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Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience
So within a year of passing the massive medicare drug benefit the GOP will turn around and say, "Actually, we've got to cut this." Yeah, that's politically viable for Congress (who won't be free of the yoke of future electability).
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Reform and cutting are not the same thing. Reform = restructure to make more efficient/less costly. And I'm not focused on the drug benefit per se, but rather the system as a whole.
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Should we go the way of privatization, the transition to private accounts is going to cost us significantly more money than we currently pay into SS (estimated $2-3 trillion over the next 20 years). This is because the creation of the private accounts for current SS contributors will cut off the revenues which are being used to pay the current retirees (SS being a bit of a Ponzi scheme and all). I haven't crunched the numbers, but I would think there would have to be a significant increase in retirement age to offset that and provide some savings. Like, decades.
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Increase retirement age = reduction in budgeted obligations.
This is not an all or nothing proposition, and it is not meant as a short term fix. It would be phased in slowly over time.
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So we're left with "cutting pork", something no one has found a way to do much of even with both houses of the Congress and the WH in the same party's control.
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Yes. Point being?
