Wolf Blitzer of CNN recently demonstrated how detached he was from reality during an interview with new Texas Senator, Ted Cruz, a tea-party conservative. Cruz understands that our unsustainable debt is, in reality, unsustainable. Cruz insists that we take this threat seriously.
To Blitzer, and the legions of reporters like him, this makes Cruz an extremist. They are committed to the meme that serious fiscal conservatives are foolish troublemakers. After Cruz discussed the seriousness of our debt situation, Blitzer lectured Cruz, saying, “You’ve got to deal with reality“.
So a man who is seriously attempting to deal with reality was attacked by a man who, like his colleagues, routinely hides and distorts reality. Amazing, isn’t it? It’s Mister Blitzer who needs to educate himself about reality. He might start with this enlightening article by Chris Cox and Bill Archer.
Cox and Archer explain why our debt is actually far greater than we are led to believe. Excerpts:
We most often hear about the alarming $15.96 trillion national debt (more than
100% of GDP), and the 2012 budget deficit of $1.1 trillion (6.97% of GDP). As
dangerous as those numbers are, they do not begin to tell the story of the
federal government’s true liabilities.
The actual liabilities of the federal government—including Social Security, Medicare, and federal employees’ future retirement benefits—already exceed $86.8 trillion, or 550% of GDP. For the year ending Dec. 31, 2011, the annual accrued expense of Medicare and Social Security was $7 trillion. Nothing like that figure is used in calculating the deficit. In reality, the reported budget deficit is less than one-fifth of the more accurate figure.
…In short, if the government confiscated the entire adjusted gross income of
these American taxpayers, plus all of the corporate taxable income in the year
before the recession, it wouldn’t be nearly enough to fund the over $8 trillion
per year in the growth of U.S. liabilities. Some public officials and pundits
claim we can dig our way out through tax increases on upper-income earners, or
even all taxpayers. In reality, that would amount to bailing out the Pacific
Ocean with a teaspoon. Only by addressing these unsustainable spending
commitments can the nation’s debt and deficit problems be solved.
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