Bernanke Recommends Increasing Retirement Age to 108

Bernanke Recommends Increasing Retirement Age to 108

by Bill Britton

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Congress should rein in future Social Security and Medicare costs by raising the retirement age to 108. The Fed chief's comments stirred political ripples, with Senator John Kerry (D-MA) saying he would favor sending members of Congress, who vote in favor of reduced benefits, to Guantanamo Bay’s terrorist resort where they could live out their Golden Years. Other Capitol Hill Democrats said the previous administration’s tax cuts were to blame, although they admitted to benefitting from them.

President Obama said he would safeguard those at or near retirement, in particular Vice President Biden, something that former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan suggested as well. Urging swift action on the spiraling budget deficit, forecast to hit a record $482 billion this year, Greenspan told the House of Representatives Budget Committee that spending restraints were the best way to meet future commitments, rather than raising taxes on millionaires and endangering their children’s inheritance: “The exact magnitude of said risk is very difficult to calculate, given the egregious duplicitousness of arbitrage compexities in the secondary market, but they are of enough alarm, in my judgment, to warrant closing the fiscal fissure primarily, if not wholly, by reducing benefits due the common Joe-the-Plumber, or Rosy-the-Riveter, or other marginally contributory fringe input to economic viability.”

In response to questions, Greenspan said failure to tackle looming budget shortfalls would push long-term interest rates higher—a potential constraint on the economy—and would jeopardize his personal fortune and thus annoy his wife, NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell. He emphasized that “if Congress were to reduce social security benefits, it had better do so quickly to minimize the pain on voters near retirement. In this way, later retirees would have time to digest a smaller piece of the retirement pie as well as to cultivate a taste for Alpo.”

Obama warned of this looming budget crunch as tens of millions of baby boomers, born in the years after World War II, begin to qualify for early retirement benefits and look for ways to gas up their now-idle Hummers and SUVs. “This dramatic demographic change is certain to place enormous demands on our country's ability to maintain our national ethos of materialism unless action is taken,” he said. “For a variety of reasons, that action is better taken as soon as possible and should come out of the hides of the average Joe, or Rosy, or any other Fox News addict.”

Representative John Boehner (R-OH) said that “even with the so-called normal retirement age climbing to 80 or higher in the next two decades, the years people spend in retirement—sitting in web chairs, drinking six-packs of Bud, and dipping their Twinkies in guacamole—will increase, since Americans are living longer. In view of the upward ratcheting of government programs and the enormous uncertainty about the upper bounds of future demands for medical care, I believe that a thorough review of our commitment to allow old people to screw up their bodies is prudent in the long term.”

Republicans Tout Healthcare Plan

Republicans Tout Healthcare Plan

by Bill Britton

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio today announced his party’s plan for sweeping healthcare reform. “It’s a no-brainer,” said Boehner. “It takes the best parts found in the Democrats’ plan and weds them to ours. This will put to rest all those claims that Republicans cannot work with Democrats.” Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) echoed similar sentiments when he said that “Grandmas around the country need not fear us pulling the plug on them. We’ll let them dribble away on life support for as long as it takes to get me reelected. This includes all the grandpas like me in the Senate who have been comatose for decades.”

The plan is national in scope, as demanded by Democrats, and calls for the elimination of all healthcare insurance coverage for households earning less than $250,000 per year, as favored by Republicans. Those making more than this ceiling will have the option of retaining their coverage and will receive a tax rebate of 150% of their premium costs to offset the obvious hardship. Members of Congress will continue to be covered by their government plan, and the limit on direct campaign contributions will be raised to $100,000 per donor to ensure that special interests like insurance companies are protected.

Those making less than $250,000 per year will have their medical needs attended to by the existing network of emergency rooms found in hospitals around the country. These facilities will be available to American citizens of Christian birth only. Funding for this care will come from reduced social security payments, which “ensures that the effect on the budget will be a zero-sum game, so to speak,” said Boehner. Illegal aliens and non-Christians will be cared for in an abandoned Ace Hardware store in northern Montana that has been converted to a clinic staffed by medical students from Grenada, a “vital ally in our war on terrorism,” as described by Senator John McCain (R-AZ).

When asked if Jewish doctors will be qualified to practice medicine in the emergency-room network, Boehner replied, “If these facilities cannot hire enough Indian or Pakistani MDs, of course they’ll be allowed to practice. After all, ID [Intelligent Design] has blessed them with the skills necessary to care for us goyim, as the Hebes like to say, although I think He should have paid more attention to the finer details. What’s with the foreskin anyway? Or with wisdom teeth?”