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.)