Why we need entitlement reform

Ed Morrissey nails it:

When programs like Social Security and Medicare first began, most Americans weren’t expected to live long enough to draw benefits for more than a couple of years.  In the fifty years since Medicare began, we have lowered the age of eligibility and massively expanded benefits.  Not only do we have more people entering the system thanks to the Baby Boom of the postwar years, but thanks to better health, they’re staying in the program for at least fifteen years at a time.

Meanwhile, population growth has slowed in the eighty years since the start of Social Security and fifty since Medicare.  Instead of having worker-to-enrollee ratios of 16-1, we’re rapidly approaching 2-1, which turns the entitlement structure into a teetering Ponzi scheme.

And let’s also be clear about one thing–this is exactly what Democrats want.  Nothing gets millions of voters to the polls to pull the lever for Democrats quicker than promising the continuation of the current state of affairs.  Democrats and the Obama administration have shown no desire at all to seriously address the question of reforms, nor our government’s fiscal emergency.

Americans will eventually have a choice–continue biting on the Democrats promises of an ever-increasing entitlement state, or trying to avert disaster.

Reality check on Social Security

Brutal:

Social Security has passed a tipping point. For years it generated more revenue than it consumed, holding down the overall federal deficit and allowing Congress to spend more freely for other things. But those days are gone. Rather than lessening the federal deficit, Social Security has at last — as long predicted — become a drag on the government’s overall finances.

As recently as October, CBO was projecting that it would be 2016 before outlays regularly exceed revenues. But Social Security’s fiscal troubles are more severe than was thought, and the latest projections show the permanent deficits started several years ahead of earlier predictions.

And what about that talking point that the left loves to push–that there’s nothing wrong with Social Security and it can still pay out benefits until 2037.  As if those who turn 65 in 2038 and afterwards can go to hell:

…[D]on’t be misled by those who say the system can pay full benefits until about 2037 without making any changes to the law. That’s true, but does not change the fact that Social Security taxes no longer cover those benefits. The government is now borrowing money to pay them, and will do so every year for the foreseeable future.

[I]f nothing is done, when those trust funds are exhausted, benefits would have to be cut by 22 percent in 2037, and more each year after that, according to the most recent report of the system’s trustees. By 2084, the system will generate only enough revenue to pay for 75 percent of promised benefit levels.

Those are the facts. But they haven’t stopped some Democrats from claiming over and over that Social Security doesn’t contribute “one penny” to the deficit.

Democrats continue to spread their propaganda about the alleged solvency in Social Security, and our complicit media continues to let them do so, without challenging any of it.  They only way to reform Social Security is to make tough choices and sacrifices. 

Liberals don’t believe in this.  They need to promise the world to their constituents, because that is the basic tenet of their belief system–that government is the only benefactor for middle class Americans.  And if entitlement programs need to be scaled back then, well, they might as well end up voting Republican.