How much will it cost to not go broke?

[Borodog]

lehighguy,

The numbers I've heard are that total current Federal obligations are at least $60 trillion, and possibly as high as $100 trillion. And getting higher all the time, of course.

[Moseley]

[ QUOTE ]
lehighguy,

The numbers I've heard are that total current Federal obligations are at least $60 trillion, and possibly as high as $100 trillion. And getting higher all the time, of course.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not quite. The total national debt is approaching 9 trillion.

[T50_Omaha8]

[ QUOTE ]
lehighguy,

The numbers I've heard are that total current Federal obligations are at least $60 trillion, and possibly as high as $100 trillion. And getting higher all the time, of course.

[/ QUOTE ]Of course NOT. This number rises and falls with the interest rate. explanation

This is a favorite number for doomsays to tout, however, because it involves such a long term payment schedule with such short term volatility. It means almost nothing in a practical sense.

[Moseley]

[ QUOTE ]
So your saying $80B a year surpluses from here on out would push of the insolvency date till the trust fund depletion date. How much more to make it actually solvent.

BTW, where are you getting the numbers you referenced, I want to read through them.

[/ QUOTE ]

The university of berkeley had a budget simulator http://www.budgetsim.org/nbs/ webpage, which is down.

You can find it by googling "budget simulator"

When I was toying around with it about a year ago, it was 2017 (if I remember correctly) that SSI would no longer be running a surplus and it was 2035 when the "trust fund" would be depleted.

My 80b a year is only an approx of what it would take to pay back 2 trillion dollars over 67 years at 5% interest.

Before we could start paying back 80b a year, we would first have to increase revenues by approx over 240b a year, which is what we robbed from social security in 2002. See:

http://www.econedlink.org/lessons/in...m?lesson=EM306

and then click on the link to the simulator, scroll to the bottom, where is shows we took in 703b in social security and paid out only 459b.

That is the problem. The lower class has been financing the bulk of the federal budget.

Take the 2002 budget, which was 2052.03 billion, which included social security payouts. Remove that from the equation, and you have a budget of: 1592.80b

SSI payouts totalled 459.5b and we took in 702.9b, leaving a 243.40b surplus.

The total tax revenue was 1164.5b after removing ssi income.

Individual income taxes accounts for 873.2b of that, or 75%.

Corporate taxes accounts for 144.8b, or 12%.

In the early 60's, it was almost a mirror image of the above; individuals paid 12% of the total and corp paid over 80%.

The govt used the ssi excess (243.b) to help paid the budget of 1164.5b, or 21% of it.

So, not only did individuals pay 75% of the total budget thru payroll taxes, but those making 75K or less, paid another 121.5b (1/2 of the 243 is paid by the employer) or 10% of the budget thru the raiding of the social security trust fund.

This should give anyone, with any amount of common sense, a good picture of why the United States of America is corroding from the inside out, just as the Soviet Union did.

It is just a matter of time.

Japan holds more of our debt than any other country in the world, however, China runs a close 2nd and buys more every year than Japan does.

The only reason Japan buys so much of our debt is because of all the concessions we give them. A big one being the fact that we ship the bulk of the oil from the Alaska pipeline to Japan and sell it at a discount.

China is also getting many and will be demanding more as we become more and more dependent upon foreign investment in our debt as our social security surplus evaporates, not to mention if we borrow to pay back the "trust fund."

[The once and future king]

Buy less guns buy more medicine ?

How come when pointing out spending on SS and medicare even ACists dont point out the massive sums spent on "defence".

[Felix_Nietzsche]

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We all know SS and Medicare are actuarialy bankrupt, and we are given rough years when this will happen. What I want to know is how much of a budget surplus we would have to run starting in 2008 in order to make thier 75 year projections actuarially solvent.


[/ QUOTE ]

The SS liabilities could be ZERO with one stroke of a pen. The govt could decide to increase the elgibility age of SS to 95 if they want to. They can also do a 'Bill Clinton' and increase the taxes that SS recipients pay. There are lots of games the govt can do to welch on SS. No problem....

Bush tried to fix SS but the Dems shot it down and bragged about it. Personally I'm glad Bush failed at this. I want SS to die forever-and-ever. It is the worst type of PONZI scheme.... RIH (rest-in-hell) SS. RIH! Lots of [censored] think they will get decent SS benefits when they retire...Not going to happen....

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
lehighguy,

The numbers I've heard are that total current Federal obligations are at least $60 trillion, and possibly as high as $100 trillion. And getting higher all the time, of course.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not quite. The total national debt is approaching 9 trillion.

[/ QUOTE ]

I said obligations, not debt. Total obligations are much, much higher.

[lehighguy]

ACers do complain a lot about defense spending.

I wanted a number. I'm curious to see how much is needed, so we know what steps would need to be taken to bring it in balance. Would ending the Iraq war and cutting military expenditure 80% be enough, or do we need even more.

[lehighguy]

yes yes, I've heard that. That is all in future dollars. I'm talking about how much of a surplus would we need on next years budget on (trust fund not included) to balacne it.

The purpose is to estimate exactely how much of government we would need to cut to not crush the next generation.

[Nielsio]

[ QUOTE ]
We all know SS and Medicare are actuarialy bankrupt, and we are given rough years when this will happen.

What I want to know is how much of a budget surplus we would have to run starting in 2008 in order to make thier 75 year projections actuarially solvent.

Also, since the government already spent the "trust fund" I don't want those fictitious funds included in the calculation.

[/ QUOTE ]


The question to ask statists is not 'whether' the state should continue, but 'how'?
http://www.freedomainradioshows.com/...rough_Debt.mp3