Although we are currently $15 trillion in debt, the forecast of our economic future is bleak. Recently, a
report was published that looked at the future liabilities to future revenue to be $222 trillion:
The U.S. fiscal gap, calculated (by us) using the
Congressional Budget Office’s realistic long-term budget
forecast -- the Alternative Fiscal Scenario -- is now $222
trillion. Last year, it was $211 trillion. The $11 trillion
difference -- this year’s true federal deficit -- is 10 times
larger than the official deficit and roughly as large as the
entire stock of official debt in public hands.
This fantastic and dangerous growth in the fiscal gap is
not new. In 2003 and 2004, the economists
Alan Auerbach and
William Gale extended the CBO’s short-term forecast and measured
fiscal gaps of $60 trillion and $86 trillion, respectively. In
2007, the first year the CBO produced the Alternative Fiscal
Scenario, the gap, by our reckoning, stood at $175 trillion. By
2009, when the CBO began reporting the AFS annually, the gap was
$184 trillion. In 2010, it was $202 trillion, followed by $211
trillion in 2011 and $222 trillion in 2012.
The ultimate issue of this election and beyond is the question of how mature are we going to be about the economy. Are we going to take the economy seriously and handle these issues like adults or are we going to be immature about it? Adults deal with serious issues in a mature way and take a long term perspective in dealing with problems and has a willingness to make tough and painful decisions. Being immature means taking a short sighted view of the problem and only considering our wants at the present moment regardless of how it affects others.
Mitt Romney picking
Paul Ryan as his running mate for 2012 is a call for a serious discussion about our nation's economy. More specifically, we need to have a serious discussion about our entitlement programs. Voters will be learning alot about Paul Ryan's “
Roadmap” to prosperity plan which is a fabulous plan to reduce our national debt and reform our entitlement programs. Here's a brief
synopsis of his plan:
1) It would spend $40.135 trillion over 10 years, compared with
the $46.959 trillion the White House said its budget would spend over 10
years.
2) It would bring in $37.008 trillion in tax revenue over 10 years, compared with $40.274 trillion in the White House plan.
3) Lowers tax rates and cuts tax breaks. But the report doesn’t
say which tax breaks would be targeted for new limits or elimination.
4) Overturns the White House’s health care law and replaces it
with changes. New Medicare rules would not go into effect for those
already using the program or about to qualify for benefits. They would
be able to use the existing program.
5) On Medicare, it would give Americans a choice to enroll in a
Medicare-type plan. The government would subsidize part of the payments
for private-run insurance plans. Mr. Ryan believes this competition
between firms “will help ensure guaranteed affordability.” For the poor
or those with more health risks, Medicare would offer additional
assistance.
6) The Medicare piece is perhaps the biggest flashpoint in the
entire plan. The White House and Democrats have said it would gut
benefits for seniors, and even former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney
has kept some distance from it.
7) On Medicaid, the budget would turn it into a federal block
grant program, “thus freeing states to tailor their Medicaid programs to
the unique needs of their own populations.”
8) The plan offers no details for changes to Social Security,
other than calling on Congress and the White House to pursue
modifications to it.
9) On taxes, the plan calls for two individual income tax rates –
10% and 25%. It also proposes “clearing out the burdensome tangle of
loopholes that distort economic activity,” but it doesn’t identify which
ones should be cut.
10) It calls for overhauling the corporate tax code by gutting exemptions and lowering the top corporate rate from 35% to 25%.
11) The Ryan budget would reduce the deficit to just 3% of gross
domestic product by fiscal year 2014, three years faster than the White
House estimated its plan would reach that level. For comparison, the
deficit is expected to be $1.2 trillion this year, 7.8% of GDP.
12) The Ryan budget would not, at least according to its 10-year
window, balance the budget, as tax revenue would always lag behind
spending.
We cannot have it both ways. It is clear that Americans are conflicted and inconsistent on what to do about entitlement programs. This election will require the voters to make up its mind in dealing with the entitlement programs that drive up our national debt.
Democrats, liberals and progressives have absolutely
zero interest in reforming our entitlement programs because they believe in
redistribution of wealth despite the fact soaking the rich
cannot sustain the way our government
operates right now. They are in
denial that social security is having
problems. Instead, their solution is to preserve the entitlement programs as they are now and make
deep cuts in other programs. This plan will not work because no matter how much you cut in other programs, the amount we spend in entitlement programs is
larger than what we spend in other programs.
Democrats have already gone on the offensive by engaging in "
Mediscare" attacks on Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. Both men have already
defended their position on reforming Medicare and other entitlement programs.
The effect of these Mediscare attacks on
this election remains to be seen but the effects of these attacks isn't as important as what it reveals about the democratic party. The Democratic party wants to keep the public from acting like adults in addressing our nation's economic problems. That's why they have make complete
lies about Republicans wanting to end Medicare in order to keep the voters from having the confidence to make the tough decisions that we need to make. Democrats know that a large majority of Americans are on these programs, that they are dependent on these programs even though some or most don't want to be but that due to the poor economy and that they get extra money, they don't want to let go of these benefits. They also know that if the voters can vote themselves to get benefits, they will vote for the party that will deliver it to them.
Obama and the Democratic party have not been responsible in managing the economy and they don't want you to keep them responsible for it. Unemployment is above 8%, our deficit is exploding, they have not passed a budget since Obama has been in office and the President hasn't meet with his economic advisors for a while now.
Mitt Romney picking
Paul Ryan as his running mate for 2012 is a call for a serious discussion about our nation's economy. That discussion starts with the American people looking introspectively and asking themselves if they are mature and adult enough in making the necessary cuts, reforms and changes to fix the problem. That also means accepting the the truth is that as much as Washington D.C. is the problem, we are also the problem if we cannot face these problems maturely. We get the government we deserve since our political leaders come from our communities to our nation's capital. Plato is to have said, “The
states are as the men are. They grow out of human characters.”
As a result, the central question of the 2012 election will be: are we mature enough to make the tough choices ahead? If we are, then the mature choice in this election is to vote for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.
