[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=EconProf]And entitlements, which dwarf defense and other discretionary items, were not even touched. [/quote]
Entitlements are sacrosanct, especially to the Dems, which view them now as almost a birthright.
I’m all for cutting the Defense budget, although I cannot see how this will be anything but a disaster in the midst of two wars.
Until we get serious about cutting entitlements, tax reform, and honest fiscal reform, we’re going to see this drama played out numerous times over the coming years.
If you take half the budget outlays and essentially make them off-limits, you’ll get exactly what we have now: Drastic cuts to the other half of the budget, including discretionary (which includes infrastructure), while ignoring the proverbial elephant in the room. This is a massive wealth transfer from the young(er) to the elderly and is completely unsustainable over the coming years.[/quote]
Allan, I agree with you in general, but I think that there is quite a bit of wealth being transferred from the boomer generation (pre-elderly?) to those of considerably younger age. People (including the bright boys in Congress) think only of the elderly when they talk about Social Security. The majority of the population appears to believe that 100% of the population benefiting from SS is over the age of 65 (okay, 62 for those taking early retirement).
Social Security/Medicare: great idea on paper/unsustainable as “designed”. Then, of course, there’s that great American political tradition of creating a program, often without a clear-cut funding plan behind it, being put into operation, and then never looking at it again. Add to that, the second great American political tradition of adding more groups onto programs that have proved popular with the masses, and VOILA!! You have present day Social Security/Medicare.
Only two-thirds of those receiving SS benefits are retirees who paid dedicated taxes into the system that were matched by employers’ contributions. The other-third are beneficiaries who either paid nothing, or very little into the system: widows, minor dependents (not necessarily children), divorced spouses of retirees, and those benefiting from Social Security Disability and SSI. While SS Disability requires some tax contributions, it is faaarrr less, and one’s ability to collect is not dependent upon it. It is not only available to working adults, but to adults and CHILDREN who have never worked. There’s even a category that allows for payments to parents of disabled children who are deceased.
The numbers of beneficiaries for SSI and disability has risen and fallen at various times in the program’s history. But the figures over the past 10 years are truly shocking. A couple years back, the number of people awarded SS/Medicare for disability surpassed the number of retirees who were due to start in the system.
Government statistics indicate that 8.5% to 9% of those adults in the 25 to 65 age group are “disabled” to the point that they cannot perform any gainful employment. If that is, indeed, true, we have much greater problems than the national debt. It shows that either we are an extremely unhealthy country, or it shows that we have a huge number of citizens that are unable to work through physical/mental problems that cannot even begin to compare with those faced by our ancestors, and who do not believe in taking responsibility for themselves and their offspring. Either scenario does not bode well for our nation’s future.
It is demoralizing to think of the Congress who will not address the existing problems with funding retirees’ SS/Medicare benefits, much less those associated with the “boomer tsunami” headed our way. But it is truly shocking and frightening to become aware that Congress has, for years, been warned about the unaddressed problem with rapidly-increasing numbers of citizens being added to the Social Security benefit rolls, and that they choose to pretend that the situation doesn’t exist.
EconProf, you can’t blame this on the Democrats, much as you’d like to. A cursory review of Congressional activity over the past decade has shown that, despite an abundance of lip service to the contrary, Republicans, as a party, are just as reluctant to take decisive action against entitlement programs; a more detailed review does not uncover any additional evidence of Republican-led action. Periodically, individual members or teams will attempt to introduce legislation that does attempt to make inroads against the unsustainability of our entitlement policy, but those brave Congressional souls are immediately shot down in their efforts
To wit, Tom Coburn’s recent debt-resolution offering: while not perfect, it slashed entitlement programs across the board, including those that benefit corporate interests and defense contractors, along with the elderly, the truly disabled and needy, and those that simply want to take whatever they can. It also called for tax increases for a wide range of income-earners, from the lower middle-class to the wealthiest heiress and richest hedge fund managers. For his hard work and effort, Sen. Coburn received abundant abuse from his fellow members of Congress, including his own Republican Party. Other members/teams who worked diligently on plans that offered actual solutions (as opposed to declarations of sweeping change largely based on political rhetoric), were treated in a manner similar to that aimed at Sen. Coburn.
While I’ll admit the Democratic party is responsible for originating many of the large entitlement programs, and appears unable to extricate itself from a “Solve Through Entitlements” campaign philosophy, the Republicans are equally complicit in maintaining and nourishing them, and even creating some of their own (can you say “Medicare Drug Benefit”?).
We really don’t have a two-party (Republican-Democrat) Congress anymore. What we have is a two-goal Congress. It’s those that want to be elected to Congress in perpetuity versus those who want to work hard, compromising with others, to address the problems that threaten our very existence as a nation. Unfortunately, the latter group is far outnumbered by the first. If this country’s citizenry do not stop taking their direction from ill-informed bloggers, hate-filled media personalities, and plastic empty-headed power-hungry politicians, and make the time to research the truth on their own, they will lose the right to do so.
