According to the Congressional Budget Office, the official US debt will exceed the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in another 25 years – a level of debt equal to the World War II years.
The obligations under programs such as Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid are not part of that calculation.
If you believe as I do that the promises for those programs plus Obamacare will be kept, their cost must be included in long-term debt estimates.
Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff has calculated that we are currently $210 trillion in debt – more than 12 times our GDP. That figure is the difference between what has been promised to future beneficiaries minus what we expect to collect in premiums and taxes, given current tax rates.
So where is the problem? All we have to do is raise taxes … on everyone. 😎
Not maintaining revenue equal to promises made is exactly how countries, states and cities get into trouble. If you like all the promises made and expect to receive your fair share, then you should also expect to pay the taxes to support them … or is that not progressive enough? 😜
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
You miss the whole point. Current taxpayers and voters like the status quo – where the cost to fund current benefits is foisted onto people yet unborn, where the best tax is the one “I owe and you pay”, where the battle cry is “don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that guy behind the tree”.
Maintaining the current entitlements in their current form is nothing more than buying votes with your grandchildren’s fiscal health (and the fiscal health of those yet unborn).
It is the same for health care. Look at it this way. Health care spend in America is something like 18% of GDP. Econ 101 confirms that GDP (Gross Domestic Product) > NNP (Net National Product) > NNI (Net National Income) > PI (personal income). So, if health spend is > 18% of GDP – it is much more than 18% of Personal Income. Does each American have a decuction from their income (wages, pension income, etc.) that is > 18% – and that is earmarked for health coverage/expenses? No. It means health costs are being funded from other sources, primarily income taxes and FICA-Med and borrowing.
People only fool themselves when they listen to Bernie, Hillary, Harry, Nancy, Barack and the others who assert that the system is sustainable in it’s current form … which, frankly, it is so long as future generations continued to be hoodwinked into picking up the tab.
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I don’t miss the point Jack, but I think you miss my sarcasm in the post.
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