USATODAY reprints Bush Soc SEC/Medicare scare Article as "analysis"

[papau]

The Two true statements in this USATODAY reprint of the BUSH campaign theme about the need to kill Social Security and Medicare!: “Economists agree this cannot go on,” says Joseph Stiglitz, President Clinton's chief economic adviser from 1995 to 1997. “We can borrow and borrow, but eventually there will be a day of reckoning.” and Two, from
Economist James Galbraith of the University of Texas in Austin, “I'm not at all concerned about Medicare or Social Security,” Galbraith says. “Unless the government goes broke, Medicare isn't going to go broke, and the U.S. government isn't going to go broke because it can print money.”... the country can handle higher tax rates, as Europeans do, and can save money by cutting spending elsewhere, such as on defense, and by implementing a Canadian-style health care system that uses private doctors and hospitals but has the government set prices and pay the bills."

The rest of this USATODAY article is crap - as in USATODAY's assumption that the Bush folks are correct re "the corporate accounting rules" - in effect pretending a corporation would not be allowed to anticipate future revenue streams as offsets to a future liability when it sets up a reserve on its books! - with only an AARP comment that hints at the concept of proper reserve calculation.

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20041004/1a_debtcovxx.art.htm

84,454 is the average household's personal debt. $473,456 is the average household's share of government debt, including Medicare and Social Security. The government isn't asking you to pay it. Yet.

By Dennis Cauchon and John Waggoner USA TODAY

The long-term economic health of the United States is threatened by $53 trillion in government debts and liabilities that start to come due in four years when baby boomers begin to retire.WRONG!USING BUSH 100 years LIABILITY NUMBERS THAT IGNORE 2052 RETIREMENT AGE TO 70 FROM REAGAN's 67 THAT WOULD BE VOTED, AND USES THE CRAZY MEDICAL COST PROJECTION THAT ASSUMES INSURANCE COMPANIES GROW PROFITS 15% EVERY YEAR ON THEIR HEALTH INSURANCE BUSINESS, AS THE GOV MOVES HEALTH TO THE MORE EXPENSIVE PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES.<snip>

The worst-case scenario is a sudden crisis — perhaps a major terrorist attack or a shutoff of oil from the Middle East — that triggers a loss of confidence by investors in the U.S. economy. Foreign investors refuse to lend more money to the government to finance its deficits; drastic tax increases and benefit cuts occur suddenly; the dollar's value plummets, which raises the cost of imported goods; and a severe recession or depression results from falling incomes.<snip>

A softer landing: The USA acts swiftly and becomes more like Europe. Taxes are higher, retirement benefits are less generous but widely distributed; health care costs are controlled; and the economy is sound but less productive.<snip>

Big payments on the debt start coming due in 2008, when the first of 78 million baby boomers — the generation born from 1946 to 1964 — qualify at age 62 for early retirement benefits from Social Security. The costs start mushrooming in 2011, when the first boomers turn 65 and qualify for taxpayer-funded Medicare. IGNORES SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION AND CBO PROJECTIONS THAT INDICATE PAYROLL TAX HAS SURPLUS IN THOSE YEARS!!!!ALL THESE "OFFICIAL GOV NUMBERS" SHOW HOW NUTS USATODAY IS TO TRUST NEO-CON NUMBERS!<snip>

BUT USATODAY does have those buried pieces of truth:- Amazing that AARP tells truth and is correctly quoted that unfunded promises of Medicare and Social Security are less worrisome than they appear -“The reason we make companies fund their pension liabilities is because it's uncertain they'll be around in the future. That doesn't apply to government,” says John Rother, AARP's research director. “The size of the liabilities isn't relevant, nor is how much we put aside today. What matters is how healthy will the economy be in the future.”He agrees that Medicare has a long-term funding problem but says the nation's entire health system is the issue, not Medicare."

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This is in effect a very long Bush Campaign PR piece - with pieces of truth buried in it just to show that USATODAY is telling "ALL SIDES" - but one would hope there would have a been a second article - rather than these buried truth tidbits - that with the same force of this article note that when Bush asserts - he rarely tells the whole truth. And indeed, partial truth spinning is Bush's favorite way to lie!