Posted by
Bull 67 on Sunday, June 15, 2008 1:34:53 PM
As a young lieutenant I was an intelligence officer assigned to Headquarters, Strategic Air Command. My mentors, grizzled Cold Warriors and experienced analysts, predicted the Soviet Union’s fall. They were certain its decrepit political and economic systems couldn’t withstand the tidal waves of a rapidly changing world. It was not
if, they said, but how and when. Watching their assessments come to pass was the most formative event of my early career. It taught me these lessons: nothing is invincible or invulnerable, even superpowers; and great human events can be reasonably predicted in a logical and quantifiable way. Two examples come to mind.
In 1997 my squadron’s intelligence officer, a lieutenant, stood in front of a photo of Osama Bin Laden and told us this relatively unknown figure was an evil genius who would cause America great harm. In 2004 Dr. Fred E. Foldarvy, a renowned economist, assessed the housing bubble would burst and bottom out in 2008, followed by a significant recession. Years in advance their predictions were fairly accurate. Social, economic, and political crises don’t ‘just happen,' they can be, and often are, accurately predicted.
Today, wise men are sounding another warning, one concerning America’s military future. Recently, Colonel Robert Suminsby, Kirtland Air Force Base Commander, made these public statements to a group of local civic leaders, “If left unchecked, the growth of spending on Social Security and Medicare will eventually crush the defense budget…If we don’t buy new aircraft and satellites now, we simply won’t have an Air Force in another 20 years.” The facts support him. Even the President’s own 2008 budget calls this situation “unsustainable.”
Between now and 2030, entitlement programs, primarily Medicare, will dominate the federal budget to the eventual exclusion of almost all other spending, including defense.
These programs began in the mid-1960s when senior citizens were less than 10% of the U.S. population and over 5 workers supported each retiree. Today, Baby Boomers (27% of the population) are starting to retire, just as healthcare costs soar 6.9% annually. Now, only 3 workers support each retiree. In 2007, 41% of Medicare funding came from the same general revenue as defense. In three years Medicare starts operating in the red and will siphon even more money from general revenue.America’s retiree pool is rising, the labor pool is decreasing, and medical costs are skyrocketing. If this equation continues unabated by 2030, with only about 2 taxpaying workers per retiree, Medicare will devour most federal revenue and starve defense spending.
This is clearly a defense issue. Many serving today will feel its full effects. No one associated with America’s defense will escape its reach. The coming Medicare spending crisis is a tsunami and will swallow everything in its path. Our ability to modernize, sustain, and employ military forces will be crippled. Quality of life, healthcare, and retirement benefits will be devastated. As you read this, the water is rapidly receding to the horizon where a giant wave of red ink is looming. We are neither invincible nor invulnerable in the face of this coming crisis, but we can avert disaster if we examine the facts and heed the warnings.