Entitlement spending is clearly unsustainable. Here's the USAT. Look in the mirror, people:
The cost of government benefits for seniors soared to a record $27,289 per senior in 2007, according to a USA TODAY analysis.
That's a 24% increase above the inflation rate since 2000. Medical costs are the biggest reason. Last year, for the first time, health care and nursing homes cost the government more than Social Security payments for seniors age 65 and older. The average Social Security benefit per senior in 2007 was $13,184.
"We have a health care crisis. We don't have an entitlement crisis," says David Certner, legislative policy director of the AARP, which represents seniors.
And more from the USAT, from Reason.com's Nick Gillespie:
The real drivers of looming deficits are Medicare, projected to grow from $516 billion this year to $932 billion in 2018, and Social Security, forecast to grow from $581 billion this year to $966 in 2018 as Baby Boomers retire.And Andrew Biggs writes that seniors receive $27,000 annually from Social Security if they earned $100,000 a year or more during their working years. He goes on to diagnose the problem:
We spend 9.7 percent of GDP on entitlements today, and by 2030 we will spend around 14.4 percent. Two forces bear primary responsibility for pushing entitlement spending upward: population aging and health-care-cost growth.
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