United Liberty
Revealing America’s Burden
Thu, 08/14/2008 - 5:20am | posted by Liberty Belle
Many of us reading liberty oriented political blogs know, at least vaguely, about the crushing size of current debt and future unfunded liabilities, but the problem unfortunately, is that most Americans are less aware about the scale and consequences, let alone necessary solutions. The producers of I.O.U.S.A. seem to believe they can play a part in the solution by bringing what politicos and economists have known for years to the public’s attention.
I.O.U.S.A. is a documentary that will be released this month that promoters hope will do for the US Economy what “An Inconvenient Truth” did for global warming. While it will be no Dark Knight, hopefully this film will be this summer’s Dark Horse and have a significant impact on 2008 election and future fiscal policy of America.
With Richard Viguerie making hard to dispute claims of $800+ Billion real budget deficits the film could not be debuting at a better time.
“As for Fiscal Year 2009, the Bush Administration projects a deficit of $482 Billion, but that does not include $36 Billion from the Housing Bill, $80 Billion in war costs, and $227 Billion borrowed from the Social Security Trust Fund. The actual deficit next year will be $825 Billion–$343 Billion more than has been acknowledged.
Here is the trailer -
Shana - Have you read “Boomsday” by Christopher Buckley? It’s a witty novel in the veign of “Thank you for smoking” about the coming Social Security crisis.
I have not read that yet, but it’s now going on my “to read” list. Thanks for the suggestion!
I’ve had my tickets for the last few days. There will be a live round table discussion beamed in live at select theaters on the 21st. Here’s the link for more info:
http://www.fathomevents.com/details.aspx?eventid=728&utm_source=Google&u…
Shana - I’m still getting through it. I’ll post a review on it here when I’m done reading it.
This movie is really good at scaring you. Some of the projections are absolutely bone-chilling. But it largely overstates the problem — the deficit is currently at a manageable level of 3% of GDP. And we need to run a deficit in this economic downturn to ensure we don’t have skyrocketing rates of unemployment. The flim also ignores one of the best solutions to the “problem” — health care reform. If our health care system were as efficient as other industrialized nations, and if Medicare/Medicaid were able to take advantage of these lower costs, then our deficit problem would basically disappear. Check out the Center for Economic and Policy Research, they have a nice graphic that demonstrates this well: http://www.cepr.net/calculators/iousadeficit/calc_iousa_deficit.html