April 23, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson issued the following statement reacting to the latest Social Security and Medicare Trustees Report:
“It is no surprise that particularly the Social Security program has lost three years off the life of its trust fund in a single year. Obama and Congress foolishly underfunded the program by $95 billion with its election year extension of the so-called payroll tax holiday. They are consciously facilitating the bankruptcy of the program. Now the program’s trust fund will be exhausted three years sooner in 2033, at which point, benefits will be cut sharply.
“In particular trouble is Social Security’s disability program, according to the Trustees. The trouble with that program is systemic more than anything, as Congress has so dramatically expanded the definition of disability it now costs over $125 billion annually.
“Medicare is even worse off, with its trust fund set to be exhausted in 2024. This is hardly surprising, too, considering how Obamacare’s expansion of millions on to the Medicaid rolls and into the taxpayer-subsidized insurance exchanges was paid for in large part by cutting $500 billion from Medicare over ten years. But even without Obamacare, Medicare would still be in dire straits. Like the other entitlement programs, it has promised far more than can be delivered on a sustainable basis.
“All of these programs are lies that promise too much. The trillions of contingent liabilities in these programs are not even factored into our current $15.6 trillion national debt, which is already larger than our entire economy. If those contingent liabilities in entitlements were included, it would be trillions more still in debts that cannot be repaid, only refinanced.
“No nation can long sustain itself when it offers more in benefits than it collects via revenue. Borrowing to fill in the shortfall is only a temporary stopgap measure, and in the end this system will collapse because we cannot tax at a high enough rate to save these programs. When we needed real reform to our nation’s finances, all we got from Obama was a hastening of our national decline.”
Attachments:
“Defining Disability Down,” ALG Chairman Howard Rich, Wall Street Journal, April 16, 2012 at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304299304577346341282507300.html
Interview Availability: Please contact Rebekah Rast at (703) 383-0880 or at rrast@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.
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