U.S. Future Threatend by Cost of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security
By Michael D. Tanner

Peter Orszag is no conservative ideologue. The head of the Congressional Budget Office was a scholar at the liberal Brookings Institution before being picked for his current position by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Yet, Mr. Orszag recently warned that the rising cost of federal entitlement programs, particularly Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, poses a grave threat to America's economic future. According to Mr. Orszag, without dramatic reform, the cost of those three programs alone will rise from 18 percent of GDP today to 28 percent by the middle of this century and as much as 35 percent soon thereafter. The impact on workers, businesses and the economy at large would be catastrophic.