Bush Offers Medicare Reform
by Brian Riedl

The key feature of President Bush's fiscal year 2008 budget request is not its budget proposals for next year.  Furthermore, whether the 2012 budget deficit is projected to be $50 billion or $0 is not the most vital issue of America's long-term prosperity.  What matters most is the impending retirement of 77 million baby boomers that will trigger a $39 trillion tsunami of unfunded entitlement costs over the next 75 years

President Bush has taken an important step by offering Medicare reforms that will reduce Medicare's unfunded liability by a full $8.1 trillion -- which is one-quarter of the program's entire 75-year shortfall. And it does so with reforms focusing mostly on the wealthiest Medicare Part B and D participants.

It is important for Congress and the nation to have this debate: How much debt and taxes are we willing to dump on the next generation in order to protect large Medicare subsidies for upper-income seniors?

"Bush Budget Reins in Entitlement Costs" can be found at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm1341.cfm

Brian Riedl is Grover M. Hermann Fellow for Federal Budgetary Affairs at The Heritage Foundation.