The Washington Times is running a 5-part series about America's aging problem. Today's paper has the first installment. Excerpt (talking about paying for Social Security and other age "entitlements"):
Tough choices
The basic options are: one, scale back the promises made; two, raise taxes to unprecedented levels -- say, twice what they are now; or three, incur astronomical deficits.
Tax increases alone probably won't work, especially if Medicare and Medicaid approach 20 percent of GDP.
"We'd have to double everything," Mr. Holtz-Eakin says, citing the income tax, payroll tax and gas tax.
And deficits aren't an answer, Mr. Bixby says, because that's just putting the burden off a little while.
Mr. Walker predicts that the eligibility age for both Medicare and Social Security likely will be raised in coming years.
