democratic solutions for medicare and SS

Funding shortfalls for Social Security and Medicare should be viewed in the context of Bush's drive to make the tax cuts of his first term permanent.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said that if Congress approved Bush's request to make his tax cuts permanent and enacted a permanent fix for the alternative minimum tax, which was designed to tax the wealthy but is falling on more middle-class tax payers, that would represent a cumulative revenue shortfall equal to 2% of the total economy over a 75-year period.

That is three times the shortfall estimated by the trustees for Social Security over the same period, Reed said.