Entitlements

Charles Murray has an interesting solution to the rising costs of entitlements.

It's actually easy to do. If you step back from the intellectual gridlock that passes for policy debate today, here is the overriding empirical reality: We are already spending about $1.5 trillion a year on transfer payments (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, income support programs, welfare and subsidies of all sorts, including corporate welfare). If we simply divided up the money we are spending anyway and gave it back to people in the form of cash, we could provide everyone with the resources for a decent standard of living, including money to pay for healthcare and save for retirement.

He comes up with $10,000 for every person aged 21 or over every year. Hard to believe there is that much in entitlements out there.