The Bulge

I'm afraid that the funding crisis facing both Social Security and Medicare is very real, no matter who supplies news to the Washington Post. The problem has three dimensions:

A huge bulge of baby boomers are becoming eligible for benefits

A huge bulge of baby boomers are leaving their peak earning years, which takes their contributions out of the cash flow

Interest charges on all our debt are compounding fast, and since we are now adding new borrowing to pay old interest charges ( failing to pare down the principal at all ), that is an irreversible trend.

We have a tidal wave of retirees exiting the workforce and entering a world where the ground beneath them is supplied by the contributions of much lower paid workers, thanks to the destruction of globalization. The prescription drug bill added new promises to Medicare that don't seem deliverable, given our fiscal outlook.