US Fiscal gap: $222 Trillion. No big deal, right?

Just in case you had forgotten the financial straits the country as a whole is in, here's a bit of info gleaned from the latest CBO (Congressional Budget Office) report by economists Laurence Kotlikoff and Scott Burns (via Hotair):

In the course of that year, the U.S. government’s fiscal gap -- the true measure of the nation’s indebtedness -- rose by $11 trillion.

The fiscal gap is the present value difference between projected future spending and revenue. It captures all government liabilities, whether they are official obligations to service Treasury bonds or unofficial commitments, such as paying for food stamps or buying drones.

Wait! Before your head explodes when you see the $11 trillion number, read this to calm you down: That's only an increase of 5.2%. See, it's not really that bad!

The U.S. fiscal gap, calculated (by us) using the Congressional Budget Office’s realistic long-term budget forecast -- the Alternative Fiscal Scenario -- is now $222 trillion. Last year, it was $211 trillion. The $11 trillion difference -- this year’s true federal deficit -- is 10 times larger than the official deficit and roughly as large as the entire stock of official debt in public hands.

This fantastic and dangerous growth in the fiscal gap is not new. In 2003 and 2004, the economists Alan Auerbach and William Gale extended the CBO’s short-term forecast and measured fiscal gaps of $60 trillion and $86 trillion, respectively. In 2007, the first year the CBO produced the Alternative Fiscal Scenario, the gap, by our reckoning, stood at $175 trillion. By 2009, when the CBO began reporting the AFS annually, the gap was $184 trillion. In 2010, it was $202 trillion, followed by $211 trillion in 2011 and $222 trillion in 2012.

$220 Trillion. With a big fat T.

Just Social Security alone will be enough to absolutely crush the economy. Once the Baby Boomers all retire, they'll be collecting a whopping 85% of the GDP annually.

Holy sweet cyborg pirate Jesus.

The solution recommended by the economists? Raise taxes by 65% or lower spending by 40% immediately, right effing now, or it'll only get worse.

Naturally, neither party wants to touch the issue of the Baby Boomer retirement, because they see it as political suicide. The unfortunate truth, though, is that we cannot sustain this kind of spending. This goes beyond the argument of Keynesian vs. non-Keynesian policies. There's no amount of benefit to be gained from deficit spending that could make up for the debt incurred.

The solution to this won't be pretty, but it'll only get worse the closer we get to the brick wall. Here's my idea: Raise the age that you receive social security to 83 immediately (5 years older than the average life expectancy), which will apply to anyone who is currently 60 or younger. If you're 50 or younger, you don't get Social Security. Ever. Sorry, buddy. Life sucks.

Don't go thinking your paychecks are getting any bigger, though. That money you pay into SS still gets paid, but instead of going towards the "Support retired Americans" fund it goes into the "Prevent America from becoming a third world country" fund.

That's only one of many steps that would be necessary until we got our debt back under control, but at least it'd be a start.

From HuffPo: Why are the gaffes so important?

As I was perusing the various and sundry political websites I frequent on my lunch break (What? You don't spend your free time reading articles on tax policy? Weird), I happened upon this opinion piece from none other than Arianna Huffington, of the Huffington Post. HuffPo is an unapologetic left leaning blog that I read in order to hear from the other side. She wrote an excellent article on "gaffe grenades and faux outrage", which asked the simple question: Why are politicians who run for the highest office so wooden? What is it about the presidential race that sucks the life out of them?

It made me wonder: Why is running for president so diminishing? What is it about the process that turns thoughtfulness and confidence into desperation and insincerity? Why is it assumed that the only route to the highest office is the lowest road possible?

We have 25 million people unemployed or underemployed. We're on the edge of falling back into recession and none of the problems that led to this seemingly endless financial crisis have been solved -- or even really addressed. And yet our presidential campaign has devolved into a never-ending contest to see which side can catch other side in the worst "gaffe."

And it's not just about catching the other side in meaningless gaffes. When the gaffes don't come along at a steady enough clip, the campaigns just make them up. Who says we're losing our manufacturing prowess to the Chinese? If you factor in our robust and growing Gaffe Manufacturing Sector, we're still number one. (USA! USA! USA!)

Context is often used as a go-to word that actually means "When I said x, I really meant y", but it actually is very important in communication. For instance, when Romney said "I like to fire people", he wasn't saying he liked to fire people per se, but that he wants businesses to have to compete to get his money, which is how the market works. When Obama said "You didn't build that", he clearly wasn't saying that business owners didn't own their businesses, but that the environment in which businesses thrive is built by everyone. Taken in the context, you may or may not agree with the sentiment behind a comment, but at least it is a valuable part of the conversation.

The answer to why the campaign is about gaffe's is this: They are easy. They are short. They don't take long to digest, and they fill up airtime.

It would take time and effort on the part of the candidate to explain his position on tax policy in a way that people could understand. More importantly, it would take time and effort on the part of the electorate (In other words, you and me) to understand the policies that our politicians are espousing. It would mean having a discussion, getting your opinions challenged, and coming up with a meaningful solution. Isn't it easier to simply play a 5-second clip on why the other candidate endorses puppy mills?

Vote Romney and the kitten gets it.

What's the solution? In my opinion, it's courage. The courage on the part of a politician to not fear the gaffe machine, and simply speak passionately about what he believes. To not be afraid to explain his policies and hold them up for scrutiny. Perhaps if a politician stopped acting so much like a damn politician, people would take the time to listen.