"Superpower" connotes much more than sheer destructive force and it´s doubtful that the US is even now a superpower.
Certainly at its present rate of decline it won´t be much longer.

The bigger question isn´t answered: which programs are the problem? Social Security: we have known for decades that the baby boomers were a demographic anomaly. They are starting to reach Social Security age, so of course the proportion on Social Security is climbing.

SSI: The rate of autism has grown from 1 in 10,000 in the 1980´s to 1 in 88 today (CDC statistics). That is going to mean a lot more disabled people receiving SSI. If we want to reverse this, then we have to get serious about figuring out what is causing autism and how we can move the rate back to the 1 in 10,000 range.

SSDI: Those baby boomer demographics again. The most likely group to go on SSDI are those within 10 years of SSI age who are having health problems.

I recently had to visit my local Social Security office. I was amazed that the waiting room was filled with young people in their twenties and thirties. It was also hard to see anyone of normal weight, they all seemed morbidly obese. They were of various ethnic backgrounds equally, not one more than another.
It was a real eye opener for me, worse than the first of the month wait in the grocery line behind food stamp recipients.
This article is even scarier.

#2 The rate of autism has increased do to the fact that it has been changed to a catchall for all manner of social interaction problems. There´s money available for those classified as autistic. Not that the individual gets it, but the institutions to help them.
Create a need where there wasn´t one before.

A poster child for affirmative action has no clue of the realility.

I´m not convinced this "goooberment hand out" isn´t fixable....

Just be patient....

There´s a Wyatt Earp out there just waiting for the right time.....

I recall the gloom and doom when carter was making a mess. AND look who sauntered up -- pilgrim.....

LZK

Where is the Constitutional authority to support "disabled" people?

The answer is no. It is also the purpose and deadly goal of this administration.

No country that is over 16 trillion dollars in debt can be called a superpower. Even if a majority of the country could be persuaded to stop the economic decline being brought on by the welfare system in this country, political and social inertia will not let us stop in time.

Well, I guess my question is what do you do with people who have nobody to help them and they truly are disabled? I believe there should be some sort of safety net. I have a friend in that position now (who worked hard since she was 16 until everything physically fell apart around age 40--she´s 50 now and all her earned money is gone except her car) and she can´t even get any help from the government at all. Sure, there are tons of people who are scamming the system who shouldn´t be on disability. And that makes it all insane. People who need and deserve it can´t get it and people who don´t need it but are manipulative get it. It makes me angry.

It seems we read about the decline and destruction of our country and decry it, but no steps by anyone are ever taken to stop it!

It seems like every time somebody come up with common sense answers and plans to solve our problem, the beloved media does nothing but scream and whine about how heartless and uncaring they are, then proceeds to crucify them in the court of public opinion. Sarah Palin ring a bell? Mitt Romney? Rush Limbaugh?

#4,

Some of the increase in autism is likely due to over-diagnosis, but that cannot account for all of it. When I did a research paper on music therapy in my first year of college I had never heard of autism. I can recall seeing maybe 2-3 autistic children while in my teens. Now, autism is on the rise.

Part of the rise is due to extremely premature babies who are surviving at much higher rates than before. My older son was born at 25 weeks gestation. He has Asperger´s syndrome (an autism variant). We met a mom whose child was right next to us in NICU. He is autistic.

Autism is not a catch-all like ADD or ADHD are. There is ´diagnosis creep´, but there are discrete thresholds that are required for diagnosis. Almost every kid I know with an autism diagnosis is actually autistic.

There is a reason that the Founders stipulated that spending bills in originate in the House (“the people’s house”). The reason is that the people provide the money government spends, and it is, therefore, the people who decide how it is to be spent.

The Founders likely never foresaw the time when half the population would be drawing from the treasury, rather than contributing to it.

Perhaps the time has come when their original idea is adjusted to today’s reality; to redefine the notion that those who contribute to the treasury should decide determine spending. Perhaps the national voter ID card we need is a copy our last year’s filed IRS 1040 form.

America is doomed because the elite in DC, and the states, keep getting elected by those wanting govt to take care of them and/or because of their libnut thinking.

@#7: To answer your question, as Rep. John Conyers, (D-MI), once said, it`s the Constitution`s `Good and Welfare Clause`.

One brave woman in my home town drives to work through a neighborhood of young, able-bodied porch sitters. She opens her window and calls out, "I´m going to work now so that you can sit there all day." They then flip her off. This is not going anywhere good.

"Social Security: we have known for decades that the baby boomers were a demographic anomaly. They are starting to reach Social Security age, so of course the proportion on Social Security is climbing."

Yeah that "demographic anomaly" and their employers have been contributing 12% of the wages of all of those folks in FICA taxes for what, 40-50 years? And what has happened to it? It´s been spent by politicians. If I would have been allowed to invest the money at 5% that has been taken by the government for FICA taxes I would have about $600,000 in a retirement account. I don´t think that I will get that back out of SS.
Yep, the "demographic anomaly" is going to be retiring, but they also have been the largest tax revenue base in American history for the government to squander...

massive fraud and illegals, and those who work the system brought us to this point. talk about needing a massive overhaul.

"The kid in Poltergeist" - not just any kid. Dominique Dunne. Dominick´s daughter, who died a tragic death at the hands of her boyfriend.

Actually, [big grin] Americans are now on government programs. In England, they´d be on programmes.

I distinctly remember Sec. of State Madeleine Albright stating she was uncomfortable with the US being the world´s sole superpower. I remember because it shocked me much more than the routine shocks of the Clinton administration.

Therefore we can count the weakening of superpower status as a milestone reached among the goals of the Democratic Party, not a presidency ´´firmly stuck in denial´´ as Gardiner wrote.

What 23 said. But seriously, apart from the practical aspects of the issue, it´s absolutely immoral for the government and those who support it to burden future generations with this debt, and to make commitments that cannot possibly be kept.

So much for the mantle of moral superiority the left assumes. They are despicable hypocritical moral and intellectual bankrupts led by the same with the added quality of Obama suffering from an extreme clinical psychiatric disorder. Ole!

FTA: "time for the White House to wake up"

I can on all L-Dotters to PERSISTENTLY RESIST the notions that the White House is asleep, that Obama is dumb, doesn´t get it, etc...

He knows EXACTLY what he´s doing

time for AMERICANS to "wake up"

Above poster has it right - congress has used the ss funds as their personal piggy bank - plus fdr the creep, was one of the first to do so - the worst prez, even with carter, clinton and stupid obama likewise.

#18 There you go!!
As a small business owner I paid BOTH sides of FICA taxes for thirty years. I paid, in cash, approximately $240,000 to FICA. If I live 20 years after I retire I will draw out approximately $432,000…..BUT…if the government had invested the $240,000 instead of spending it, the interest earned would have easily made up the difference. I had no option but to pay the FICA, now they can very well stand up to their end of the deal. It was the governments´ deal…forced upon me.
Through the same thirty years, I managed to invest about the same amount as I paid into FICA. That account is well over $600,000. I could have retired a millionaire if the infernal government had just left me alone!

When it comes down to it, all that hand-wringing about Social Security and autism etc. is immaterial. The wealth isn´t there to support our humongous welfare state, and it never will be. We´ve been busy destroying ourselves over the last half-century, and the results are just now becoming visible.

America is turning into a two tier society - those on government support and those who aren´t. As the numbers on the dole grow, the Nation declines. This is now unstoppable for the foreseeable future. A Nation controlled by the lowest common denominator cannot succeed. However those who are thoughtful, motivated, hardworking and thrifty will succeed and thrive by tip toeing thru the liberal Democratic social wreakage cherry picking the best jobs, investments, neighborhoods, housing and schools.

With the range of qualifying disabilities growing so large, and with human nature being what it is, if they ever grant amnesty to the 20 million illegal aliens now here, you can safely bet that at least half of them will be on SSI before long. Once on SSI there is no reason for them to become anything other then liberal Democrat voters.

"Can America survive as the world’s superpower?"

Not with a President who has as one of his main goals to destroy that status, and a gutless House and traitorous Senate who allows him to do so.

The only way this gets fixed is for the people to act! So, when?

Do these statistics include Social Security? Because technically, that is not a handout for people who have paid in for many years. And their employers have contributed, too. The current rate is, I think, around 13%. And some people pay in and die before they ever get to access their benefits. It´s just gone.

If you are a drug user & seller, if you are an alchohol abuser, if you are a welfare mom with at least 4 or more kids, or ann illegal alien who can take money under the table, you can do ok with SSI. You can abuse the heck out of the system. If you are a person with a real, documented developmental disability,
SSI does not work. It is a mass of red tape. I wish everyone on SSI had to go through the extreme scrutiny that a person with a true disability does. Disabiility is often a "state of mind" just sit and watch how many people who actually use wheelchairs get to park in a "wheelchair" parking space.

You know if we could move from ´doom´. My thinking is that changes might be ordered up. Like squeezing a toothpaste tube, you use the fore-finger and the thumb.
So just for a few months, no one in charge, no one advising anything, if on our own we just do not partake in entertainment. No movies, dvds, no downlds.
Let everything like that go. If we have to have taxes and fees and surcharges, and lesser jobs perhaps there is no money for those things.
And then we shall see if H-wood picks up the phone and tells the Congress and the Obamanite Junta to back off.
Other wise we just have an echo-chamber.The Junta orders us around. We are Peasants. I don´t want to be a peasant.

Let this horrendous reality sink in. Imagine, most of the people you see on the street, spending money, in good cars, so many of these people, too many of them, at least, are on the dole, are not working, have become dependent on commie big brother. Person to person confrontation is a start. Example, three working households could have a sign carrying protest in front of the house occupied by, The Takers, triple dippers, government retirees, welfare and food stamp recipients. There´s a whole world out there and one way to begin to deal with it is to personally expose these takers, just like you would expose a pedophile. And, not unlike that damn newspapter that exposed registered gun owners. As long as our moral system is crashing and registered gun owners are put on a public map, now is the time to put The Takers on all kinds of maps.
Expose them for their cancerous ways.

Before long, we won´t have to worry about WHEN to act. The decision will be made for us when it all comes crashing down, banks, businesses, government, all of it. Those who are prepared will survive. Most of those 128 million will become casualties of their own incompetence or laziness. Staying in a big city will not be a good move during that time.

"Superpower" is hard to define. So the question can´t be answered.

Why is it hard to define? Because the US will remain able to fight some types of war well and other types not so well.

In fact we have been in that condition for decades. We succeed against convention military forces such as a national army or navy. Iraq wars showed that twice. And we greatly helped recently in the Libyan revolt.

But we usually fail to prevail politically afterwards. We did not with Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya. When we leave the conquered area soon reverts to what it was.

And new enemies may operate covertly, they have few distinct forces to attack. Al Qaeda for example.

For decades we have not been a Superpower in nation building or imposing democracy.

And we can only prevail against a large nation such as China or Russia in a nuclear war which would also severely damage us. We would not win a conventional war by invading them. We don´t have the right military for that. Or enough men.

So forget this Superpower nonsense. We don´t even understand the term. It implies we can prevail in any conflict.

It is not and has not been.

OP: I´ll go with your "Or something" option.

Right now the USA is....

the world´s...

Loan Super-Borrower.

International panic to follow later.

It´s "unsustainable."
Liberoids just won´t use their own favorite buzzword...
against katrillions in spending and debt.

I first though Social Security Disability would bankrupt the system in the early 1980´s when I found out many of my gay uncle´s younger friends had applied for and received disability funds because...(wait for it)..."Ah´m gay and Ah jus´ caint work in a straight world!" with a limp-wristed wave.

Then it was confirmed a few years later, when I realized that many of my immigrant neighbor´s first official act after being sworn in as a new citizen was to "sponsor" their parents and grandparents into my beloved country. At the time, I was under the mistaken idea that a "sponsor" would be legally required support those who were "sponsored."

When they went to the airport to pick up those elderly relatives, the first stop...on the way home from the airport...was the County office to apply for SSI, Medicare, Food Stamps and Section 8 Housing Assistance. Many of the "sponsorees" spent less than a week with family, then it was off to the Section 8 Senior Apartment, Food Stamps, medical care and cash payments all free to the "sponsors."

Let me help. We, too, used to have a real economy - like the Chinese are growing. Now we do not. Our root level economy has been outsourced for a large percentage of the population - who now make do with a crap service/retail/any kind of job economy. Like Walmart workers, even if they have a job, they must then be reliant on food stamps and other programs while the global owners take in huge returns.

Oh yeah, and our education has turned to crap and our policies are made to perpetuate the above situation from BOTH the Dem and the Republican sides.

And yeah, that´s no way to live.