Candidates Avoiding the Really Tough Issues

This from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Link to full article is below.

"In the closing weeks of the U.S. presidential campaign, the candidates are focused largely on the global financial meltdown, which is formidable enough. But looming behind this front-burner concern are the very difficult long-term economic challenges of restoring Social Security and Medicare to solid footing, and providing health care coverage to the millions of Americans who are uninsured or inadequately insured....."

"We were so concerned about the $700 billion in the bailout bill, but nobody is talking seriously about the $12 trillion we need to make Social Security whole and the $65 trillion we need to make Medicare whole," says Wharton professor of insurance and risk management Olivia Mitchell. She worries that that when it comes to Social Security and Medicare, both candidates are more focused on the revenue side of the equation than on addressing the rampant growth of benefit obligations which would require cuts for beneficiaries...."

"According to Wharton insurance and risk management professor Kent Smetters, a former Congressional Budget Office economist, the Obama proposal would place a high percentage of the tax burden on one, small segment of the population and would only generate about 20% to 30% of the revenue needed. "There's not much talk about how to control growth on spending -- that's the real issue," says Smetters. "If you get more revenue, it doesn't solve the problem until you can control spending....."


http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2070