Social Security, Runaway Spending Threatens Economic Stability

Fast forward to present day, 2009, and you have the Obama team working hard to make sure people are diverted with minor issues while we have a huge problem to solve: a Social Security time bomb! The Obama team is very good at diversion. President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said early on “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Well, here’s a crisis. While everyone is focused on the $165 million in retention bonuses to some at AIG, a very real threat to America is being overlooked.

The economic threat is a huge deficit and a generation of Baby Boomers who will fully impact the Social Security system by 2018. Unfortunately, according to the Congressional Budget Office report written in September 2008 before the stimulus and omnibus bill were passed, the CBO report warned that if government spending remained unchanged, in 2018 a horrifying thing would happen. According to the 9/2008 CBO report, “76 cents of every dollar in federal revenue will be spent on retirees and their health care providers, health care providers for the poor, and our bond holders.” How do we craft a national budget if we are crippled with having only 24 cents of every dollar left to spend on national defense, national disasters, education, infrastructure, etc.?

Let’s hope Americans wake up the federal government to this problem and demand they fix it fast, so we don’t have to find out the answer to that nasty problem. Now, how does this horrible scenario in 2018 impact the average Joe? If changes are not made to lessen America’s huge national debt, we could face a lower standard of living.  How? Well, just like when you have a huge credit card bill, your interest rate goes up when you only make minimum payments, and your balance continues increasing. Take what you know of credit cards and apply it to the huge national debt road America is speeding down — continuing to increase our national debt will in all probability strangle our future economic growth with ever-higher interest rates. America has enjoyed being the favorite nation for the Chinese to invest in, but as we ratchet up both our spending and deficit, that favored status may be withdrawn. Chinese premier Wen Jiabao has already expressed dismay and concern at America’s spending; and such comments should give our government pause at the very least. Who is to say when the Chinese will decide it’s not worth the risk to continue investing in America? In addition, the recession is impacting China, and that means they have less money to invest in the U.S.

While Mr. Obama and most Congressional leaders keep trying to distract Americans with other issues, we have a pressing need to address the out-of-control spending being perpetrated by our elected officials. It is time to call and e-mail our leaders alerting them that we know about this problem and demanding that they stop spending America into the ground. Americans around the country are organizing peaceful tax demonstrations. For more information, go to www.taxdayteaparty.com on how to peacefully demonstrate in your local area with a tax tea party and/or join the peaceful protest in Washington, D.C. on April 15. A number of Americans who have joined Glenn Beck’s new website, www.the912project.com are talking about how fed up they are with runaway spending, and what they are doing to make our leaders in Congress and the White House know that now’s the time to stop the wasteful spending and tighten our government’s belt.

Let’s get down to brass tacks and focus on the big money. Let’s get upset and complain loudly to our leaders about the porked up stimulus bill, omnibus bill, Mr. Obama’s $3.6 billion proposed national budget, and the dire Social Security problem.

All this spending points to: you guessed it, higher taxes — for every American, not just the wealthy.

What do you think of the looming Social Security problem and how do you think it can be handled considering Congress has passed a $787 billion stimulus bill and a $410 billion omnibus bill, not to mention the $3.6 billion proposed budget that Mr. Obama is campaigning hard for? What are your thoughts on the runaway spending being done in Congress and approved by Mr. Obama? Let me know what you think by posting a comment below.