I really am looking for an answer to the question. However, before you can answer, you probably need more information. Such as, "Well, what are you talking about?" It's a fair question. Let me explain.
This morning, I was watching Morning Schmoe because, like most Americans, I have developed an acutely short attention span. Apparently, the actuarial reports on the health of Medicare and Social Security were released today. During the segment I was watching, they mentioned that Medicare funds run out in 2024, which I believe is unchanged. The Social Security trust fund's so-called "drop-dead" date, on the other hand has been moved up to 2033.
The people on the set all seemed to agree that the reason for this "disastrous news" is that the lackluster economy has continued to depress revenues into these programs. The answer, therefore, should be obvious, right?
Joe Doucheborough, quite matter-of-factly, stated the obvious. That Payroll taxes would need to be raised a little, and there needed to be a gradual increase in the eligibility age for these programs. Forget for the moment that payroll taxes have been cut for the past two years. Ignore the fact that the current cap of $110,000 subject to the tax is lower than the level that would be equivalent to the current 90th percentile as stipulated in the Social Security reform created by President Reagan and Speaker Tip O'Neill. Dismiss the billions in income that is not payroll due to the carried interest loophole.
Let me restate the issue. The revenue flowing into Social Security and Medicare is down due to the poor economy. The obvious remedy is to cut the programs? Why isn't the obvious remedy to boost the economy?
Twelve years ago, our annual budget was in surplus to the tune of triple digit billions of dollars. Alan Greenspan, atoning for the sin of not lowering interest rates fast enough in 1992 for George H. W. Bush to keep his job, warned us about paying off our 5-plus trillion dollar deficit too soon so that 43 could pass his precious tax cut. Over the next eight years we nearly doubled debt that took over 200 years to incur and nobody said, "Boo!"
We cannot restore the revenue stream of the Clinton years, because that would be Socialism. This, despite the fact that the "Bush Tax Cuts" were purposely temporary to hide the costs.
Why is it that when history shows us from The Great Depression that stimulus works, and that austerity almost killed our recovery in 1936-37, when conservative economist and Milton Friedman and Socialist Icon President Richard M. Nixon acknowledged that we are all Keynesians now, when President Clinton's "tax and spend" policies gave us our first surpluses in decades, and when Europe's current austerity agenda is proving the folly of conservative fiscal policy the answer to our problems is to cut more?
WHAT AM I MISSING?