>>We should have known that a hospital stay that cost $300 when we started working would cost over $10K when we retired.
>>Given our incomes in those days - a teacher's pay was about $4K/year- we'd have needed to pay our entire annual wages and then borrowed several thousand more to fund things properly.
>>Do you really want to keep suggesting that????

If you mean underwriting, then yes it is expected. The tragedy is that instead of enjoying years of compounding value that would have left the US swimming in $00Ts of invested cash to cover predictable future costs- more than enough to cover outgoings and even sort the subprime crisis out of pocket change- you now face the consequences of compounded deferred costs, while housing is expensive and represents a nice privatized profit out of reach of those whose taxes are making up the shortfall. Doesn't seem very fair to me and is labeled generational theft by some.

>>Years of reducing marginal rates have taken their toll.
>>There's not enough money to run the government.

You ignored my example.In the free world, most nations struggle to make ends meet, but they're covering healthcare costs and lots of other stuff left to the individual in the US. And tax rates are generally lower, especially corporate rates before the latest cuts. The main thing is that tax becomes repressive if it concentrates unfairly on one segment of the population. As an example, tax on salaries and wages mostly misses out the wealthy who claim more income out of asset appreciation and dividends. A microtax on currency transactions might be a better start as it barely affects those transacting currency for business purposes, but catches the parasites hoovering value out of every transaction by nudging currencies.