FYI: The Social Security and Medicare Trustees reports, released last month, came and went faster than a bad sitcom. One day they were news. The next day no one remembered, a casualty of the Brexit vote.
But those reports are much more important for Americans than the Brexit vote. Retired, working, or still in school, you should be concerned. Two massive, vital and successful government programs are in trouble. They are in trouble today. They will be in more trouble tomorrow.
Regards,
Ted
https://assetbuilder.com/knowledge-center/articles/to-see-the-problem-turn-to-appendix-f-page-212
Comments
Some ideas:
Authorize & require Medicare to negotiate drug pricing, like govt health ministries in other developed countries do. Allow those lower negotiated prices to be valid for ALL health plans in the USA (employer-provided, ACA, or individual).
Levy payroll-taxes on the imputed-value of the labor of imported equipment/merchandise. Ditto for the value of offshore service-labor (i.e. call centers, etc) used to service the domestic economy. – Companies which offshore labor should not be able to offshore the tax burden. Such taxes are not ‘discriminatory’ as on-shore labor pays them. The tax as it is currently limited to onshore labor is discriminatory against US residents. If a for-profit business chooses to sell into/service the US economy using non-US residents, they should not get a tax incentive to do so.
Where automation has replaced jobs, rather than making workers more efficient, amend the tax code, requiring companies to register such “automatons”, deny tax-depreciation of those assets, AND levy payroll-taxes on the imputed human labor which has been displaced. Automatons displacing humans should not be taxed lighter than the human beings being replaced.