Maybe Washington should have listened to the so-called “extremists” decades ago. Right again. — Ed.
Social Security and Medicareare fading even faster under the weight of the recession, heading forinsolvency years sooner than previously expected, the government warnedTuesday. Social Securitywill start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in2016, a year sooner than projected last year, and the giant trust fundwill be depleted by 2037, four years sooner, trustees reported.
Medicareis in even worse shape. The trustees said the program for hospitalexpenses will pay out more in benefits than it collects this year, justas it did for the first time in 2008. The trustees project that theMedicare fund will be depleted by 2017, two years earlier than the dateprojected in last year’s report.
The trust funds — which exist in paper form in a filing cabinet inParkersburg, W.Va. — are bonds that are backed by the government’s”full faith and credit” but not by any actual assets. That money hasbeen spent over the years to fund other parts of government. To redeemthe trust fund bonds, the government would have to borrow in public debt markets or raise taxes.
Treasury Secretary TimothyGeithner, the head of the trustees group, said the new reports were areminder that “the longer we wait to address the long-term solvency ofMedicare and Social Security, the sooner those challenges will be uponus and the harder the options will be.”
Geithnersaid that President Barack Obama was committed to working with Congressto find ways to control runaway growth in both public and private health care expenditures, noting the promise Monday by major health care providers to trim costs by $2 trillion over the next decade.
However,Republicans pointed to the newly dire assessments as evidence the Obamaadministration has failed to come forward with actual entitlementreform to close the funding gaps.