Going for Broke: Deficits, Debt, and the Entitlement Crisis. This item is unavailable.Going for Broke: Deficits, Debt, and the Entitlement Crisis

Our growing national debt has dropped out of the headlines recently - but that doesn't mean that the problem has gone away. The national debt recently topped $17.5 trillion, and is projected to reach $27 trillion by 2024. Worse yet, if you include the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare, the U.S. real indebtedness exceeds $83 trillion. Despite these undeniable facts, politicians from both parties continue to avoid making the difficult decisions that must be made. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid alone account for 48 percent of federal spending today, a portion that will only increase more rapidly with the newest entitlement program, Obamacare. The truth is that there is no way to address America's debt problem without reforming entitlements. Going for Broke provides a critical, in-depth analysis of these entitlement programs and lays out much needed solutions for real reform.

Michael D. Tanner is director of health and welfare studies at the Cato Institute, co-editor of Replacing Obamacare: The Cato Institute on Health Care Reform and Healthy Competition: What's Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It, and author of The Poverty of Welfare: Helping Others in Civil Society.