"To answer my friend why the Republicans have not done anything to fix these entitlements nor our national debt which tags along with them. The same reason Democrats have not. Everyone likes their seats of power in Washington. The quickest way to lose that seat is to be a truth teller on this issue."
Okay - I will bite. One of my loyal followers has thrown his hat in the ring to ask why spending is not being addressed by this fairly new Administration. In particular, entitlement spending. Those who have read my blog posts for a while know that this is a burr under my saddle and have addressed it many times. So I will address it once more.
Social Security, which has become knit into our society is a different program than when it was set up. It truly was a "safety net" in the beginning. When it was established as part of FDR's New Deal, life expectancy in this country was not that great. Making it to 65 was very good. So, a fund was established to help those who made it to 65 and had precious little savings. It was to keep old folks from becoming impoverished. Plus, with most people having scads of kids back then, the number of workers kicking in to support very few worked out from a math standpoint.
Today however, the math does not work out that well with Social Security. Nor with it's sister program which came about during LBJ's Great Society - Medicare. Our demographics show an aging population with fewer and fewer people having large families (or some having none at all). The warning bells have been going off about these two programs for just about my entire adult life. And nothing has been done by either party. Why? The needle has been in the arm for too long. They have both gone from a "safety net" to full fledged defined pension retirement programs. To even suggest a cut in growth is political suicide.
Now one would think, that after seeing what budget wreckers these two programs which came out of two historic periods in our history have been, we would have learned our lesson. Nope. Barack Hussein Obama came up with his own legacy called the Bad Deal. The Bad Deal, better known as ObamaCare has just thrown gas on the fire. Just like with Social Security and Medicare, this program is also unsustainable. The difference is the first two programs have been slow motion train wrecks while the demise of ObamaCare has been as fast as a plane crash.
Bad news never gets better with age - it only gets worse. There is no Occam's Razor fix for this entitlement problem. In fact, the fix would be so difficult, so painful, both parties would rather put if off for another day.
To answer my friend why the Republicans have not done anything to fix these entitlements nor our national debt which tags along with them. The same reason Democrats have not. Everyone likes their seats of power in Washington. The quickest way to lose that seat is to be a truth teller on this issue.
The fiscal cliff and the debt limit have set the stage, but there is also the reality of the rhythyms in the American political system. There are certain windows in every four-year or eight-year cycle when bold leaders can achieve bold things. The first few months of a President's term is one such window, but it closes fast, and lame-duck status arrives quickly.
ReplyDeleteThus, the President must adopt the mantle of leadership, rather than brinksmanship, to steer the nation away from the fiscal cliff and all that is set to follow, and he must start with spending. However, the critical silver lining is that simple, common sense,
and thoroughly vetted solutions such as the four listed below constitute a strong start on the journey to more complete programmatic reforms remedying acknowledged flaws in these
programs, and they already enjoy broad support across the political spectrum.
1. Raise the Social Security eligibility age to match increases in longevity.
2. Correct the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA).
3. Raise the Medicare eligibility age to agree with Social Security.
4. Reduce the Medicare subsidy for upper-income beneficiaries
And if he really has cajones:
5. Phase out Social Security benefits for upper-income retirees.
6. Consolidate Medicare's elements and collect a single higher premium
All that is lacking to avoid the fiscal cliff, profoundly stabilize the nation's public finances, and shore up these critical entitlement programs is for the President to take the lead.
The nation waits.
Bird; Thanks for restating the problem so eloquently.
David Gjerdingen
If DJT would take this on, it could define his presidential legacy.
ReplyDeleteAs it stands now, the trajectory he is on will put him somewhere below Carter and Hoover.
Obamacare is less than 1/15th of the Medicare portion of the budget. Hardly worthy of such vitriol!
ReplyDelete