Tina Smith: “well, here it is, Social Security is taking a big hunk out of the total Federal budget. Twenty percent of the total…”

“well, here it is, Social Security is taking a big hunk out of the total Federal budget. Twenty percent of the total Federal budget goes into Social Security. We match defense, the domestic discretionary; it is one of the largest expenditures we have. Medicare is smaller than Social Security, but the cost of Medicare is growing very rapidly. Right now, if we include Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, it represents a little over 7 percent of the total economy of the United States, a little over 7 percent of GDP; and see the projection over the next 30 years, it is going to double as a percentage of GDP. So it eats up that much more of the total finances that are available to the Federal Government, and it should be easy to project the fact that to accommodate that doubling of cost, of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, we are going to either have to substantially increase taxes or we are going to have to substantially increase borrowing. My guess is that we are not going to be able to reduce the expenditures of Federal Government to accommodate anywhere near that kind of increase in these programs eating up those revenues. It is a system stretched to its limits. Seventy-eight million baby boomers begin retiring in 2008. Social Security spending exceeds tax revenues in 2015 and the Social Security trust fund goes broke in 2037, although the crisis is going to arrive much sooner.”