ELF News Archives
January 2004- Prescription Drug Bill Debate -
Despite the fact that the successful Republican-led effort to pass the Medicare prescription drug benefit will saddle American taxpayers with an additional $395 billion over the next decade (and probably several times more than that, given the typical accuracy of government spending projections) in social spending that would make Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson envious...
Lew Rockwell 1/30
- Alzheimer's Risk in Men Tied to Low Testosterone -
...men who developed Alzheimer's had about half the amount of testosterone compared to men who didn't get the disease.
Yahoo News 1/29
- Drug Price Fight Heats Up -
The ink on the new Medicare overhaul law is barely dry, but already those who want to change it to get a better handle on the price of prescription drugs - and those who want to leave it alone - are making their respective cases.
Yahoo News 1/29
- Senate Passes Pension Relief Bill -
The Senate, acting with rare election-year concord, passed a bill Wednesday to reduce by $96 billion the payments companies will have to make into their pension plans this year and next.
Las Vegas Sun 1/29
- Social Security and the 108th -
Seventy-six million baby boomers are rapidly approaching retirement, even as the long-term insolvency of the Social Security program comes closer with each year that politicians fail to reform the nation's retirement system.
Washington Times 1/28
- Social Security and the 108th -
Seventy-six million baby boomers are rapidly approaching retirement, even as the long-term insolvency of the Social Security program comes closer with each year that politicians fail to reform the nation's retirement system.
Washington Times 1/28
- Growing Older, Staying Younger -
For several years now Hagen and his illustrious colleague, biochemist Bruce Ames of the University of California, Berkeley, have been feeding their old rats a mixture of two common nutritional supplements to see if they could turn back the paws of time. Working on the theory that aging is caused at least partly by dysfunction within the cellular structure itself, they think what works for rats may also work for humans.
Forbes 1/27
- The Bankrupting of America -
In order to achieve current solvency, the government would have to raise payroll taxes by 68.5%, beginning today. Alternatively the government could cut Social Security and non-Medicare outlays by 54.8% immediately and forever. (How do you think either policy would go over at the polls?)...
Your typical 50-year old, middle class American isn't prepared to retire without a lot of help. In fact, most baby boomers will never even pay off their mortgages. Lawrence Capital Management notes in the last 19 quarters total mortgage debt increased by $3 trillion (+58%). To put this in perspective, prior to 1997, it took 13 years to add $3 trillion in mortgage debt. Or, said another way, before 1997, around $50 billion a quarter was being borrowed against homes. Today the run rate is near $200 billion per quarter, or four times more. Household borrowings now total $8.2 trillion in America and they continue to grow at near double-digit rates.
Frontlinethoughts.com 1/21
- Bush Expected to Recommit to Social Security Reform -
President Bush tonight is expected to reaffirm his commitment to Social Security reform in his State of the Union address before Congress and the nation.
Cato Institute 1/20
- Why more senior citizens are carrying guns -
They're protecting themselves from what they see as a rise in violence, even if crime statistics say otherwise.
Christian Science Monitor 1/18
- Cato Institute's "Social Security This Week" -
White House: Social Security Reform to be Highlighted in State of the Union; New Ad Challenges Candidates on Social
Security; Democrat Candidates Must Address Social Security
Cato Institute 1/16
- The Bear's Lair: Put Grandpa back to work! -
The Congressional Budget Office last week released its long term budget forecast for the next 50 years, which showed that if nothing was done (and taxes automatically rose substantially from their present level through "bracket creep") the Federal deficit would total 17 percent of gross domestic product by 2050, and Federal debt held by the public would exceed 200 percent of gross domestic product. In other words, fiscal collapse.
Washington Times 1/12
- Cato Institute's "Social Security This Week" -
In Social Security This Week: Ferrara Defends Limiting Federal Spending to Finance Reform; IMF Warns about Unsustainable Entitlement Spending;
Personal Retirement Accounts Give GOP Election Strength; and much more!
Cato Institute 1/11
- The criminal raid on Social Security - (Forward March of Socialism)
While innocent babes who have yet to earn a penny are threatened with jail time for misusing Social Security cards, the Bush administration appears set this week to turn the ailing government pension program into an international relief fund for illegal alien workers who used counterfeit Social Security cards and stolen numbers to secure illegal jobs.
Town Hall 1/8
- FRAUD -
Since 1983, the Social Security Administration (SSA) located in Baltimore, Maryland, has been collecting more money than needed to pay benefits to the currently retired and disabled. At that time, Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Bob Dole sponsored a bill increasing payroll taxes far beyond what was necessary to pay benefits far into the future and perhaps forever—an increase that passed in less than 30 days. An increase that has produced greater and greater surpluses for, as Senator Moynihan put it, "the government to enjoy."
Ether Zone 1/7
- 48 drugs found to ill-treat elderly -
Some medicines don't suit older folks because they could pose unacceptable hazards to an aging body, or simply are ineffective.
Washington Times 1/7
- Steve Forbes on Social Security Reform -
Instead of trying to preserve FDR's brainchild, why not transform it into something that enriches the economy and significantly expands retirement benefits?
Forbes Magazine 1/7