On borrowed time : how the growth in entitlement spending threatens America's future
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
On borrowed time : how the growth in entitlement spending threatens America's future
Transaction Publishers, c2004
- pbk. : alk. paper
Available at / 4 libraries
-
National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies Library (GRIPS Library)
pbk. : alk. paper342.53||P4500938186
-
No Libraries matched.
- Remove all filters.
Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Entitlements represent one of the largest and fastest-growing portions of the federal budget. They are regarded as sacrosanct by lawmakers, yet many people see them as one of the greatest threats to the American Dream. This volume argues that by sacrificing the future in order to pay ever-larger federal benefits through programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and federal pensions, entitlement spending has become a crushing burden to American workers. Peterson and Howe destroy myths surrounding entitlement spending. They show that the bulk of it does not go to the poor. The majority of the elderly are not needy and dependent. Entitlement programs, not defense spending, consume the largest share of the federal budget. In short, we cannot balance the budget without reducing entitlement spending. In a country that demands critical investments--improving public education, alleviating poverty, increasing professional opportunity--growth in entitlement spending is unaffordable.On Borrowed Time is an important and timely book that will be mandatory reading for policymakers, politicians, economists, and a general public concerned with its financial future.
Table of Contents
- I: Posterity in Danger
- 1: The Imperiled American Dream
- 2: The Myths of Entitlements
- 3: A Fiscal Nightmare
- II: The Forces Driving the Projections
- 4: Driving the Projections: An Aging Society
- 5: Driving the Projections: Health-Care Hyperinflation
- 6: Driving the Projections: Indexing
- III: From Complacency to Reform
- 7: Social Security: The End of the Chain Letter
- 8: The Federal Pension Bonanza
- 9: Health-Care Policy: Facing the Painful Trade-Offs
- Conclusion
- 10: The Failure of the Libertarian Welfare State
by "Nielsen BookData"