David M Walker

[akarunway 1]

Bush ain't fired him yet?>http://apnews.myway.com/article/20061028/D8L1OC5G0.html

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

[Samurai136 0]

Did you read the whole article?

Quote

"He can speak forthrightly and independently because his job is not in jeopardy if he tells the truth," said Isabel V. Sawhill, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution.

Walker can talk in public about the nation's impending fiscal crisis because he has one of the most secure jobs in Washington. As comptroller general of the United States - basically, the government's chief accountant - he is serving a 15-year term that runs through 2013.

"Buttons aren't toys." - Trillian
Ken

[Gawain 0]

Quote

And though the federal debt has grown in dollar terms since 2001, it hasn't grown dramatically relative to the size of the economy.

But that's about to change, thanks to the country's three big entitlement programs - Social Security, Medicaid and especially Medicare. Medicaid and Medicare have grown progressively more expensive as the cost of health care has dramatically outpaced inflation over the past 30 years, a trend that is expected to continue for at least another decade or two.

And with the first baby boomers becoming eligible for Social Security in 2008 and for Medicare in 2011, the expenses of those two programs are about to increase dramatically due to demographic pressures. People are also living longer, which makes any program that provides benefits to retirees more expensive.

There's the root right there. Social Programs.

Do we get rid of them? No. Do we need to change them so they are no longer a political lightning rod? Yes.

Quote

Medicare so dominates the nation's fiscal future that some economists believe health care reform, rather than budget measures, is the best way to attack the problem.

"Obviously health care is a mess," says Dean Baker, a liberal economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington think tank. "No one's been willing to touch it, but that's what I see as front and center."

If people are willing to work longer, they need to then decide to change their mind-set from that of "entitlement from society" to that of "contribution to society".

The cost of the programs will always go up. The cost of operating them will hold potential to be a way to save significantly on it. Process and product re-engineering will be required. There must be a paring down of choices as well. Cover the basics and devise a plan to provide a contributary option as well.

No more free rides.

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[kallend 2,151]

Quote

Quote

And though the federal debt has grown in dollar terms since 2001, it hasn't grown dramatically relative to the size of the economy.

But that's about to change, thanks to the country's three big entitlement programs - Social Security, Medicaid and especially Medicare. Medicaid and Medicare have grown progressively more expensive as the cost of health care has dramatically outpaced inflation over the past 30 years, a trend that is expected to continue for at least another decade or two.

And with the first baby boomers becoming eligible for Social Security in 2008 and for Medicare in 2011, the expenses of those two programs are about to increase dramatically due to demographic pressures. People are also living longer, which makes any program that provides benefits to retirees more expensive.

There's the root right there. Social Programs.

Do we get rid of them? No. Do we need to change them so they are no longer a political lightning rod? Yes.

Quote

Medicare so dominates the nation's fiscal future that some economists believe health care reform, rather than budget measures, is the best way to attack the problem.

"Obviously health care is a mess," says Dean Baker, a liberal economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington think tank. "No one's been willing to touch it, but that's what I see as front and center."

If people are willing to work longer, they need to then decide to change their mind-set from that of "entitlement from society" to that of "contribution to society".

The cost of the programs will always go up. The cost of operating them will hold potential to be a way to save significantly on it. Process and product re-engineering will be required. There must be a paring down of choices as well. Cover the basics and devise a plan to provide a contributary option as well.

No more free rides.

Well, one might argue that Medicare benefits the people of the USA, whereas wasting $1trillion invading Iraq has just made the USA AND the Iraqis worse off.

The current political climate doesn't help. Washington tends to keep its fiscal house in better order when one party controls Congress and the other is in the White House, says Sawhill.

"It's kind of a paradoxical result. Your commonsense logic would tell you if one party is in control of everything they should be able to take action," Sawhill says.

But the last six years of Republican rule have produced tax cuts, record spending increases and a Medicare prescription drug plan that has been widely criticized as fiscally unsound. When President Clinton faced a Republican Congress during the 1990s, spending limits and other legislative tools helped produce a surplus.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.