I am puzzled about the phrase, "excess spending growth in old-age benefit programs." It seems to me the problem is insuffinet revenue growth, not surprising because these programs are funded with hard-to-increase wage taxes instead of a VAT.
1) nothing will be done. Anyone whose ever tried to reform this has wasted political capital while accomplishing nothing
2) if you somehow did reform it, I suspect we’d find some other dumb thing to waste money on (probably dumber then just giving people checks, at least they buy things they want with that).
3) we will issue as much debt as we can get away with. If it’s ever more then we can get away with that’s when these thing will be reformed (defaulted on). Not before.
4) the problem (leaving aside how our medical sector works) is that people aren’t having enough kids. I would focus more efforts (and money) on that if you want a real long term solution
I think more attention should be paid to the increase in Supplemental Income wasted on those who are able but choose not to work and not on those who have worked their whole lives. We should reward the latter as opposed to the former.
I am puzzled about the phrase, "excess spending growth in old-age benefit programs." It seems to me the problem is insuffinet revenue growth, not surprising because these programs are funded with hard-to-increase wage taxes instead of a VAT.
1) nothing will be done. Anyone whose ever tried to reform this has wasted political capital while accomplishing nothing
2) if you somehow did reform it, I suspect we’d find some other dumb thing to waste money on (probably dumber then just giving people checks, at least they buy things they want with that).
3) we will issue as much debt as we can get away with. If it’s ever more then we can get away with that’s when these thing will be reformed (defaulted on). Not before.
4) the problem (leaving aside how our medical sector works) is that people aren’t having enough kids. I would focus more efforts (and money) on that if you want a real long term solution
Reforming how they are funded. A wage tax is a bad way to transfer income to people at specific cycle cycle/life circumstances. We need a VAT.
I think more attention should be paid to the increase in Supplemental Income wasted on those who are able but choose not to work and not on those who have worked their whole lives. We should reward the latter as opposed to the former.