(campaign)Speeches ignore pending US debt disaster

[Tsiyu]

From SFGate.com:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/09/12/MNG2S8NOI21.DTL


snip

A pathbreaking study by Jagadeesh Gokhale of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and Kent Smetters, a former deputy assistant secretary at the Treasury -- commissioned by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill -- estimated a $44 trillion fiscal gap. It laid out a few painful options on how to meet the liabilities:

-- More than double the payroll tax, immediately and forever, from 15.3 percent of wages to nearly 32 percent;

-- Raise income taxes by two-thirds, immediately and forever;

-- Cut Social Security and Medicare benefits by 45 percent, immediately and forever;

-- Or eliminate forever all discretionary spending, which includes the military, homeland security, highways, courts, national parks and most of what the federal government does outside of the transfer of payments to the elderly.

Such corrective actions grow more severe each year. Waiting just until 2008, the end of the next presidency, would mean raising the payroll tax to 33. 5 percent instead of 32 percent, the study found.

Gokhale said that fresh numbers from the Medicare trustees show the fiscal gap has since grown to $72 trillion, $10 trillion of that for Social Security and an astonishing $62 trillion for Medicare, the government health care program for the elderly.

snip

Something for DUers to chew on...

[Deja Q]

1. Not to mention 'supply and demand' regarding peak oil...

The previous generation must have been the litmus test. Starting with their hippie ideals and turning into the Reagan monsters, our society also ends with their retiring.

But at least well paying jobs will make a comeback, yes? :eyes:

It's obvious we need a huge paradigm shift.

And what ultimately got us into this mess? Money. Cockroaches, for example, never invented money and they've been around for hundreds of millions of years!

And our foreign investors have us in a chokehold. Just take out their investments and we're toast. (And how will * respond? :scared: )

[bigtree]

2. Kerry has mentioned it in his speeches, as well as his plan to fix it

Statement from John Kerry on the Record Budget Deficit

9/7/2004

GREENSBORO, N.C., Sept. 7 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Sen. John Kerry released the following statement today:

"Only George W. Bush could celebrate over a record budget deficit of $422 billion, a loss of 1.6 million jobs, and Medicare premiums that are up by a record 17 percent. Last week the Bush administration said outsourcing was good, yesterday George Bush said the economy was great, and today George Bush is celebrating a record budget deficit. W. stands for wrong, the wrong direction for America. I have a plan to restore fiscal discipline, rein in out of control spending, and cut the deficit in half in four years."

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=35727

[Deja Q]

5. Uh, the clip you mentioned says nothing of the babyboom generation or

the foreign investors who could see us as a sign of big trouble and pull out.

A Kerry quote directly regarding the problem would be rather better.

[bigtree]

10. An Open Letter to the American Public

...our country, our economy and global stability increasingly vulnerable to changes in sentiments of foreign, or even domestic, investors. At the same time, his policies have exacerbated income inequality, failed to address the real...
http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/pr_2004_0825.pdf

...Confidence and Stability in the U.S. Economy. 90 Percent of the Increase in Federal Debt Since 2001 Has Gone to Foreign Interests: Forty percent of our public debt is now held outside the country—more than 20 percent with China and...
http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/pr_2004_0810a.pdf

[Tsiyu]

6. Thanks for this link bigtree

I know he's talking ( even though we don't get to hear most of what he says) and I'm thankful to those who share....

[izzie]

3. What about women? Has Kerry for got us?

We are usually Dem. and more than 50% of the pop.We Even out number the vets and gun owners, Talk to them about what their kids will pay on the debt.

[bigtree]

7. families

John Kerry's Radio Address to the Nation
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=35668

Over the past three years, we've lost 1.6 million jobs in the United States. And to make matters worse, the new jobs we're creating pay an average of $9,000 less than the ones we've lost. Many of them are part-time, or temporary, and they don't provide any health care or benefits. So today, we're losing good jobs and replacing them with ones that simply don't pay the bills. But, all across America, people who are working are working hard. They are working two jobs, three jobs, they're working weekends, just to get by.

Parents are sitting at kitchen tables and wondering how they're going to make ends meet: How they're going to buy back- to-school clothes this week, and still pay last week's doctor bill. How they're going to make this months mortgage payment, and still cover next semester's tuition. And whether they're going to be able to save for retirement or just have enough left over for a night at the movies. If President Bush thinks this is good enough, then he just doesn't get it. And two nights ago, in New York, he presented an economic plan that will hurt the middle class and working families even more.

[flyingfysh]

4. Bush fired O'Neill

O'Neill tried to bring some common sense to economic policy while he was Tresury secretary, and got fired by Bush for it. He may be a Republican, but he knows how to calculate.

It's all in the Suskind book "The Price of Loyalty".

[olddem43]

8. Time for another tax cut for the rich

to be paid for by the rest of us and our descendants.

[Tsiyu]

9. Yeah, Come November 3rd

If the Chimp in Command gets another chance. I mean, imagine what his liberal spending would do if he had four more years to ride the red train?

[DeepModem Mom]

11. Another DU poster calls this a "reverse inheritance" to our kids...

and grandkids -- an apt term, I think.

[Tsiyu]

12. Truer than true

I can't underatand why Repukes think this is okey dokey. This morning Katie Couric did this inane explanation of the deficit. Happy Cheery Economics from the Elite Media School of I-Dunno-How-To-Do-My-Own-Research-So-I'll-Ask-Rove-For-The-Names-Of-Some-Experts.

Can you say: Gag me with a BIG spoon?