Lets put away 102 Trillion dollars this week...

I should be studying for my theories of democracy final but this is too much fun...

Jason responds again:

How can you say that it's not true with any certainty? These programs will be consuming almost 20% of GDP in 30 years. The current budget, not including bailouts, is around 21% of GDP. You're talking about adding another entitlement to these boondoogles programs.

It doesn't make any sense.

I believe markets work.

And I'm assuming we're speaking to the medicare issue and the market competition that the government can bring via a plan you can buy into as the entitlement you are speaking of?

Does anyone really believe cutting into profit margins of other firms doesn't lower costs and makes markets more efficient?

Does anyone believe that government purchasing power won't lower costs of medicare by providing cheaper drugs? We're not currently allowed to negotiate prices by purchasing in bulk thanks to Republicans.

We have to waste revenue subsidizing private companies who already get protectionism from patents. I'm on board with getting rid of wasteful spending--who isn't by the by?

If one doesn't think purchasing power would push down costs why is the purchasing power of walmart so effective for lowering costs?

Also note a clever chess move in the NCPA study Jason cites...

"Looking indefinitely into the future, anticipated benefits, over and above expected premiums and dedicated tax revenues, amount to $102 trillion. This is about 7 times the size of the U.S. economy. It is the amount the government needs to have set aside today, invested and earning interest, to fund these programs indefinitely"

Look at social security... its set up so the workforce today is paying for the current benefits going out. So its a straw man to say anyone is arguing we put all that money away today.

And once again... are there any other government programs we project 70 years into the future? Why not project the military expenditures for the next 1000 years? Might as well throw up the white flag, cut and run so to speak... we can't afford it.

I don't know of anyone saying we save all of it up today? Err... aside from ncpa. No wonder they are worried about it... (on second reading my hyperbole doesn't work... of coarse they don't.)

update: also check this... they state:

Congress often passes legislation that benefits current generations by imposing costs on future ones — Social
Security and Medicare are prominent examples.

Question... are there any government programs whose sole goal is to benifit future generations?

In what democracy could a politician possibly get elected by saying: "We need to spend x amount of dollars so that every child in 2085 has a robot of their own--I don't care about helping citizens today... we need to think about our future first." Whose gonna vote for that? People are greedy and selfish (i.e. people work on incentives--the reason markets work so effectively).

Obviously the social security surplus was about thinking about the future... but it was for the future in the sense that its our economic sustainability that is important--and people do have incentives to give a decent quality of life to their kids...