Bill Gates is really doing some great stuff the last few years. He takes a look at the enormous problem with state government’s failure do deal with the very long term health care failure in the USA (this has been going on for the last few decades) and the financial games them play. His Twitter quote is: Enron would blush at the financial untruth State governments engage in.
I have written about these problems before, including in: USA State Governments Have $1,000,000,000,000 in Unfunded Retirement Obligations. One small (compared to the problem for the whole country) He notes is that California has a $62.5 billion health care liability and $3 billion set aside for it.
We have been doing a very bad job of electing people to honest manage budgets. We, or our children and grandchildren are going to pay for those failures. The longer we fail to elect people that will deal with the real decisions that need to be made for government spending and taxing the greater those bills for our mistakes will be.
Related: Are Municipal Bonds Safe? – USA Heath Care System Needs Reform – USA Spends Record $2.5 Trillion, $8,086 per person 17.6% of GDP on Health Care in 2009 – The USA Pays Double for Worse Health Results – The Long-Term USA Federal Budget Outlook
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I always thought that people who run household budgets and save successfully would make better government officials than those who are currently in power.
To me, it’s simple — live below your means. Every government should know that, or at least, know better than the ‘common man’, except… it is ‘common men’ running those budgets 😛
The condition of most state and local pension funds, combined with the major hit even 401(k)s took in 2008 points up the fact that one can do all kinds of fancy retirement planning, but as long as someone else is managing your money, you’re at risk!