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By John C. Goodman,
President, National Center for Policy Analysis
The following is adapted from a
speech delivered in Naples, Florida, on February 18, 2009, at a
Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar.
I'll start with the bad
news: When we get through the economic time that we're in right now,
we're going to be confronted with an even bigger problem. The first of
the Baby Boomers started signing up for early retirement under Social
Security last year. Two years from now they will start signing up for
Medicare. All told, 78 million people are going to stop working, stop
paying taxes, stop paying into retirement programs, and start drawing
benefits. The problem is, neither Social Security nor Medicare is ready
for them. The federal government has made explicit and implicit
promises to millions of people, but has put no money aside in order to
keep those promises. Some of you may wonder where Bernie Madoff got the
idea for his Ponzi scheme. Clearly he was studying federal entitlement
policy.
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