaDems would be Republicans if the “R” were not today’s Scarlet Letter.
Good catch. FDL has been on fire this month.
Nope, too well kept and no harpoon gun on the bow. Ain’t a whaler in the world with white gunnels. Cruise ship would be my guess.
Before they will stop stealing from us we have to admit to ourselves that they are stealing from us.
Far too many of us still believe that because they are rich they must be superior people and thus entitled to lead.
I don’t know why it’s so hard for some to understand, but we must face that fact that we’ve been robbed, and that we continue to be robbed and the robbers won’t quit robbing us until we’ve disabused ourselves of this silly notion that rich thieves are the best people to lead our country.
Arnold announced yesterday that he was going to veto the new California budget because it has tax increases included. We in California “know” the only way to close the budget shortfall is by cutting education and eliminating welfare.
To be fair to our Governator, he did back down from his plan to cut survivor benefits for police officers and firefighters who died in the line of duty. See, he can’t be all bad!
I hope Obama does the same for his plan to cut similar survivor benefits.
Thank you Jane. People are starting to pay attention and a lot of the credit goes to Firedoglake and you. Even the Republican base is hurting and knows someone who has lost their home due to medical cost induced bankruptcy.
We need to re-frame the debate on government and the deficit.
We don’t need health care reform. We don’t need a balanced budget. We don’t need to worry about inflation. We don’t a bailout and we don’t even need the Fed. We need the same health insurance, employment opportunities and retirement we provide to every member of congress and the federal government. If they can’t take care of us, the people we elect in their place will have an opportunity.
To be fair to our Governator, he did back down from his plan to cut survivor benefits for police officers and firefighters who died in the line of duty. See, he can’t be all bad!
I am surprised it lasted that long. Meaning the above. WTF are they doing out in CA?
How much money would we save over the next 75 years if we eliminated retirement benefits for retired congresscritters.
thanks.
or in Peterson’s case, prolly just a week end dinghy :D
They don’t care about these programs because they won’t have to subsist on them.
I vow right now not to vote again for my Blue Dog representative. He’s in this group and they are not helping, and I don’t want to pay him to live in luxury on a pension. Not when he threatens to take food out of my mouth.
I doesn’t seem that long ago when breathing a word against Social Security was a death wish for a politician. Should be even more so the case now, with the boomers approaching retirement age. What is wrong with this picture?
Would Goldman Sachs have enough retirees to staff Peterson’s bipartisan comission? /s
Gregg Levine has a new post up at the Mothership: “Jim Cooper, Avowed Supporter of Public Option, to Move to Stall Progress Toward Healthcare Reform”
Anyone whining about inflation at this time is too stupid to take seriously, especially since we’re currently having the opposite problem.
Secondly, it’d be nice if someone had the guts to propose the only true fix for Social Security: raise the income cap to which the tax applies to $200K. **poof** Problem solved!!
Of course, most of the clowns who’d vote on such a proposal (and those who donate to them) would never allow it since it’d affect them directly.
Assholes.
In the 2008 elections, Jim Himes was the poster boy for “better” as in more and better Democrats.
I even gave to the schmuck.
Yuck.
They don’t call it the third rail of American Politics for nothing, I am going to say they will fail once again to cut either SS or Medicare. And any politician that tries will soon go the way of GWB.
Unfunded liabilities? Un-f*cking*funded liabilities?!?
Excuse me, Mr. Himes, but let’s understand some things. Your guy, Saint Ronald of Ray-gun, raised the payroll taxes at the start of my career. With the exception of the three years that I worked for the Federal Government, I’ve had Old-Age, Survivor’s, and Disability Insurance and Medicare taxes taken out of my paycheck.
Your guy, Ray-gun, said that was necessary to secure Social Security for the future. Now, Mr. Himes, maybe it’s going to be necessary for taxes to be raised to pay that liability. Maybe, just maybe it’s going to be necessary to put a very moderate means-testing on benefits. But if you want to learn what a third rail is, just propose drastic cuts to it.