Cato Daily Dispatch for October 5, 2004
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Social Security, Medicare on a Collision Course with RealityBremer: We Made Two Major Mistakes in Iraq
SpaceShipOne Wins X Prize
Social Security, Medicare on a Collision Course with Reality
"Americans may soon have to start thinking the unthinkable to solve the severe financial problems that the retirement of baby boomers will bring the Social Security and Medicare systems. These two beloved programs are on a collision course with financial reality that threatens the nation's prosperity and the well-being of the next generation of elderly," reports USA TODAY.
"The federal government would have to double taxation or cut benefits in half immediately to make good on its promises of providing health care and pension benefits for retirees in the coming decades. Both major political parties and the presidential candidates have avoided confronting the problem for fear of angering voters."
In "War between the Generations: Federal Spending on the Elderly Set to Explode," Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies, and Tad DeHaven, former researches, write: "The main programs for the elderly, Social Security and Medicare, are primarily funded by taxes on the young. That funding mechanism has set the nation on a financial collision course as the number of elderly will soar 116 percent by 2040 while the number of workers supporting them will grow just 22 percent. Without reforms, the combined cost of Social Security and Medicare Part A is expected to rise from 13.8 percent of taxable wages today to 24.2 percent by 2040. Adding in projected spending on Part B of Medicare pushes up the total projected costs of the two programs to 30 percent of wages by 2040."
Bremer: We Made Two Major Mistakes in Iraq
"The former U.S. official who governed Iraq after the invasion said yesterday that the United States made two major mistakes: not deploying enough troops in Iraq and then not containing the violence and looting immediately after the ouster of Saddam Hussein," reports the Washington Post.
"Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, administrator for the U.S.-led occupation government until the handover of political power on June 28, said he still supports the decision to intervene in Iraq but said a lack of adequate forces hampered the occupation and efforts to end the looting early on."
In "When Liberators Become Occupiers," Christopher Preble, director of foreign policy studies, writes: "We are in danger of repeating our mistakes from a century ago. In 2003, a foreign army did not occupy Iraq, and its bloody ruler was beholden to no foreign power. Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, but he was an Iraqi. The goal of U.S. policy should be to hand over real, full, and genuine sovereignty to the Iraqi people, who must then work out their own destiny, on the understanding that their actions not pose a threat to the United States. And we must leave. If we do not, then the noble intentions behind the U.S. invasion of Iraq will be completely overshadowed by the humiliation of the occupation."
SpaceShipOne Wins X Prize
"A private rocket ship shot into space [Monday] morning and won a coveted $10 million aviation prize for its creators," reports the New York Times.
"SpaceShipOne, the sleek combination of rocket and glider designed by Burt Rutan and financed by the billionaire Paul G. Allen, reached a record altitude of 368,000 feet, or 69.7 miles, blasting past the 337,600-foot altitude reached by the same ship last week."
Cato adjunct scholar Edward L. Hudgins, editor of Space: The Free-Market Frontier, said in testimony before a House committee that "the demand for trips into space by private citizens offers a potential market that could usher in a breakthrough in the fight to lower the costs of traveling to space." However, government-mandated regulations keep space inaccessible to most entrepreneurs as well as to the general public. Space explores the various ways in which U.S. policy can promote space transportation, exploration and tourism.
Jonathan Block, editor, jblock@cato.org
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