EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Don’t Blame America’s Debt Crisis on Social Security and Medicare (Especially on Memorial Day)
Amid all the nonsense and gobbledegook that has been written about banking industry and about the economic slump during the last four years of the global financial crisis, New York Times reporter Gretchen Morgenson has stood out both for the clarity of her analysis, and for her willingness to go after the guilty parties in the political and especially the banking system, naming names and calling it as she sees it.
So it was kind of disappointing--even shocking--to read her latest article reporting on a new “study” by Peterson Institute for International Economics Senior Fellow Joseph Gagnon, warning about the nation’s growing debt crisis.
The Peterson Institute, founded by Wall Street tycoon Peter Peterson, has long been gunning for the Social Security and Medicare systems, which he, and the rest of the Wall Street gang, see as unfairly competing with Wall Street for the assets of the public, and as destructive of the “free market.”
Peterson’s basic schtick is that the two critical support systems for the elderly and infirm are going to bankrupt the country as they pay out benefits that exceed what retirees paid into the system, and that the solution is to cut back on those benefits, increase the taxes collected, or better, to privatize both systems.
Given Peterson’s and his institute’s long-standing agenda to gut Social Security and Medicare, it’s not surprising that Gagnon, as a fellow there, would say the solution to the nation’s growing debt is to either raise taxes or cut those two hugely successful, critically important and broadly popular social programs.
Morgenson is too smart not to know better, and yet not once in her article did she look outside of Gagnon’s narrow definition of the problem at the real cause of the national debt: the country’s outlandish military budget and a decade of unfunded wars, which have been piling up debt at a rate of some $150 billion a year (and that’s just the principal!).
After all, the country has been piling up this debt for several decades, and especially over the last decade, but during all this time, Social Security and Medicare have been paying out their benefits from current dedicated payroll taxes and by drawing on the trust funds that had built up because of the years that more was being collected than paid out in benefits.
Get the point? Nobody, including Gagnon, Morgenson or the Social Security and Medicare-hating members of Congress like Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), will acknowledge the fact that not one dime of the huge US deficit has been caused by a benefit check paid by Social Security, and the only parts of Medicare that are funded by general tax revenues are doctors bills and the prescription drug benefit--Medicare Part D--a lousy measure promoted by President George W. Bush and the Republicans in Congress which bars the government from negotiating discounts from the Pharmaceutical companies--a problem easily fixed by improved legislation.
It’s the wars, stupid!
If the US would just cut its military spending down to size, instead of spending as much as the rest of the world combined on war or preparing for war--say by 75%--it would free up more than $450 billion a year that could go towards funding things like improved education, research into alternative energy, improving health care access, and paying down the deficit, too. Toss in cuts in the outsized $40+ billion annual secret intelligence budget, in the nation’s obsolete and dangerous nuclear weapons program and other ancillary military-related expenditures, and we’re talking about saving half a trillion dollars a year!
Morgenson should be ashamed at carrying water for the likes of Peterson and Gagnon.
This being Memorial Day weekend, she could at least make an attempt to restore her once sterling but now sullied reputation as an uncompromising financial journalist by taking on the Pentagon.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
55 Comments so far
Show AllCapitalism for profits sake only is really starting to get ugly.
Yes, future short falls in SS, decades from now, are too small to get worked up about, but Medicare is a different story. While 'Obama Care' took real steps to control costs (thank you, Mr President) health care costs are and will continue to rise at a faster pace than inflation. We can build on Obama's plan and make it better, or we can go with the Ryan plan, and kill grandma if she runs out of cash. And yes, military spending is stupidly out of control.
Just a couple of thoughts to add to the mix. With high unemployment comes an overal reduction in revenue both as taxes but more improtantly as SS contributions likewise contributions to Medicare but the greatest issue in my view is that there is an income cap to SS contributions :
For wages paid in 2011, employees pay 4.2 percent and employers pay 6.2 percent in OASDI taxes. Thus, an individual with wages equal to or larger than $106,800 would contribute $4,485.60 to the OASDI program in 2011, and his or her employer would contribute $6,621.60. Self-employed workers pay 10.4 percent in OASDI taxes on income in 2011.
If you make a couple of million $ a year you still only pay SS in the first $106K of that, what sort of shape would SS be in if those who were paid OVER 106K contributed more into SS in a progressive fashion. Could not someone who make 2million a year contribute 1% on earning OVER 106K...perhaps those who have made 'bonuses' over 10million could pay 5% on that into SS. Just thinking...'to each according to his need from each according to his ability'.
Thanks Dave!
Well Dave it is said that everyone has their price. I wonder what Gretchen's was.
Her continued employment at the New York Times!
The deficit vampires are all over the media, shrieking, wailing and pulling at their flesh about reducing the deficit, blah, blah, blah. It's all bullshale, they don't give a damn about the deficits, it's just a baseball bat to beat up on all the social programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. They didn't care about deficits when Reagan turned the US from the greatest creditor nation into the greatest debtor nation. They didn't give a flying fig about the deficits during the 8 years of the war criminal Bush. But when a D is in the White House, it's oh the horrors, the deficits, the deficits, THE DEFICITS! But there are plenty of blue dog Dems, conservoDems and DINOs who are on the band wagon to cut back on SS and Medicare. The deficits are so horrible that we must go after Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, so say the deficit hawks, Cat Food Commission Creeps, GOPers, libertarians and right wing billionaires.
If anything, Medicare should be expanded to cover all Americans and SS should be strengthened.
Former Comptroller General,
David Walker, head of the GAO, is now working for the Pete Peterson Institute to kill SS, Medicare and Medicaid with the ancillary benefit of reducing ordinary working Americans to peons, indentured servants and high functioning slaves.
Isn't it interesting that in the midst of all the clamoring from Congress about needing to cut the budget to the detriment of healthcare for the elderly and the poor that we don't hear ONE SINGLE WORD about the giant tax breaks given to the wealthy this year by this same Congress??? (Congress is afraid to "bite the hand that feeds them"!!!!!!)
Seems to me that, if the wealthy were held to the same requirements to "pay their fair share in taxes," as the average citizens are, all of this talk about the DEFICIT CRAP would simply disappear.
We have a Congress and a President who don't give a hoot about the average citizens and if we don't wake up soon to this "scam," we're going to lose ALL OUR BENEFITS!!! It's way past time that we "HIT THE BRICKS!!!! Obama must be a ONE-TERM President!!!
It's interesting that you say "Congress and a President who don't give a hoot...," but then focus on "Obama must be a ONE-TERM President!!!" (3 exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!!) So, clearly in your mind Obama is the bigger problem. Most thinking people would say that the republican controlled House is the bigger problem (except for those CDers who think it's all a vast "Kabuki" conspiracy). So what is it? Racism? Obama is a secret Muslim? Listen to too much Limbaugh? Republican troll?
GR: Every one of your LAME arguments has been so redundantly and thoroughly discredited that you're either brain dead, paid NOT to learn (or speak) the truth, or incapable of reading. Why should anyone have to lay it ALL out yet again? As if you haven't been apprised of the data. As if your PR attempts at clouding over the OBVIOUS can be taken for true. You are to American politics what global deniers are to evident climate change.
Did you read the post I left for you yesterday about THAT seminar you're so sorely in need of? Perhaps I should re-post it here?
Sorry, but your Seminar post was not up to your usual witty repartee. Actually, I don't think you even read my post. I think you 'skimmed' it, and missed my point entirely. I'm little bit sorry you're feeling on edge today.
No, Greg, you got me wrong! The reason I said Obama has to go is that he is actually FACILITATING what the republican Congress is doing to America. He's the one who proclaimed very loudly during his presidential campaign that he would bring about "CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN!!!!!!!!!!"
Is what's happening now in Congress what you would call "change we can believe in??????????"
I THINK NOT!!!!!!!!! He does have a VETO power, you know!!!!!!!!!!
Actually the Senate has been doing the veto thing by not allowing the House idiocy to go any further, but since all legislative laws must begin in the House, the Presidents hands are nearly tied on many fronts.
I have never heard the situation explained more clearly before. Bravo to Jerzy Joe!
Reading, almost daily, multiple articles here on CD about many of the multifarious problems we all face, I can't help but wonder what we can really do about downsizing the military, among other issues. I mean, it's not like I can go downtown and throw rocks through the windows of the local military recruitment centers. (I'm in NYC where it's "Fleet Week" - I'll just take over some ships while the sailors are out on the town, and turn them into floating greenhouses!)
When I vote for third party candidates, they receive usually under 1% of the votes. I speak up when I can (big mouth + soap box). I try not to purchase products and services from those who support our plutocracy. But man, not much changes...
Yeah, I hear the drums! We take it to the streets and shut down commerce! Like Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen!
But really, just joining the Green party ain't gonna do it any time soon that I can see. Would that I could morph into "superman" I'd change things in a hurry!
Sooooooooooo, many of you incredibly erudite CD commenters MUST have some well thought out plans - or at least some good ideas - for how we transform the gub'mint into something approaching an ethical institution. I'm listening! (& sharpening my pitchfork if that's how it plays out...).
"What? You want ME to lie down in front of that tank?"...
Thanks Zanrak
What? You want ME to lie down in front of that tank?"... – Zanrak
You echo my thoughts, is Common Dreams simply an erudite release valve for disgruntled leftists? When do words lead to actions?
After all there were likely tens of thousands in Hitler’s Germany who ‘knew’ the actions of the state were wrong, long before 1939, yet we all know what happened. They went along to get along.
The instinct to survive and the fear of loss and death for taking radical action are powerful forces. That is why suicide bombers are so feared and reviled by the status quo.
Hey LIN, thanks for the support... & yeah, too many "just go along" when bad regimes abound.... I remember seeing a display at the Holocaust Museum in DC about progressive German college students in the 30's who protested against the nazis - one brother & sister in particular stood out as galvanizers of the resistance. Hitler had them both murdered early on.
I'm not unwilling to lie down in front of a tank, but lets get some true civil disobedience, with real numbers of participants, going first.
Perhaps we CD readers/writers can start some "events"? I know that there are already organizations around, but I don't see a unified movement yet. The anti-Vietnam demonstrations worked out pretty well... But that was an easier-to-understand issue (what with the draft, etc.) ( …although I just finished reading and learning much nuance about Vietnam from Barbara Tuchman's "March Of Folly". The discussion about our government's behavior then, from Truman to Nixon, shows it to be pathetic and criminal.)
From reading enough articles and comments here and elsewhere on the web, I find that most of the issues we all love to discuss take some real deep thought to truly begin to understand them. (Alright, some are pretty obvious...) I try to distill decades of trends for people ("The median income now is about half of what it was in 1968", for instance..... but some people STILL don't get it!) The economy has been hijacked little by little since the end of WWll, but most people can't or won't connect the dots ("The PTB have been whittling away at your money and your country's money for 50 years"). And too many people still admire Reagan!
Yeah, I want to throw out the dems & repubs, etc., but, like the Vietnam era protests, we need to find a way to clearly and concisely state, for the stilted masses, WHY they need to understand what's going on - or get at least enough of them involved to alter our country's direction. Maybe it is happening! Let me look outside... Nah......
'Course, we may just have to wait for the collapse....
Greece and Spain are far different from the US. The Greece economy is a total mess and Spain has 21% unemployment! Life is a picnic here compared to there.
I suppose one problem I have is that we have nearly full employment here in SE Minnesota. There's a story in today's Mpls Star Tribune talking about North Dakota sending people to Minnesota to scout for workers: they do not have enough people to fill the job vacancies. North Dakota is barely over 3% unemployed (near 5% is considered full employment for practical purposes). Two things to remember about the next "inevitable" financial crisis are that yes sooner or later it is inevitable, but people have learned a few things from the recent mess. Buying or selling a house without the proper financial means is not a great idea, and buyer beware of Wall Street pyramid schemes and con games. These are lessons that many adults have now learned.
No, just saying how lucky many of us are up here in the upper Midwest. I think it sucks and is incredibly stupid that our government isn't doing more for job growth, but the democrats are lame on this, and the republicans are simply evil.
Hey Greg,
Aloha, I'm a bit gun shy when it comes to the facts and tenor of your posts.... how is is you manage to stay so positive?
Work is important to me. I have a wonderful job. I'm a farmer. I'm also very lucky in that I have a marvelous family. This gives me a very positive base when dealing with the snake pit of politics.
The article does cut to the truth of the matter but ignores a fundamental point.
The United States of America has structured its entire economy around Militarism. It has forced its products on other nations using that Military, It has stolen the resources of other nations using that Military. It has ensured there no rival to the US dollar as worlds reserve currency due to that Militarism. It has propped up the economies of the States nation wide due to that Militarism.
This not to defend that Militarism nor to suggest that the right course is not to gut military spending. It is to point out the reality of how deeply it has poisoned the well. It is not simply a matter of gutting Military spending and then suddenly seeing revenues increase by 450 billion dollars.
Further to that WERE it the case that 450 billion dollars freed up by the United States Government , the Corporations would be doing all they can so as to ensure those dollars somehow flow to them in privatization schemes.
The gutting of Military spending must be coupled with an end to Corporatism and ultimately an end to the system called Capitalism which declares Private entities will control a nations resources and means of production or the Next New Boss will be the same as the old.
Greece does not spend more then the rest of the World combined on its Military yet they too gut those same types of programs.
The master of Militarism in the United Dates of America is Corporatism and by extension Capitalism. That is the master that Military was built to serve. It was never built to "defend freedom". It was built to defend property rights and force Corporatism and Capitalism on other nation states.
Well stated, GwNorth. The US economy would collapse if $450 billion were suddenly cut from military spending, as that is the only thing holding it together now. It's nice to talk about putting it into infrastructure repair and alternative energy development, but how exactly would that work? Clearly it will take revolutionary change, but there has to be revolutionary consciousness that is fairly widespread before that can happen.
I would favor a phase out of capitalism, moving toward a democratic socialism. I don't think it can be done overnight, but it must be done, for capitalism is destroying not only our country but the planet. I would favor a move toward social democracy first, and question whether it is even viable to talk about abolishing capitalism, because most people's ego-structure is so conditioned to identify with Capitalism that to attack it is felt by them as an attack on themselves. We need an approach more like Nader's--he never talks about abolishing capitalism, or even socialism, per se, though he matter-of-factly and compellingly makes the case for socialism with every speech.
So far no one mentioned Naomi Klein's seminal work, "The Shock Doctrine," which laces all of these strands so powerfully together.
GW NORTH: Good post.
MEMORY: Your thinking appears to be stuck IN the box. All that military manpower could be put to CONSTRUCTIVE (what "Ready To Transform" would term Creative) uses, rather than the typical default key stuck on pillage, plunder, and destroy missions.
Imagine if employees under military contract set their sights on rebuilding this nation's architecture, gathering up the unemployed youth (especially in the inner cities) and providing them with hands-on training much in the order or earlier schools of apprenticeship.
There's SO much work to do inside our nation, and such a dire need to GREEN its technologies. So the muscle for all of that exists. What's lacking is the will, and intelligent, morally sane leadership to enact it.
In other words, these people need not be fired and left without paychecks... what they should be doing, as opposed to occupying foreign lands, is working here AT home. But of course that cannot happen so long as the MIC functions as the long arm, and fist in the glove, that supports big corporations in their imperial/rapacious reach for resources that belong to the inhabitants of other lands.
Just as the addict must face the nature of his addiction to begin the healing process, it's important that our nation's citizens do likewise. I would not advocate for more unemployment... it's the matter of using those paid employees to address the tasks that matter. THAT is a wiser description of ultimate defense than inventing phantom enemies to bomb, bomb, bomb away as if there was no such thing as karma OR blowback (or the two collaborating through the powerful tools at nature's disposal).
Good post, Siouxrose (Wow, I wonder if I'll ever say that again?)
Why is it that when folks like Peter Peterson rise up from a lower-middle class family and achieve great success and wealth, the next thing they want to do is hoard all of it for themselves and their fellow billionaire oligarchs??
One word: Greed. In Buddhist teachings there are the Three Poisons: Greed, Hatred, and Ignorance, which condition behavior in our samsaric world. These are the default mental states of most people most of the time.
But in Peterson's case it must be more than greed. He already has more money than God, and is well into his eighties, so he is not going to live much longer. So why does he care?
MEMORY: They only APPEAR as the so-called default positions because people are forced to adapt to cultures that are not designed with justice, peace, or decency in mind. Much of written history is the struggle, on the part of the disempowered, to acquire access to a few basic human rights, a form of employment that is not degrading, and a capacity to cover basics like food, clothing and shelter.
Until such time as civilization respects those needs, it is premature to talk about human nature's supposed weaknesses. People can be lifted to ideals, or drawn down to degradation. Much occurs in response to the society in which one operates (and the socialization processes that compel the adaptation process).
Is it greed when the young man in the ghetto has no money for food and therefore makes the choice to rip off an easy target? Is it hatred, when the citizen of a nation experiencing occupation for much of his remembered life, projects fury at the invader?
The designs people are forced to live by seldom promote their better natures; however this does not mean the more positive traits do not exist.
If a seed is planted in foul soil it will probably never show its intended fruit.
Hmmm
The notion that the US economy would collapse without a massively overfed military industrial complex is a card that has been played over and over since WWII. Stop the wars means losing your job. Good grief people. What nonsense.
These are the same people screaming that it social security and the Meds that are bankrupting the country. Go to the OMB website. Take a good hard and long look not just at current dollar expenditures but the TRENDS. In other words the direction the spending for a particular aspect of the budget is going (up/down) You will notice that 2 areas of federal spending have skyrocketed over the last 10 years and the TREND is getting worse (higher spending as a percentage of the total budget) These 2 elephants people are NOT social welfare programs (much of which are directly funded by direct taxes annually)
THOSE TWO SPENDING CATEGORIES? DEFENSE/HOMELAND SECURITY AND THE INTEREST ON THE DEBT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is a direct result of allowing zionists to dictate foriegn policy and maintain control of our currency via the FEDERAL RESERVE. Stop the war return the military to the US to defend our borders (which is of course their actual job) And then shut down the FED put the current and former officers of the Reserve Banks on trial for treason. And finally take all the debt incurred when the FED gave out TRILLIONS TO ITS FRIENDS to its rightfull owners the actual owners of the FEDERAL RESERVE BANKS!!! NOT the American people who neither authorized the debt nor received any benefit from it.
Oh, my. Your post was very good until you started in on interest on the debt and the Fed, and then it went HORRIBLY WRONG! I'll just give you a couple of lowlights. The loans that were made by the Fed and Treasury saved ALL our asses from much worse. Nearly all the debt has been paid back. If I remember correctly, people with money are getting barely over 3% for longer term t-bills. The interest on the debt may become important SOMEDAY, but not right now. NOT AT ALL. AND Medicare is one of the big up trajectory spending problems. We must decide the best way to address this. We can do the republican "Kill grandma" plan or something like further "Obamacare" legislation. Hopefully we will get around to Medicare for All, but this will sadly take time.
Oh my. Greg R is still in the Hall of Mirrors. The money 'lent'/borrowed by the US Treasury went directly onto balance sheets as Deposits/Assets to the banks, not 'loans', and the banks then went to the FED to leverage those 'deposits' into Trillions of dollars, creating up to some $70 Trillion in drawing rights, which the banks then used a portion of to 'pay back' the Treasury. Which is why at the time, Paulson made all the Wall Street investment firms into 'banks' - so they could all draw on the Fed.
So, US debt interest payments, which is re-distribution of wealth to the wealthy (as is inflation of property and asset values, which is why banks refuse to lower mortgages) and the Fed, a quasi-Private Bank run solely by and for banksters which controls the nation's money supply (no, the government does not 'print' money, as it should, a la greenbacks, it BORROWS money from the banksters, or treasuries would not exist) ...these are Primary to the current crisis, and not "Horribly Wrong" as issues.
Now, I agree that government spending saved the day for the capitalists... yet again! And the economy was saved from a wholly-capitalist-created financial bloodbath, created in main by former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan, Super-Villain, when he unleashed the rapine instincts of the bankster capitalists, and when he consistently lied-to and deceived the duped-and-corrupted Congress, especially about the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy... the wealthy like billionaire 'public servant' Alan Greenspan.
But now that swift socialist government action has saved the oligarchs' own fortunes, of course, there is 'no more money' for the rabble (in Ayn Rand's term) as Somebody has to take the fall, and take the role of the suckers in the pump-and-dump Con, and it is those with no power who are now being forced to be left holding the bag. No Keynesian spending for THEM. They must take what they are GIVEN or trickled-down on, scrabble for their bread, compete for the crumbs from the Masters' tables though these may groan heavily with rich food.
And yes, grandma is getting bupkis in a savings account at the bank, because the bank can get its money for 0% from the FED; why pay granny. Meanwhile, the rich look for better returns and funnel money into the stock market, pumping That up for themselves.
Or, alternately, they don't mind putting it into the SAFEST place that the global rich can find anywhere... and how about that, this turns out to be the much-maligned-by-right-wingers US GOVERNMENT! They must know something they aren't telling the rest of us. And in fact, they are 'telling' the rest of us the Exact Opposite through their multitude of bought-and-paid-for right-wing-propaganda organs... like the Peterson Institute. They do this to maintain the curent system of financial control and money flow, in which they benefit.
Finally, now-Fed Chairman Bernanke made a strong public point recently to the effect that he will REFUSE to help save the State governments from pauperdom - and what did he mean by that? He meant he will NOT give States the the right to draw on the 0% interest money he gives to banksters. He means the States of "we the people" of the United States will have to continue paying the taxable equivalent of 9.00% interest on interest on interest per annum to the oligarchs and the rich.
So, yes the Fed and the debt are VERY MUCH in the thick ot the crisis.
But no, the Peterson Institute, a right-wing-propaganda-producing FRAUD of the first order, and a billion-dollar tax dodge as well, won't bring up those details. No, it is grandma's Social Security and Medicare that will bankrupt the country when the Greenspan-created grift called the 'trust fund' runs out in thirty years. Peterson sez DOG EAT DOG. Just look where HE got with that filosofy. So why ain't YOU rich, whiner?
By the way, will someone tell me, when did the Pentagon's 'trust fund' run out? Because it doesn't exist. So how does the Pentagon keep running? Hmmm.
.
Actually, from your post, it would seem we agree on more than we disagree. I quite agree with your middle paragraphs. I see things a little differently than you in your first 2 paragraphs. Sure, the rich have immense power and pretty much own the system. That's the way it is. I prefer not to hear much about 'trust fund' talk, whether hysterical or tongue-in-cheek. It's become a sort of cliched right-wing talking point that illuminates nothing.
Greg R,
I'm new here and I'm confused by your posts, What is it with you?
I'm just part of a very confused world.
Somekind of arrangement was made to fleece social secirity during Reagan era and was orchestrated by Friedman ,either to hide certain spending or to force the Congress to agree to ceratin kind of tax break. I am not sure. But the measures taken then by Regan is responsible for the future shortfall.
Come on, Dave, how can even suggest cutting our "defense" budget--and on Memorial Day? Where's your sense of pride, of being an American, in the freest and greatest nation ever in the history of humankind? Does your chest on expand with pride when you see rows of medals on our generals and admirals? Doesn't that make you feel proud? Or would you rather live in China? Dave, I'll forgive you this time because I know you're a decent guy (and I do read all your articles). But remember it's only our military that keeps our safe and prosperous. There are people out there--like Arabs and Mozlems--trying to destroy us and our our way of life. God bless America.
I'm assuming you're lingum's firmly in your bucca. If it's not, it's up your gluteas maximus right now.
Dave Lindorff
www.thiscantbehappening.net
Reaganomics is the policy conjured up by Reagan who had an incapacitated mind, Alzheimer's and whose policies are still the guiding light of both political parties. Meanwhile the politicians and economists can't comprehend why Reaganomics is a failed strategy.
If those are your only choices why not just end it all right now, or perhaps better yet, marijuanacloud.
This is the Roman Empire now. All the rich land and resources are taken by the nobility, and all the jobs are taken by slaves. Conquest abroad goes hand in hand with repression at home. Wealth is increased by plunder or corruption, not initiative and work. The plutocracy can only think of ways to "fix" the system that enrich their cronies. Whatever "free" diagnostic tests they can come up for Medicare patients will no doubt have hidden costs that will be defined as uncovered "treatment" when the patient gets the bill. All the paperwork will be so confusing that the average person will just pay it and stop going to the doctor as often, ..as planned.
In the New American Empire people will either work for a corporation, serve in wars, or ask the government for help and be drug tested. This will increase stock portfolio value for the nobility. The self employed will be taxed while inherited wealth will not.
Wars and environmental degradation will continue so that new areas in the Arctic regions can be plundered and fought over too. Unless things change.
Are you looking forward to Civilization's collapse too?
I know I am. But I don't have a cell phone, or a TV or a car, or a debit card, etc.
Have never bought a TV, haven't watched it since 1975 but I am a dying breed.
I only know a few like me. Change is inevitable, so is death.
So why do people bother worring about having insurance?
I really think that things could change for the better instantly if everyone changed themselves right now.
The Road
IT IS THE WARS!
I told everybody! It's also the tax cuts.
Remember Dick Cheney saying, "Reagan proved deficits don't matter"?
Bullshit. Read any of Kevin Phillips' recent books and he lays it all out as coherent and legible as anybody could possibly do.