That oughta get the tourists flooding in again!

Calling Snake Plissken, calling Snake Plissken!

The problem with Social Security old age benefits is simple to solve. Have cohort-specific retirement ages (recalculated periodically) which ensure that the ratio of the beneficiary population to the working population is stable. Congress just does not feel like doing that. Repairing the Disability program is more challenging.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expenditures_in_the_United_States_federal_budget.

Thanks for bringing up the Mandatory/Discretionary distinction:

The money spent in our annual Federal Budget is divided into two major categories—into “Mandatory” expenditures—funds which have, by law, to be sequestered and then paid out before any other expenditures are made, and, then, into the remaining funds, the money that can be spent on everything else, the “Discretionary” expenditures.

You say that the “Mandatory” items are “by law.” But, which law?

I ask, because it always seems to me that the two categories are backwards. After-school programs ought to get money if and only if we’ve adequately funded the military and law-enforcement, because if civilization collapses or an invasion chops the country in half a la “Red Dawn” there aren’t gonna be any after-school programs!

So, that should be switched. But what law designates the two categories, such that the repealing/amending of that law would cause them to be switched ’round?

There doesn’t seem to be a practical way for either party to face these realities.

Nonetheless, it is pretty obviously imperative that the increasing cost of Social Security and other Entitlement programs and their benefits be lowered by doing things like—narrowing eligibility, by reducing those benefits, or by making those benefits only begin to cut in at higher ages, etc.

The money spent in our annual Federal Budget is divided into two major categories—into “Mandatory” expenditures—funds which have, by law, to be sequestered and then paid out before any other expenditures are made, and, then, into the remaining funds, the money that can be spent on everything else, the “Discretionary” expenditures.

People tend to fixate on the total U.S. annual budget number, or on the amount of our mounting public deficits or debt.

But, the most frightening and ominous sets of economic figures are the ones which show what percentage of our entire Federal Budget each year is devoted to these Mandatory expenditures–to entitlements like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, to Federal Retirement and Veterans Benefits, to various other social welfare programs, and to Interest on the Public Debt—and, then, to the dwindling percentage of our Federal Budget that remains after those Mandatory expenditures are paid out–those remaining funds which are available for Discretionary expenditures—which pay for everything else—for the cost of running our entire Federal Government, for National Defense, for Foreign Aid, for all Federal Research and Development work, plus everything else.

For 2020 such Mandatory outlays consumed roughly 75% of the entire Federal Budget budget (roughly 65% for all other Mandatory payments, roughly 9% paid for Interest on the Public Debt), with 25% left over for Discretionary expenditures to pay for everything else.

There are a couple of key things to keep in mind here–

One key thing to remember about these “Entitlements” is that the percentage of the Federal Budget that they consume almost invariably and automatically grows each year—this because more people are automatically “entitled” to them just due to normal population growth and to immigration, and as existing Entitlement programs are extended to more and more people, or expanded in coverage or benefits i.e. cost.

Another key thing to realize is that–as the percentage of our Federal budget that is consumed by entitlement spending increases, the percentage of our Federal budget that is available for discretionary expenditures shrinks–which results in our federal government having increasingly less reserves and less room to maneuver–less ability to take advantage of emerging opportunities, and less ability to respond to unforeseen events, and to emergencies.

One more thing to realize is that the amount of those annual mandatory expenditures devoted to “Interest on the Federal Debt” has been extraordinarily low in recent years—because interest rates have been essentially around zero.

But, should interest rates climb back to normal ranges, the increase in the amount of our Federal budget that would have to be paid out for Mandatory “Interest on the Public Debt” payments would dramatically raise the percentage of our Federal Budget that would have to be paid for all Mandatory expenditures.

It has been said that “Social Security” is the “third rail of American politics,” but unless the percentage of our Federal Budget that is devoted to Mandatory expenditures for entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is dramatically reduced and/or our economy can be revved up to produce massive increases in GDP and, thus, in tax revenues, we are headed for the situation in which these Mandatory expenditures will eventually and rather quickly grow to consume our entire annual Federal Budgets.