Government trustees report this week reveal that Social Security and Medicare will run out of money sooner than expected. Medicare is looking at a shortage beginning 2024 but Social Security for Disabled (SSI) will be out of funds just around the corner in 2016. All agree that by 2030 there will only be enough money to cover 75% of the need.
The closer Baby Boomers get to retirement age the more worrisome these gloom and doom headlines become. For the most part we pay into these retirement programs with the expectation they will be there to supplement our future needs. We should be taking note. Something has to be done. And now.
Last year Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) presented a plan to reduce the debt and continue retirement programs well into the future. You recall, he was greeted with a barrage of criticism from the left and seniors were given the impression that they would suffer severely. (Remember, throw Granny off a cliff?) Nothing ended up being done by Congress last year except to further kick the can down the road. This year Ryan again has presented a budget and appears better prepared to argue his plan.
Many will argue that this “Path to Prosperity: Saving Medicare” has faults. Many will argue that there are other solutions. Others assure us that removing the FICA cap (which would be a cost increase for those making over $106,800) should be a large part of the solution. There are questions how moving funding from federal to state governments will affect low income Medicaid recipients. Additionally, there is discussion whether the new Affordable Health Care law is funded in part through cuts to the Medicare budget.
All the above are good questions. The type that should be debated and compromised on in open meetings in Congress. And yet… there is no plan from the Obama administration. In fact, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner reacted to the funding shortfall, not by offering an answer or compromise, but instead to further criticizing the Ryan Plan. As a reminder, it is over three years since the Democratic controlled Senate has even produced a budget.
There appears no attempt to find a resolution. It’s hard not to agree with Stuart Varney on this issue. The government says: We don’t like your plan. We don’t have a plan but we know we don’t like yours. Is it any wonder people are looking for a change in administration?
Congressman Paul Ryan’s plan sucks! I have paid very close attention to these politican’s for enough years to where I’ve learned alot of their language. Whenever a politician says what they are proposing is going to take “ten years”, that means I don’t want to scare any Democrats that this is going to slightly change their laws and put this one on top of theirs and we’re going to try this one for awhile. Anything that does not REMOVE Socialist Fascist Decree’s immediately and Constitutionally replace it with a law that does what is supposed to be the way Freedom and Liberty is supposed to be, isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on and only plays nice with Socialists. Ryan is playing games by Socialist Democrat rules and giving them more than enough time to write their own bill or amendment that does what theirs have always done and that is water down a good conservative bill until it is useless. This is what Ryan’s bill does. It’s gutless.
Ryan’s bill is so patched up with every idea I’ve heard from liberal Republican’s, both Bush’s, and blue dog Democrats that it won’t do any of what he is trying to get people to think it will. Ryan is not as conservative as people might think he is and this piece of crap bill shows it. It kisses Democrat butt with half way measures changing the way Social Security works with all the Bush ideas of personal accounts and all that. I’ll tell you what, when Ryan comes up with a bill that removes all laws that restrict American’s saving all they want instead of putting limits on IRA’s and all that other stupid crap then I might be more agreeable that there would be some way for American’s to save for their own retirement. The whole reason why Socialist Democrats came up with restrictions on IRA’s and other forms of savings accounts was to keep a certain amount of cash in the cash flow. That way when they want one of their Wall Street buddies to give a loan to someone or another country, they’ll be able to come up with the cash without having to borrow it from someone they’d rather not borrow money from. And all kinds of other crap to I don’t want to have to explain. These people are just a bunch of crooks, and Ryan is playing their game.