首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Economic Death Spiral Just recently the trustees of Social Security and Medicare issued their annual reports on the programs
Economic Death Spiral Just recently the trustees of Social Security and Medicare issued their annual reports on the programs
admin
2013-07-11
43
问题
Economic Death Spiral
Just recently the trustees of Social Security and Medicare issued their annual reports on the programs’ futures. Here’s one startling fact: By 2030 the projected costs of Social Security and Medicare could easily consume—via higher taxes—a third of workers’ future wage and salary increases. We’re mortgaging workers’ future pay gains for baby boomers’ retirement benefits.
This matters because Social Security and Medicare are pay-as-you-go programs. Current taxpayers pay current benefits. Future taxpayers will pay future benefits. Baby boomers’ retirement benefits will come mostly from their children and grandchildren, who will be tomorrow’s workers. Consequently, baby boomers’ children and grandchildren face massive tax increases. Social Security and Medicare spending now equals 14 percent of wage and salary income, reports Elizabeth Bell, a research assistant to Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute, Washington, DC. By 2030, using the trustees’ various projections, that jumps to 26 percent. Of course, payroll taxes don’t cover all the costs of Social Security and Medicare. Still, these figures provide a crude indicator of the economic burden, because costs are imposed heavily on workers via some tax, government borrowing and cuts in other government programs.
It can be argued that the costs are bearable. The wage gains in the trustees’ reports could prove too pessimistic. Like all forecasts, they’re subject to errors. Even if they come true, they assume that tomorrow’s wages will be higher than today’s. Productivity increases; wages rise. In 2030, under the trustees’ " intermediate " assumptions, workers’ before-tax incomes would be about a third higher than now, says Tom Saving of Texas A&M University. What’s the complaint if workers lost—through steeper taxes—some of that? Why shouldn’t they generously support parents and grandparents? Well, maybe they will. But there are at least two possible flaws in this logic.
The first is that, on a year-to-year basis, wage gains would be tiny—less than 1 percent. When they’ve gotten that low before, people have complained that they’re "on a treadmill" and that the American dream has been withdrawn. Even these gains might be diluted by further tax increases to trim today’s already swollen budget deficits. The second and more serious threat is that higher taxes would harm the economy. They might dull economic vitality by reducing investment and the rewards for work and risk taking. Productivity and wage gains might be smaller than predicted. Then we’d flirt with that death spiral: We’d need still higher taxes to pay benefits, but those taxes might depress economic growth more.
One way or another, workers may get fed up with paying so much of their paychecks to support retirees, many of whom were living quite comfortably. So we ought to redefine the generational compact to lighten the burden of an aging population on workers. The needed steps are clear: to acknowledge longer life expectancies by slowly raising eligibility ages for Social Security and Medicare; to limit future spending by curbing retirement benefits for the better-off; to keep people in the productive economy longer by encouraging jobs that mix " work" and "retirement".
The rising costs of Social Security and Medicare create a clanger because______.
选项
A、they make people lose faith in the American dream
B、they might reduce economic growth
C、they will trigger a political death spiral
D、they will bring about an aging society
答案
B
解析
本题考查具体细节题。第二段末提到,预计用于社保和医保的费用将会增长很快,它意味着经济负担的增加。第三段提出一种认为这费用的增长可以接受的观点,其理由是工资在增长,拿出其中一部分用于交税是可以承受的。第三段末作者马上指出这种观点有两点错误。第四段接着分析原因:一是工资的增长相当少;二是为了支付增长的福利只能提高税收,而这样做会抑制经济的发展,所以[B]正确。第四段第二句提到,工资每年的增长幅度很小会导致人们对实现美国梦丧失信心.排除[A]。[C]中的“死亡螺旋”在第四段末句出现,但它指的是经济问题.即高税收导致经济萧条,因此[C]错在political。[D]因果颠倒,应该说是“老龄化社会”造成“社保和医保费用的增加”,而反之则不行。
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/D4RYFFFM
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
ThingstobeTaughtinEverySchoolⅠ.Introduction:Importanceofstudents’abilitytodealwiththerealworld.A.Speake
ThingstobeTaughtinEverySchoolⅠ.Introduction:Importanceofstudents’abilitytodealwiththerealworld.A.Speake
TheCooperativePrincipleisproposedby
Inaccordancewiththemissionithassetitselftofurtherthedevelopmentofsport,theInternationalOlympicCommitteestrive
Askedwhatjobtheywouldtakeiftheycouldhaveany,peopleunleashtheirimaginationsanddreamofexoticplaces,powerfulpo
______iscalledthefatherofEnglishpoetry.
DuringthedraftingoftheDeclarationofIndependenceandthedraftingoftheConstitution,theissueofNegroslaverywas_____
DouglasAdams,thelatelamentedauthorofTheHitchhiker’sGuidetotheGalaxy,dreamedupmanycomiccreations.Oneofhisgre
AlthoughChopinlaterattendedtheLyceumwherehisfathertaught,hisearlytrainingbeganathome.Thisincludedreceivingpia
随机试题
下列何药除外,均治肠燥便秘
HIV的口腔病损包括
甲乙两人达成一份苹果购销合同,约定甲卖给乙10万公斤苹果,双方就合同部分内容约定不明确,且未达成补充协议,按照合同相关条款和交易习惯仍不能确定其内容。在此种情况下,下列说法中错误的是:()
关于共同犯罪,下列说法错误的是:
制定招标采购计划时,为合理确定标段划分方案,应考虑的因素包括()。
______指人们对自己是否能够成功地从事某一成就行为的主观判断,是由班杜拉提出的。
试简述数学教育的价值.
A、ghostB、enoughC、laughD、toughA根据语音知识可知,gh在A项中的发音为/g/,在其他三项中的发音均为/f/。所以本题答案为A。
以下说法不正确的是()。
Englandisnotabigcountry:fromnorthtosouthandfromeasttowestitisonlyaboutthreehundredmilesacross.Butforas
最新回复
(
0
)