The Hill News

One of the great privileges of being a Member of Congress is that I often have the opportunity to spend time with young people. I am impressed when they demonstrate their intelligence, positive spirit, and willingness to serve their communities. When I spoke with high school students three weeks ago, I asked them to tackle a problem that they and the nation had not yet seen in our history to this degree; our impending bankruptcy. I specifically asked them for help because they and their children will have to deal with the aftermath of this looming bankruptcy. I stressed their right to know what promises have been made in their names and that these promises can’t possibly be kept. 

Those promises are immense, and they are expensive. Within the next three decades, our country will probably be bankrupt almost entirely due to the cost of social entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And, thanks to those three overpromised programs, o! ur debt problems are about to get much worse. Over the next 75 years, these three programs alone will cause our national debt to rise to nearly 800 percent of current Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The trajectory is catastrophic. There is no way our economy can sustain this explosive growth of government.  

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