TheFrontPageCover
~ Featuring ~
Federal Government: By the Way, Medicare
and Social Security Are Going Broke
A Lot Faster Than We'd Thought
by Guy Benson
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Jackson Lee, Leftist Thugs Terrified
Judge Jeannine Might Replace Sessions as AG
{ rickwells.us } ~ In their typical condescending “holier and better than thou” manner, CNN bobble-head Erin Burnett reported that President Trump is considering a position... within the administration for Judge Jeanine Pirro and that she has stated an interest in replacing Numb Nuts Magoo, Jeff Sessions, as Attorney General. Burnett brought out Sheila Jackson Lee to present the globalist COUP participants’ opposition, and to see how many words she could use improperly in the seven or so minutes she was allotted. She’s asked for her reaction, and says, “Well why not give a global reaction and that is to first proclaim that we do not have a monarch or a monarchy.” Why not just answer the question? Even though she’s a globalist, she doesn’t speak for the rest of the world and she was asked for her own opinion. Naming an Attorney General, though admittedly not a racist one, as both scumbag-Holder and Lynch are, is still a prerogative of the President...If Judge Jeannine was black, Jackson won't say a negative word. https://rickwells.us/jackson-lee-judge-jeanine-ag/
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Soon After Imran Awan’s Other Wife
Called Police On Him, Gunmen Shot At Her
by Luke Rosiak and Wajid Ali SyedBorder Region Exploited by ISIS Finally Gets Fence
{ judicialwatch.org } ~ A Mexican border region that Judicial Watch exposed years ago as a hotbed of Islamic terrorism is finally getting a wall to replace laughable “road barriers” that... not surprisingly, have failed miserably to secure the area. The big question is, why did it take so long? The much-needed fence will be erected between Santa Teresa, New Mexico, and Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. It’s an area where ISIS cells operate and Juárez Cartel smugglers help terrorists through the desert and across the border. A 20-mile section of existing “vehicle barrier” located west of the Santa Teresa Port of Entry will be replaced with an 18 to 30-foot high bollard-style wall, according to an announcement issued by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). The announcement includes pictures of the existing railing, which is a joke. A local open borders group is organizing a protest All Against the Wall Rally next week near the Santa Teresa Port of Entry. “The border wall is an affront to our communities; an attack on our wildlife; and a symbol of hate, fear, and divisiveness,” the group states in its website.... https://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2018/05/border-region-exposed-jw-years-ago-isis-cells-finally-gets-fence/
Pictures of the existing railing, which is a joke: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cbpphotos/sets/72157693474390271.
Just in time for Trump-Kim summit:
DoJ inspector general to release Clinton email report
{ americanthinker.com } ~ Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz said in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley... that his long awaited report on the way that DoJ and the FBI handled the liar-Clinton email investigation would be released on June 14. Horowitz agreed to testify on the report before Grassley's committee on June 18. The summit between Donald Trump and Kim Kong-un is scheduled to take place June 12. Coincidence? For a year and a half, Horowitz has played this one close to his vest. There have been a few leaks - most recently, that former FBI Director Comey will come in for some harsh criticism - but otherwise, no one knows what's in the report regarding the actions of several principals....
Federal Government: By the Way, Medicare
and Social Security Are Going Broke
A Lot Faster Than We'd Thought
{ townhall.com } ~ It's the type of unsexy story that just glides past without much notice these days -- especially with so much excitement and speculation over historic summits, presidential self-pardons, and dramatic culture war skirmishes dominating headlines. But the federal government has dug our national finances into a frighteningly deep hole, having made tens of trillions of dollars' worth in unpaid-for promises i.e. "unfunded liabilities", on which tens of millions of people are relying. We've been sounding the alarm on this for years, over the course of two presidential administrations. The looming debt bomb is a predictable crisis, and yet virtually nothing is being done about it.
Republicans passed a number of budget resolutions during the liar-nObama years that called for the implementation of Paul Ryan's desperately-needed Medicare reforms, but those had zero chance of becoming law. The liar-nObama administration was committed to fiscal denialism and demagoguery, infamously responding to the bleak math with literally no plan to corral it. Then Donald Trump secured the GOP nomination and the presidency while pledging -- for political reasons -- not to touch the two biggest drivers of our long-term debt, discarding years of hard work Paul Ryan and his allies had undertaken to prove that pursuing entitlement reform was not a lethal third rail. Then, in February, both parties teamed up to pass an awful omnibus spending bill that blew through even the modest constraints the GOP opposition had secured during the liar-nObama era. The US government's spending trajectory remains pointed inexorably and recklessly northward, with no fiscal responsibility in sight. And as of yesterday, we know that the unfunded liabilities problem is worse than ever:
Medicare will run out of money sooner than expected, and Social Security’s financial problems can’t be ignored either, the government said Tuesday in a sobering checkup on programs vital to the middle class. The report from program trustees says Medicare will become insolvent in 2026 — three years earlier than previously forecast. Its giant trust fund for inpatient care won’t be able to fully cover projected medical bills starting at that point. The report says Social Security will become insolvent in 2034...Unless lawmakers act, both programs face the prospect of being unable to cover the full cost of promised benefits. With Social Security that could mean sharply reduced payments for retirees, many of whom are already on tight budgets. The report said the total annual cost of Social Security is projected to exceed total annual income in 2018 for the first time since the Reagan era, meaning the program will have to tap into reserves. For Medicare, insolvency would mean that hospitals, nursing homes and other providers of medical care would be paid only part of their agreed-upon fees. Medicare is widely seen as a more difficult problem that goes beyond the growing number of baby boomers retiring.
More details on the breathtaking scope of these challenges:
Eighty-two trillion dollars. That's more than four times the size of US GDP. The cop-out "solutions" from both parties on this -- "economic growth!" (Republicans), "raise taxes on the wealthy!" (Democrats) -- are woefully, insultingly inadequate. These programs must be reformed to survive. That's a mathematical fact. Yet neither major party has the political appetite to do what it takes. One pretends to care, then runs up new bills and punts on the toughest calls when in power; the other doesn't even pretend to care, except as a means of attacking tax cuts. I'm not sure which is worse. The Examiner's Philip Klein offers this sobering perspective and context:
The U.S. is now closer to the insolvency of the Social Security than to the attacks of Sept. 11. Trustees for the retirement and disability program revealed on Tuesday that Social Security will no longer be able to meet its obligations to beneficiaries starting in in 2034, or 16 years from now — which is less time than has elapsed since terrorists slammed airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001. In 2005, President George W. Bush was dismissed as an alarmist for highlighting projections that the program would begin spending more money on benefits than it takes in starting in 2018 and that its "trust fund" would be depleted in 2042. In reality, it has been running annual deficits since 2010, and the insolvency date has moved up eight years...As the Social Security crisis keeps getting closer, the political parties are moving further away from doing anything about it...What's scary is that Social Security is relatively easy to fix when compared to Medicare, a program where the rising retirement population is interacting with growing healthcare costs. And the trustees now say that program is going to be insolvent in 2026 — or roughly the same time as we are from the passage of liar-nObamacare.
Treaury Secretary Steve Mnuchen's quote on this state of affairs may be less atrocious than Tim Geithner's abdication, but it's still an example of classic DC delusion and avoidance: "The programs remain secure," he assured Americans before tacking on a euphemistic assurance that "long term issues persist." Calling that an understatement doesn't quite do it justice. At this stage, many millions of younger Americans are being legally compelled to pay into massive programs that will be depleted shells of their former selves -- or entirely insolvent -- by the time it's time to reap what they've contributed, as promised. This scheme is tantamount to willful generational robbery. There may still be time to move toward a more responsible model while preserving the existing structure for those at or near retirement, but that clock is expiring even faster than government accountants had previously calculated. To the extent that liberals commented on these new projections at all, they mainly seized on them to decry Republicans' pro-growth tax reform law, and to renew their predictable demands for the wealthy to pay their "fair share." An exampleof the first talking point:
The truth is that Medicare has been on exceptionally shaky and unsustainable ground for years. "Trump's tax overhaul" is helping the US economy flourish, despite its deficit and debt implications, which I don't deny. But any attempt to pin the entitlement collapse on tax relief is dishonest sophistry. I'd add that even after the tax cuts, federal revenues as a percentage of GDP will remain slightly above the annual average of recent decades. This is a long-term spending problem that requires root-and-branch reform. As for "the rich" and "fair shares," we've already dealt with that myth on numerous occasions.
I'd also reiterate this point: "Democrats drone on about the importance of returning to the ' liar-Clinton-era tax rates.' They never, ever discuss liar-Clinton-era spending levels. President liar-Clinton's FY 2000 budget called for $1.77 Trillion in total federal spending." Last year, the federal government spent $4 trillion. Furthermore, the notion that the government could tax its way out of this dilemma without absolutely clobbering the middle class and crushing the economy it cannot is dispelled by these numbers:
I'll leave you with this parting thought: The red ink described above is harrowing and daunting, for reasons that should be screamingly obvious. Please consider that a sizable contingent of the Democratic Party looks at these exact same numbers and concludes that we must expand Social Security and expand Medicare to cover more than 300 million people, at mind-blowing cost. These are dangerous, denialist fantasies, and should be treated as such: With fierce, almost existential, opposition.
Comments
Bonnie
I would have to guess they are all covering up. Rosenstein is a very bad person like comey who did what he wanted to do instead of going by the rules of the FBI they are liars and cheats to get their way
i have an issue, well more than one but, HOW COME THE IG RPT WAS GIVEN TO ROSENSTEIN? THE SCUM OF THE EARTH HAD A WEEK OR SO TO REDACT THE PARTS THAT SAY HILLARY IS GUILTY AND WE DID NOTHING.........................................WHY COULDN'T HOROWITZ JUST RELEASE IT
WE DON'T WE THE PEOPLE SEE THE RPT?