possibly noteworthy wrote:
The last several slides are new to this briefing.

David M. Walker, comptroller general of the United States, at the 2008 Economic Forecast Forum:

The federal government is on a “burning platform,” and the status quo way of doing business is unacceptable.

Growth in Spending for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid Expected to Outpace Economic Growth; State and Local Governments Face Increasing Fiscal Challenges.

Current Fiscal Policy Is Unsustainable:
• The “Status Quo” Is Not an Option
• We face large and growing structural deficits largely due to known demographic trends and rising health care costs.
• GAO’s simulations show that balancing the budget in 2040 could require actions as large as

• Cutting total federal spending by 60 percent or
• Raising federal taxes to two times today's level

• Faster Economic Growth Can Help, but It Cannot Solve the Problem
• Closing the current long-term fiscal gap based on reasonable assumptions would require real average annual economic growth in the double-digit range every year for the next 75 years.
• During the 1990s, the economy grew at an average 3.2 percent per year.
• As a result, we cannot simply grow our way out of this problem. Tough choices will be required.

Are the candidates confronting this issue? Mostly they seem to ramble on about "coverage."

This is hilarious. This data and trending has been available since before 2000. No one touched on it then and no one is going to touch on it now. People just want to hear if they're going to get their entitlement. Fuck everyone else. Fuck the future. This makes Al Gore's work seem almost trite. This is a real problem that we will face within the next 20 years. This is not some statistical apparition that we may or may not see event horizon of in the next 100 years.

The 'good' news is that almost every other country is facing the same problems. The gap in replacement workers to 'beneficiaries' (not exactly the right word to use in places like India or China) is almost universal. The prevalence of chronic illness is pretty much the same worldwide (as a whole) and continues to grow. Those are costs that cannot be avoided. Those are dynamics that you cannot run from. It will take at least one generation to reverse the trend. All you can do is come up with mechanisms to offset those costs somehow or try new ways of managing the situation. The sun will still come up tomorrow whether you want it to or not.

RE: US Financial Condition and Fiscal Future Briefing