Government Promises Update

I've already written a few times about how the government has made more promises than it can keep.

The basic situation has changed little since those posts. But the issue has been in the news lately, so here are some more recent links.

In Mid-May there were reports that Social Security went red for the first time. Medicare already went red last year.

The total cost of the promises is well over $100 trillion (just pension and Medicare total nearly that amount). The current Federal spending binge is alarming but comparatively tiny.

The currently hot proposal to use national health care to deal with overcommitment at this scale are almost too silly to write about.

Does anything really believe Social Security will last until 2037, and Medicare until 2017? It's silly to keep taxing younger people for these programs. A better course would be to act promptly in an effort to at least save what job pensions can be saved.

Surely our president has the courage to address this issue. But I am not sure he has the personal history to see its importance.