US faces 'difficult' tax choices: Bernanke

[Denny Crane]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100408/ts_alt_afp/useconomybankdeficit_20100408091746

US faces 'difficult' tax choices: Bernanke

by Andrew Beatty
2 hrs 51 mins ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Facing unsustainable budget deficits, the United States will have to make difficult choices between higher taxes and social spending, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said.

Wading into a fiercely contested political debate, Bernanke said trimming the deficit was made more urgent by the rapidly aging US population.

"Inevitably, addressing the fiscal challenges posed by an aging population will require a willingness to make difficult choices," he said according to remarks prepared for delivery in Dallas, Texas.

"To avoid large and unsustainable budget deficits, the nation will ultimately have to choose among higher taxes, modifications to entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, less spending on everything else from education to defense, or some combination of the above."

(more at the link)

 

[Denny Crane]

Hey barfo, you don't like hearing this from me, but how do you respond to Bernanke saying the same thing?

 

[EL PRESIDENTE]

shocked!







who could have seen this coming?

 

[barfo]

Hey barfo, you don't like hearing this from me, but how do you respond to Bernanke saying the same thing?

Don't know that I've ever objected to a statement like that. We all know that we've got a problem with the entitlement programs as we baby boomers get old. Where we disagree is which solution to implement, not about the nature of the problem, I think.

barfo

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

shocked! who could have seen this coming?

Everybody saw this coming. Obama, Pelosi & Reid certainly did. But they destroyed our debt permanently anyway. The next step will either be insolvency or a tax load that is unbearable. And then, we get to start new taxes to pay for Obamacare on top of that.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, it's gonna be a fun place to try and live in, these here United States.

Maybe we should adopt Maris's political ideals and just go commie.

 

[Denny Crane]

The solution in play seems to be spend enormous sums of money on anything but the programs that need the help (or the states facing financial crises).

Ever stop to think what $700B a year would buy when it comes to paying off Social Security owed/owned T-Bills? That kind of money pays for nearly everyone who's on social security now.

Or how much health insurance that would buy? If we're spending $2.2T today and ~10% are uninsured, then 10% of $2.2T is $220B leaving almost $500B of that $700B left over.

Where do I come up with $700B/year? That is how much the debt payments will increase by the end of Obama's budgets.

http://startthinkingright.wordpress...-sets-record-with-biggest-deficit-in-history/

In its report last week, the CBO predicted that the government debt held by investors would climb from $7.5 trillion at the end of last year to $20.3 trillion in 2020. CBO forecast that interest payments would more than quadruple from a projected $209 billion this year to $916 billion annually by the end of the decade.