The Fiscal Entitlement Cliff
October 18, 2012 § Leave a Comment
The U.S. Census Bureau says 108 million Americans live in households where at least one person participates in a means-tested program. We estimate that 80 million are the primary recipients….
Since the president took office:
• Medicaid is up from 46.9 million to 56 million people.
• Disability beneficiaries are up from 7.5 million to 8.8 million.
• The food stamp program has grown from 32 million Americans to 47 million.
Add to that 80 million beneficiaries 40 million Americans age 65 or older on Social Security and Medicare (9 million of the 49 million on Medicare, including some under age 65, also receive means-tested benefits).
That 120 million does not include the numerous smaller entitlement programs.
Put them all together, and a number approaching half of the country participates in an entitlement program.
Now add in the 16 million new Medicaid beneficiaries, thanks to ObamaCare, plus an estimated 12 million people who enter the health insurance exchanges by 2014, where most will receive federal subsidies.
The budget implications of these programs are huge. For fiscal 2012, America spent $2.2 trillion of its $3.7 trillion budget on entitlement programs — $400 billion less than the $2.6 trillion in gross annual revenues.
Oh, and interest on the federal debt was $220 billion.
Thus, the cost of entitlement programs plus interest on the debt are nearly equal to total federal revenues today.
Virtually everything else the government does is with borrowed, or printed, money.
via Investors.com.
I realize that this is all a little hard to understand for a lot of people. So to put it in easy to understand terms:
This is like living on a credit card — spending 50% more money than you actually earn — and then dying and leaving the bill for your kids.
