On the recordJune 23, 2022
I am going to try something tonight because I am very, very concerned this place isn't paying attention to the numbers and how much trouble I believe we are in. My argument and my thesis is very simple: If I am wrong, I am wrong; but if I am right and this place didn't prepare because of the numbers we are seeing, then we will damage the people, we will damage the economics, we will damage the country, and we will damage our future. We are not taking it seriously enough on how the numbers are eroding and how fast--how fast--the numbers are eroding around us economically. Now, originally, this was going to be a 1-hour presentation. Now it looks like I have 22 minutes because of the tyranny of the clock, so I will try not go too fast, and I promise I will dispose of some of the boards. As always, wave at me if I start rambling at high rates of speed. {time} 2140 This is our baseline. The problem is this chart is now a year and a half old and the numbers are much worse. The reality, 29 years from now, CBO--this isn't some off group; this is our Congressional Budget Office-- functionally says we have $112 trillion. My back of the napkin now says $120 trillion of publicly borrowed debt in today's dollars, not inflated dollars. Functionally, 75 percent of that debt is Medicare. Twenty-five percent is Social Security. The rest of the budget is in balance. Well, what happens to Medicare particularly when you start having inflation like we do?…
