Destroying Us From Within

Destroying Us From Within

http://frontpagemag.com/2010/08/11/destroying-us-from-within/

Posted by Walter Williams on Aug 11th, 2010 and filed under FrontPage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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Because of failure to heed the limitations of the U.S. Constitution, which has produced runaway federal spending, our nation sits on the precipice of disaster. Former Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming and Erskine Bowles, White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, co-chairmen of President Obama’s debt and deficit commission, in a Washington Post article “Obama’s Debt Commission Warns of Fiscal ‘Cancer’” (July 12, 2010) said that “(A)t present, federal revenue is fully consumed by three programs: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The rest of the federal government, including fighting two wars, homeland security, education, art, culture, you name it, veterans — the whole rest of the discretionary budget is being financed by China and other countries.”

The commission added the current budget trend is a disaster “that will destroy the country from within” unless checked by tough action in Washington. The tough action required is spending cuts in programs, including the so-called nondiscretionary, eating most of the federal revenues.

According to the Census, around 80 percent of Americans 65 and older own their own homes compared to 43 percent under 35. Twenty-three million households, or 37 percent of all homeowners, own their homes free and clear, and most of these are seniors aged 65 and older. According to the Federal Reserve Board’s 2007 “Survey of Consumer Finances,” the median net worth of people 65 and over is $232,000, those under 35 years have a net worth of $12,000 and for those 35-44, it’s $87,000.

For good reason, older people have accumulated more wealth than younger people; the primary reason is that they’ve had more time to do it. There is no logical case that can be made for using the tax system to force Americans with less wealth to subsidize those with more wealth. But it’s not clear who is subsidizing whom.

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