National unemployment is more than 8 percent and 10.7 percent in California. In these conditions many baby boomers, especially those whose unemployment benefits have run out, have opted to take Social Security at age 62. They may find themselves facing federally enforced poverty. The Social Security monthly payout at 62 is substantially less than…
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In an article in the Wall Street Journal, Sara Murray reports that “Nearly Half of U.S Lives in Household Receiving Government Benefits.” The pool of Americans relying on government benefits rose to record highs last year as an increasing share of families tapped aid in a weak economy. Some 48.6% of the population lived…
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Sam Hananel at the Associated Press reports that despite knowing about the problem since 2005: The federal government has doled out more than $600 million in benefit payments to dead people over the past five years, a watchdog report says. Such payments are meant for retired or disabled federal workers, but sometimes the checks…
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Gary Becker, University of Chicago Nobel Laureate in economics, has a must read article in today’s Wall Street Journal. The article echos much of what we here at MGC have been arguing – government failure as a cause of the recession, failure of stimulus and monetary policy to boost economic recovery, the necessity of…
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What do you think is taller: the Empire State Building or cube of $114 trillion dollars??? Check it out here! The 114.5 Trillion dollar super-skyscraper is the amount of money the U.S. Government knows it does not have to fully fund the Medicare, Medicare Prescription Drug Program, social security, military and civil servant pensions….
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Yesterday, President Obama threatened that if the debt limit is not raised by the August 2 deadline, he can�t guarantee that Social Security checks will go out. However, for years Democrats have argued that Social Security is on strong fiscal footing, and reform is unnecessary. The argument is that over the years the government…
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Despite not having taken any action to pass an annual budget for the United States government of any kind for almost two and a quarter years, it appears that the current majority Democratic Party in the Senate may finally have developed a blueprint for the federal budget, one that even promises to reduce the…
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The White House is now reporting that the debt day is approaching faster than expected. August 2nd was the cut-off date for negotiating a deal, but now Congress must agree to a deficit-reduction deal by July 22 to avoid hitting the limit. Meanwhile, Republicans and Democrats are deadlocked in opposing positions. Included in one…
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One of the common refrains we hear from people who want to focus on “fixing” the budget deficit by increasing federal tax revenues is that U.S. corporations pay less in income taxes than what businesses in other nations pay. But in focusing on just U.S. corporate income taxes, these people are ignoring a huge…
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