Brian Riedl on Social Security and Medicare deficits

Over the next three decades, the Social Security system is scheduled to pay benefits $21 trillion greater than its trust fund will collect in payroll taxes and related revenues.  The Medicare system is projected to run a $48 trillion shortfall.  These deficits are projected to, in turn, produce $47 trillion in interest payments to the national debt.  That is a combined shortfall of $116 trillion, according to data from the Congressional Budget Office. (To inflation-adjust these figures, trim by roughly one-third.)

~ Brian Riedl, Manhattan Institute, "Biden's Promises on Social Security Have No Basis in Reality," The New York Times, February 21, 2023

(As quoted by James Freeman, "'No Basis in Mathematical Reality'," The Wall Street Journal, February 23, 2023.)

Sam Zell on Medicare

Medicare is an abyss.

~Sam Zell, chairman, Equity Investments, CNBC, March 3, 2011

Walter Williams on government lies about Medicare costs

At its start, in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee, along with President Johnson, estimated that Medicare would cost an inflation-adjusted $12 billion by 1990. In 1990, Medicare topped $107 billion. That's nine times Congress' prediction. Today's Medicare tab comes to $420 billion with no signs of leveling off. How much confidence can we have in any cost estimates by the White House or Congress?

~ Walter Williams, "Washington's Lies," Townhall.com, September 2, 2009