_ of the US. For instance, Germany "is sill looking at a 60 percent
* long-run payroll tax rate to fund the combination of old age pensions,
_ health care, long-term care, accident insurance and disability" promised
_ by the current government rules. This is before any other government
* spending. No matter what reforms are enacted, there are going to
_ be some unhappy campers in Germany in the coming decades. Either
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_ and Medicare/Medicaid, the number runs to somewhere around $45 trillion.
* Without any reform that number grows to $54 billion by 2008. Future
_ generations of tax-payers (read the young) are going to be left with
* this debt. Of course, they are things we could do to solve the problem.
_ In order to achieve current solvency, the government could simply
* raise payroll taxes by 69%, beginning today. Alternatively the government
_ could cut Social Security and non-Medicare outlays by 45% immediately
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_ There are no easy solutions or pain free way out. Part of the problem
* keeping us from reform is that the distance between the two political
_ parties is so vast, and neither party wants to talk about the very
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_ we now have. Even if we were to gradually do it, it would mean gradual
* tax increases or more government debt. But taking the Al Gore approach
_ (do nothing) means that future generations are going to have to cough
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_ they have been promised, and in full. Social Security's Old Age Insurance
* payroll tax is eliminated and replaced with equivalent compulsory
_ contributions to something they call a Personal Security System (PSS)
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_ bonds and real estate from every major stock market. A new federal
* retails sales tax is used to pay off the accrued retirement benefits
_ owed under the old system. To eliminate the dramatic unfairness in
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_ he is no liberal. He helped found the National Taxpayers Union and
* is no proponent of big government or taxes. The national sales tax
_ they propose to deal with the accumulated benefits already due to
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_ stop receiving benefits. They then follow this up with reasons why
* the sales tax is not really all that regressive, is certainly better
_ than the current situation and so on. They explain why they use a
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_ with all the currency problems and other issues? As bad as the US
* debt may look, do we want to invest in a Europe where it is at least
_ twice as bad? Are there better ways to solve the problem? Maybe,
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_ out, it is immoral to obligate future generations - our children
* - to pay for our debts. Of course, putting off the solution simply
_ guarantees the problem to be worse in the future, and more expensive
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_ down spending. But even if the entire plan, or some form of it, were
* adopted, that only solves about 20% of the long term debt problem.
_ The real and massive problem is Medicare and Medicaid. Without going
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_ might only be a few thousand. Their math shows this would save another
* $27 trillion. They would balance the rest of the future debt by a
_ combination of tax increases and limits on federal spending. Social
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_ simply grow ourselves out of. Yes, the study which shows the $45
* trillion debt assumes over time that we will be spending up to 30%
_ of our GDP on health care, which I seriously doubt is possible. There
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_ going to have to come up with the resources to pay for a burgeoning
* cohort of retirees. Under their plan, taxes and government debt do
_ not rise nearly as much as if we do nothing, but it is not without
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_ decade or put off into the future, when that time comes, it is going
* to mean a decrease in the available funds for consumer spending,
_ whether one time or gradual. Doing nothing is going to mean a significant
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_ and other creative solutions are part of their recommendations, some
* as simple as owning your own home free of debt. Frankly, the point
_ of the book is NOT their proposed solutions, but their very convincing
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_ fit,-1,doc.wc,1,*,debt,reform,sales tax,payroll tax,consumer spending,
