In response to:
I agree that SS/Medicare/Medicaid cannot go on as they are and must be reformed, but I believe that they can be brought back to soundness simply by raising the retirement age by between 5-7 years over the next three decades and giving a healthy bump to the withholding limits outside of the COLA process. The Ryan 'solution' is motivated by an ideological loathing of SS/Medicare/Medicaid.
A version of this column appeared originally in THE DAILY BEAST
What does President Obama plan to do to slow or stop the explosive growth in the number of Americans who count on regular welfare checks from the federal government?
Does he consider the expansion of dependent households a positive achievement for his administration or a threat to the long-term vigor of the economy?
These distinctly uncomfortable questions pose a potent threat to an embattled administration already struggling to defend its record of economic management and to secure the president’s reelection. All answers...
Worse still BY FAR, 76 million Baby Boomers are starting to retire and the piggy bank is already drained.
It is NOT an ideological loathing of SS/Medicare, but instead a loathing of the shell game perpetrated on the people.
YOUR S.S. $ has already been spent-- but NOT on your Mom-- on bridges to nowhere, foreign aid, etc.