This is from the CBO: We will keep having this debt crisis every 6 months with the way it is going. The biggest problem is obviously healthcare: As it grows faster than any other costs. With the US population aging the only way to stop this greatly decrease the costs associated with it. The whole republican debt crisis is kind of dumb, but long term the way the US government is operating can't continue. The GDP growth is not large enough to sustain that kind of debt growth.
Or they can quit spending money on heathcare, and it would be part of the GDP instead of being counted against it. Just saying.
Maybe record low tax rates aren't the best idea after all. Maybe 10 year ago, instead of spending 4-6 trillion dollars on Iraq/Afghanistan, we had not? Or how about instead of spending that 4-6 trillion, we subsidized college educations and relieved the millions of young people who have a combined 1 trillion in student debt. I don't know about other young professionals, but if I didn't have my student debt, I would be well into buying my first home or starting my own business. The Republicans straight ****ed us.
There is no reason to look at retirement age as a long term budget "budget Issue." This is done by rightists and Wall Street investor type enemies of the social security system. They are trying to talk folks out of their social security or allowing the "chained cpi" which would be another tremendous transfer of money from the 99% to the .1%. As an aside GOP types only care about the budget deficit when Dems are in office. Both Dubya and Reagan deliberately ran up huge deficits so that Dems could be told to clean the deficits up. Clinton who had the advantage of a rapidly growing economy and tax increases of course actually created a surplus which Dubya got rid of with tax cuts largely for the 1%.
I know you lean left, and I somewhat agree with your criticism. What are your solutions to this looming problem other than raising taxes (I just assumed this)?
People are already having trouble getting jobs at 50 now you change it to 70? It doesn't matter what is done is done. However we need to figure out how to get spending aligned with revenue. Simply cutting the taxes for the 1% like the republicans want to do is not going to work. However increasing spending the way we have with Obama is also not going to work either. Obviously we had the worst collapse since the great depression, but we aren't cutting costs the way we need to be. Furthermore we are giving corporation some huge breaks and they are simply just pocketing the money. I think we need to introduce policies that incentives companies to hire people in the US.
People live longer. Life expectancy has increased from 61.7 to 78.7 years since 1935. I don't see why this shouldn't be looked at.
LOL That's Rich! Glynch leans so far to the left that he fell over and rolled right past Bernie Sanders!
This problem would be worse right now if all the 69 year olds were still trying to get by in the workforce.
That is incorrect. People above 50 have the lowest unemployment rate. http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea10.htm Also, I didn't say 70. I don't know what it needs to be changed to.
How is that fair to students who worked through high school and college and graduated college with little or no student debt?
We should increase inheritance taxes, big time. I don't know what this will do for US federal debt but I don't like trust-funders.
The participation rate for 50-54 year olds is 78.2% over 55 its 40.1%. If that participation rate rate was closer to 60% what do you think the UE rate for people over 55 would be?
I was just looking at all the trusts out there. It's a little daunting, but I think the Intentionally Defective Grantor Trust is what you would want to target and not the inheritance tax.
http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_303.htm Overall participation rates have decline since 1990. From what I can tell it is due to younger people staying in school longer. The rates have increased a good bit for the older age group over the past couple of decades. The 55-59 range is about 73.7% which is 8.6% points more than the total participation rate. However, they fall off a cliff in the 60-64 range. Ages 60-61 drop to 67.4% and ages 62-64 drop to 54.6%. Also, simply looking at the over 55 rate of 40.1% is misleading since people mostly retire at 65 now. The people above 65 skews that overall rate much lower. Lastly, I have no idea what the unemployment rate would be for that age group, but I suspect it would be low.
You are right it is misleading. The participation rate between 60-64 is 54.5%. That is a huge drop from 78.2%. Again supposed participation rate went to 60% what would the unemployment rate be. Would all those people over 60 and less than 64 get jobs. There is rampant age discrimination in America. I think a lot of them would have trouble getting jobs. You would just make it worse by increasing the employment pool by increasing the age requirements.
That depends. Not everyone can be roofer or laborer at that age. There are limited openings for greeters at Wal Mart. This idea tends to be popular with younger folks or office workers. It is pushed by a lot of very rich and often older folks who have light jobs. As a self employed lawyer I may very well work to 70 or even older. That does not mean that this idea makes any realistic sense for many of my working class clients. The alternative might mean that (gasp) we have to return to the tax rates of the 1960's and 1970's and have some minor supplement to the ss funds. It might lead to the 1% having less of the pie.
