On Their Watch

Social Security and Medicare are underfunded by $40 trillion.  Saying that they are underfunded is a bit of a bait and switch, as these programs have never been funded. FICA deductions go into the General Fund, with all the other taxes collected by the Feds.

When Bush was campaigning for his second term he focused on Social Security reform, but Congress (now an obvious, not statistical Democrat majority) would have no part of it.  Aggravating blue collar workers and the AARP is political suicide, so Congress did nothing to reform Social Security.

Whether that was cowardice or strategic (to further weaken the economy to bolster a win in 2008) doesn't matter.  The reality is that the Boomers are gradually shifting from the contributing to the receiving line of the FICA deduction, and their mass will shift the FICA budget line from positive to negative as early as 2012.  No more will Democrats have the FICA excess to play around with, which is why they're advocating "health care reform" and infusing it with methods to ration existing entitlement programs, while shoring up the gravy train for other programs.

In the socialized medicine Bills there are plans to begin rationing Medicare (as health care "reform" has little or nothing to do with Medicare).  Someone is going to have to do it eventually.  I'm just glad that the Democrats will have to own it, but I'm certain that they'll figure out a way to blame the Republicans for it.

In in decade it won't matter and AARP and Social Security recipients will be thrown under a bus.  They have to be, as there won't be enough money to pay even a fraction of their total federal entitlement payments.  And rightly, as it is their fault: their generation did nothing to guarantee that the money would be there when they got to retirement age. It won't matter if it was ignorance or malice.  Reality is immune to cause.  It just is.  And "empty" is what the coffers will be.