On a periodic basis we do some posts that fall under the theme of “by the numbers.” Rather than trust what the American political tells us about reality, we like to examine the real numbers and the real reality in the world to understand what is actually going on. Relying on politicians, and their cohorts in the media, to tell us what is reality is always a sucker bet. They have their own agendas and goals, usually centering around their needs and self-enrichment. So we need to look at the reality of the numbers to determine what is really going on.
Previous analyses of “by the numbers” can be accessed by entering the phrase in the search box above. This is the third and final post this month where we look at the numbers to truly find out how good, not likely, or bad, most likely, the American political class is doing in managing our tax dollars, protecting our freedoms, and resolving major issues that affect all of us
1)The Social Security and Medicare processes are lifelines for tens of millions of disabled and elderly Americans. They have been Federal government programs that have been pilfered and abused by the Washington political class for decades. As a result, both programs are currently in free fall from a fiscal perspective. They no longer collect enough money to cover ongoing expenses, requiring the Treasury Department to cover their shortfalls from general taxes.
And in a relatively short amount of time, the current numbers of the programs indicate that formal, official bankruptcy is not that far away:
According to the current annual report of the Social Security Board of Trustees, the program’s trust funds will run out in about 11 years.
The Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund trust fund will be depleted in only 8 years.
Thus, within about a decade, assuming that Washington politicians do not act, tens of millions of Americans will see a substantial cut in their retirement funds and medical coverage.
These findings are consistent with analyses by the Congressional Budget office which also puts the demise of both trust funds about 10 years from now.
Current annual Social Security tax revenue is about $119 billion short of its expected 2023 payouts and is expected to be about $2.8 trillion short of what it needs over the next decade.
The Trustess estimate that drastic actions are necessary to bring revenue and expenses inline with each other including increasing payroll taxes immediately by 28 percent (3.4 percentage points), reducing spending by 21 percent for all beneficiaries, reducing spending by 25 percent for new beneficiaries, or some combination.
Not a pretty picture. The bottom line from a Social Security perspective that if current day politicians do nothing, then tens of millions of Americans will see a 21% reduction in their monthly Social Security checks in a about a decade. The longer that no action is taken by Washington politicians to fix the problem the more painful the end result will be. The numbers do not lie and they are devastating.
2) Many, many times in this blog we have documented how stupid the whole “defund the police” movement was. It was nothing more than an empty slogan that had no plan to replace the depleted police budgets across many liberal run cities. As a result, crime has rampaged in those cities, depleted police resources has endangered citizens’ lives, and staffing police forces has never been harder, resulting in more crime.
The city of Seattle is facing truly bad effects and numbers from their whole defund the police actions:
Seattle’s crime rate in 2022 was the highest it has been in 15 years.
Homicides in the city were up 24% in 2022 vs. 2021.
There were almost 5,600 violent crimes against city residents in 2022, about 15 violent crimes per day.
There were 1,600 car thefts in the city in 2022.
Not surprising, the city politicians had reduced the city police budget by 17% in 2021.
Not good numbers, but pretty obvious numbers: reduce police resources, crime goes up, especially since the defund the movement had no viable replacement plan for the reduced police functions. But despite the numbers, Mayor Bruce Harrell says, “The city is on a good trajectory, with our holistic approach to public safety.”
Seriously, homicides are up, violent crime is a serious issue and the city is on a good trajectory??? Could a politician be any more out of touch with the reality that these numbers show?
3)Many times in this blog we have predicted which state and city governments we think will go bankrupt because of the incompetency, ignorance, and lack of caring of the politicians running those states and cities. As a result, these states and cities have built up large unfunded future financial liabilities and current debt levels which has required them to raise taxes which has resulted in businesses and residents leaving those cities and states which has reduced the tax base which has caused more debt which has required taxes be raised and the financial death spiral is underway.
Cities we have predicted that are most likely to go bankrupt relatively soon include New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. States we have predicted that are most likely to go bankrupt relatively soon include California, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey.
The latest demographic numbers indicate the Los Angeles and Chicago are still very strong contenders to go bankrupt soon as their financial death spiral starts to form:
Los Angeles county, home to Los Angeles city proper, lost over 90,700 residents in the past year alone according to the Census Bureau, the worst loss of population of any U.S. county.
Cook County, the home county of Chicago, lost the second most residents, over 68,000 residents lost in just one year.
The top ten counties for population loss over a single year were in liberal/blue states and the top ten counties that gained population were in conservative/red states.
The top 10 counties gaining population were all in either Texas, Florida, and Arizona, states with much lower tax and government regulation burdens than states like California and Illinois.
The top five counties losing population were in California, Illinois, and New York.
So, no surprises from the latest numbers. People want to be free and safe. And being free includes keeping as much of their hard earned wealth as possible. Politicians in states like California and New York seemingly want to take as much from their residents in the form of taxes while at the same time not improving the quality of life or the safety of life of those taxpayers. They allow government spending to run amok while reducing vital services like police, fire, and education.
The numbers continue to be consistent: our original predictions on what cities and states will go bankrupt first and soon continues to be a good bet.
4)And while LA and Chicago continue to form their financial death spiral, don’t rule out Portland, Oregon as a city that might be a dark horse in the race to bankrutpcy:
Crime has skyrocketed in the city over the past few years as city politicians have been totally ineffective in reigning in the crime wave.
As a result, Cracker Barrel restaurants recently announced they would be closing their remaining two stores in the city, likely because of the crime increase.
Walmart recently announced it would be closing its two and only stores in Portland because of crime, a reality that was forecasted by the retail chain’s chairman, too much theft.
Green Zebra, a Portland based retailer, has shut down its three city stores.
Only 11% of city residents say the city is headed in the right direction.
Since city officials defunded their city police force a few years ago, the force has been understaffed by almost 200 officers, likely a contributing factor to the higher and higher crime rate.
Shootings have tripled since 2019 in the city, homicides are at their highest rate ever, car thefts have doubled since 2019, and a whopping 2,600 fewer businesses operate in the city since March, 2020.
Impressive that a city’s politicians could do so much damage in so short of a time to a city: crime up, law enforcement resources down, faith in the future down among residents, thousands of businesses (and likely thousands of residents) fleeing the city for their own safety, taking jobs and tax revenue with them. Do not rule out Portland as the next big city to go bankrupt, their numbers are impressive and have all of the earmarks of an impending financial death spiral.
Enough numbers for today: the same cities and states still heading for bankruptcy, delusional politicians in Seattle and elsewhere, and Social Security and Medicare still heading down the drain. Politicians may lie but numbers do not.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
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