Older Population to More Than Double

[Terri]

By SUZANNE GAMBOA
Associated Press
February 12, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rapid growth in the nation's older population is likely to put huge pressure on the cost of government safety-net programs, even though the rise of immigrants is helping to increase the total of working-age people, a report said.

The Pew Hispanic Center found that the faster growth in the older population means costs per worker for programs that help seniors and children under 17 will go up.

Taxes paid by the working-age public help pay the costs of programs like Social Security and Medicare, and programs for children. While immigration is padding the totals for that working-age population, the aging of baby boomers is outpacing other groups.

More (http://www.gopusa.com/news/2008/february/0212_older_pop.shtml )

[Der Alte]

It seems as if almost all writers re the population growth and financing the social programs tend to forget one thing - all of our resources are finite. We have experienced huge water shortages all over the southeast for the past year and they are all blamed on the drought - if we had half as many people we would have twice as much water. Can't the powers to be get it in their head that we can't increase the amount of land, water, oil, coal or any other resource. Glad I won't be around when we have to be fit in with a shoehorn.