The newest report from the Trustees of Social Security and Medicare paints a very bleak picture for these programs and not too far down the road. Of course, the Trustees have issued very bleak reports in the past, and so far nothing has been done by the “movers and shakers” in Congress.

The reports tell us:

The financial condition of the Social Security and Medicare programs remains problematic. Projected long run program costs are not sustainable under current financing arrangements. Social Security’s current annual surpluses of tax income over expenditures will begin to decline in 2011 and then turn into rapidly growing deficits as the baby boom generation retires.

Medicare’s financial status is even worse. This year Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund is expected to pay out more in hospital benefits and other expenditures than it receives in taxes and other dedicated revenues.

And the Trustees tell us:

We are increasingly concerned about inaction on the financial challenges facing the Social Security and Medicare programs. The longer action is delayed, the greater will be the required adjustments, the larger the burden on future generations, and the more severe the detrimental economic impact on our nation.

The House Ways and Means Committee, has jurisdiction over programs like Social Security and Medicare, as does the Senate Finance Committee. According to The Hill, “The top five Democrats on Ways and Means have more than 130 years of experience in Congress.”

With that much experience, you’d think they would get something done.

From my research, the Senate Finance Committee’s top five democrats have about 128 years in Congress with chairman Max Baucus serving for about 30 years.

Repeat: With that much experience, you’d think they would get something done.

Ironically, the Chairmen of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee are such good buddies that they formed a Political Action Committee (PAC) in 2007 to raise some money.

It looks like these two committees need a House (and Senate) cleaning if these vital programs will ever be saved. It appears they are saying, “Why save them, when we can use them every few years to scare seniors into voting for us?”

The key thing the Democrats do when someone attempts to get a dialogue going on how we might repair these programs, especially if the person is a Republican, is cry “PRIVATIZATION” to scare the elderly, by making them believe the big bad Republicans will take their checks. They understand that senior citizens are a large and active voting bloc. One would think they would feel just a little dirty and sleazy doing this, but this is Washington, D.C., and nothing is more important than getting reelected.

We saw the scare tactics up close in 2005 when the President came to Great Falls to talk about repairing Social Security. Max Baucus held meetings the same day telling folks that the President wanted to privatize Social Security.

Because of these tactics and inaction, the programs are headed for failure, and it looks like we will all have to pay much more in taxes to save them. Of course, Democrats like to raise taxes. The people who are using these programs and those who will need them in the future need a little more than “the politics of getting reelected” from people like Baucus. They need action, and we are not getting it from those who serve in the majority on these committees.