is one of Washington's own making.

Obama and his Republican foes were unable to reach a comprehensive spending agreement last year, and essentially agreed to postpone the tough choices until after last month's presidential and congressional elections. Now they are faced with the endof-the-year deadline. Obama wants to fulfill a campaign promise to end a tax break for the country's wealthiest households, those making more than $250,000 a year, but Republicans have balked, while saying they would agree to end unspecified tax loopholes that mostly benefit well-off families. Republicans, in turn, wants sharp cuts in the country's popular government health care plans for older people and impoverished Americans and pensions for senior citizens, programs most staunchly supported by Democrats.

Social Security Administrations Office of Retirement Policy, predicted the following consequences of insolvency: The lowest income quintile would experience the greatest drop in their total retirement income because they have fewer non-Social Security resources to call upon. Younger retirees would experience a greater reduction in lifetime benefits than older retirees because they would spend a greater share of their retirement in the post-insolvency period. Women would experience a greater reduction in lifetime benefits than men because women generally start receiving benefits earlier and live longer and are therefore likely to collect benefits for a greater number of years past the trust funds' exhaustion date.[34] Medicare. The trust fund for Medicare Part A has no established backup funding (from general revenues, for instance).[35] If this trust fund becomes insolvent in 2024 as projected, benefits would be immediately cut by 13%, as mentioned above. Unlike Medicare Part A, Parts B and D are funded partially through general revenues, in addition to beneficiary premiums and, more recently, fees from drug manufacturers and importers.[36] Therefore, Medicare Parts B and D are not in danger of insolvency. This is not cause for celebration, however, because it entails an enormous future strain on general revenues. As a recent Congressional Research Service analysis warned: Due to its automatic financing provisions, the SMI account [the Supplemental Medical Insurance Trust Fund covering Parts B and D] is expected to be adequately financed into the indefinite future; therefore the unfunded obligations are considered to be $0. However, estimated SMI expenditures of

$29.3 trillion over the next 75 years are expected to exceed premium revenues and state payments by $21.6 trillion; general fund transfers of this amount will be needed to keep the SMI trust fund in balance for the next 75 years.[37]