Reform entitlements now, not later

The baby boomers are going to start to strain the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke says that entitlement reform should be addressed:

Bernanke said that as the population ages, the United States will have to choose among higher taxes, fewer dollars for other programs, lower spending on entitlement programs, and a sharply higher budget deficit …or some combination of all those.

Government spending for Social Security and Medicare alone will increase from about 7 percent of the U.S. economy to almost 13 percent by 2030, and to more than 15 percent by 2050, he said.

At that point, you’re talking about a federal budget almost exclusively turned over to the business of taking money from workers and paying for Social Security and Medicare. That Ben Bernanke guy’s pretty smart; we should listen to him.

Extra – Here’s a typical debate/flame war on Fark.