According to no less an authority than the United States Treasury, projected tax revenues to fund Social Security and Medicare over the next 75 years fall $46.7 trillion short.
“Unfunded liabilities,” they’re called.
But even these $46.7 trillion of unfunded liabilities may tell a mere fraction of America’s true indebtedness…
Economist and Boston University professor Larry Kotlikoff says Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid aren’t fully accounted for in official number crunching.
These accounting shell games mask the actual debt, says Kotlikoff.
America’s actual debt?
Over the next 75 years, this Cassandra projects America’s true debt at an intergalactic $210 trillion.
Kotlikoff, with tears in his voice:
We have all these unofficial debts that are massive compared to the official debt. We’re focused just on the official debt, so we’re trying to balance the wrong books…
If you add up all the promises that have been made for spending obligations, including defense expenditures, and you subtract all the taxes that we expect to collect, the difference is $210 trillion. That’s the fiscal gap. That’s our true indebtedness.