As long as you conflate Medicare with Social Security, and then argue that Social Security is unsustainable, you are being a hack.

Steve, for God's sake man, think.

I am, you are the one not thinking. You are being either deliberately obtuse or are innumerate.

The actuarial imbalance issue is about a specific revenue stream. It does not determine the sustainability of Social Security as a governmental expenditure. That is a function of GDP growth, general tax revenues, sustainable share of the budget, etc.

Yes, fine. But there still remains the problem that Social Security spending is probably going to rise as a percentage of GDP. Revenues will not. As such, if other spending remains constant the budget, as a share of GDP, has to rise.

Your new post is in direct contradiction to this information from the CBO. The only way for the budget to not rise as a percentage of GDP is for other parts of the budget to decrease by offsetting amounts.

When you look at Medicare, Social Security, and other federal spending (NOT counting debt service) you see that the idea that federal spending cannot remain at a percentage of GDP that we are currently seeing except in the most optimistic cases (link).

Your belief that current and recent trends will continue forever is at best a dubious assumption and eventually even with zero spending for non-Social Security/Medicare we'd still see federal spending exceeding the current level as a percentage of GDP.

But, it isn't true that other parts of the budget don't decline. As I documented here social spending other than health care has been declining for 30 years.

It is simply put a myth that everything except defense spending is inexorably rising.

You told me you were fair minded... check out my posts on this issue at Bernardfinel.com and tell me where you think I have gone wrong.

Michael, putting in a plug for The Fair Tax isn't spam.

Putting in a plug isn't spam, putting in four plugs in 24 hours is spam.

We are done. If you cannot see that the two halves of your 5:47 pm response directly contradict each other, and that you _are_ saying in the second part that reducing Social Security is the only possible primary way to deal with Medicare, which you call a strawman in the first part, then it is pointless to argue with you any further.

I proudly support The FairTax!

Yes, we've noticed that. Repeatedly. Please stop spamming us.

The comparison is ludicrous. Defense spending is the only major class of government spending I am aware of that has decreased significantly over time - as a fraction of our resources;a s GDP has grown.

SSpending - nope. Its sucking up the defense benefit and is unsustainable. Why is this such a hard concept??

Devolving the observation that defense spending has declined, and is the crutch that has allowed social spending to increase at unsustainable rates, into "you hate defense, I hate SS" is really, really, really weak argumentation. Sand box stuff.

A manager in one of my companies - and we have tough budget debates given the difficult realities of our environment all the time - who gave me that line would be told to sharpen his thinking or pack it up. Competant managers are available.

The actuarial imbalance issue is about a specific revenue stream. It does not determine the sustainability of Social Security as a governmental expenditure. That is a function of GDP growth, general tax revenues, sustainable share of the budget, etc.

Social Security does not HAVE to be paid out of payroll taxes. Money is fungible. The whole actuarial argument thing is about whether Social Security can stay afloat on its own bottom as if it were some separate sort of expenditure. But it isn't. It is a program like any other.

Good grief. This part of it isn't rocket science, though there are a lot of tough issue as you actually beging to work through numbers.

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So go ahead and post what ever rationalization you want. It wont change the projections in terms of expenditures vs. receipts.

Shorter Verdon: Facts don't matter. I've made up my mind.

Good to know.

Medicare is going to start running out of money much sooner than 2041.

fester,

We spent $11 trillion on Iraq last year? Who knew.

You are wrong because if we take all reciepts and all expenditures including Medicare and Social Security there is indeed a problem. Granted the smaller of the two problems is Social Security, but the idea that there isn't a problem is simply not true given various assumptions about where we expect things to go.

So go ahead and post what ever rationalization you want. It wont change the projections in terms of expenditures vs. receipts.

Right, guys like Eugene Steurle and Edward Gramlich...pfft what do they know?

If you begin with the assumption that Social Security is an insurance program and should be assessed according to the same kinds of models, then yes, there are imbalances.

But the issue is one of sustainability. If I told we could continue Social Security unchanged with it consuming the same amount of the federal budget as today and the federal budget consuming the same amount of GDP and the debt/GDP ratio remaining constant, would you agree it was indeed sustainable?

I will demonstrate something very close to this with wholly transparent assumptions. You are free to attack the methods, but arguing that Some Big Name said otherwise is sophomoric. Let's talk fact and figures.