Since apparently no one else in Washington will tell the fiscal truth… alright, we will:
Yes, both programs are headed to Titanic-style insolvency. This is as certain as the sun rising in the east.
So when both Biden and Republicans both agree they won’t touch or reform these programs, what they are really saying to seniors is: we don’t care if they go bankrupt, we won’t fix them. Kids can kiss these programs goodbye.
Medicare’s trust fund runs out of money around 2028 and Social Security around 2034.
Social Security should immediately be converted into a system of 401k-type of personal accounts, and Medicare deductibles should be means-tested so that wealthier senior citizens are responsible for purchasing their own health insurance coverage.
As we’ve flagged many times on these pages, blue states are losing people and they are losing jobs. So, no surprise, now they are losing tax revenues.
Our friend Dan Clifton from Strategas notes:
"States that will have the most trouble are the states that permanently increased spending with temporary federal aid and capital gains taxes. High tax states will be in far more trouble later this year compared to the income tax cutting states. Happening already per chart."
We’re impressed with the new House Budget Committee chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), who looks like he’s ready to take a surgical knife to the budget. (We’d prefer a chainsaw, but this is a start.)
He will release the GOP budget plan in April after the White House releases its FY2024 proposal on March 9 – and that budget will be filled with price controls, tax increases on the rich, more green energy subsidies, but not a dime of real domestic spending cuts out of our obese $6.5 trillion budget.
Arrington is pushing some very smart budget reforms that we’ve been pushing on these pages (he must be a Hotline reader):
Here’s our chart of the day on the debacle of England’s National Health Service that socialists like Bernie Sanders have long held up as their model for the world:
In December 2022, 35 percent of patients recently admitted to hospitals, almost 200,000 people, waited more than 4 hours for a bed – and over 50,000 patients waited over 12 hours!
The NHS’s goal is that 92 percent of patients referred for treatment wait less than 18 weeks (about four and half months) to start treatment. Waiting 18 weeks for treatment sounds horrendous, but as of November 2022, over 40 percent of patients, or 2.9 million people, waited even longer. For over 450,000 patients, the wait exceeded a full year.
The Times reported the worst news: “There were 1,600 more deaths than usual during Christmas week. ... Covid accounts only for a minority of recent extra deaths, focusing attention on ‘compelling’ evidence that the crisis in the NHS is killing hundreds of people a week. ... Figures from the Office for National Statistics yesterday showed the third consecutive week of more than 1,000 excess deaths” (i.e., deaths above the normal average level).
President Biden claimed in his state of the union that he "opened our country back up" — but the same day he sent Congress a letter opposing Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie's bill to end his travel ban.
The bill passed anyway, 227-201, with 7 Democrats joining all Republicans voting yes.
