Thomas Sowell – Dismantling America

Many think that balancing the federal budget would require deep cuts in entitlement programs. This paper shows to the contrary that the budget can be balanced within 15 years through modest and sustained federal spending restraint and moderately higher economic growth. Key to this restraint is to limit the growth in the average future value of entitlement benefits per recipient to today’s level, after adjusting for inflation and rising healthcare costs. 

Economics Working Paper 26128

President Ronald Reagan’s speech in June 1987, delivered in the shadow of the Berlin Wall, is immortalized because of the exhortation, “Mr. Gobachev, tear down this wall.”