Fix it or die....

 

 

 

"His crime against humanity? He lived too long...."

Last year my wife and I were shopping at the local Wal Mart. Being a good husband, I was kicking around waiting until she had found what she was looking for. I came across some books which had some interesting facts about different years people were born. Since I was born in 1949 (yes, I am that old), I picked up the book with fun facts about that year. One fact really stopped me dead in my tracks. The average life expectancy for a male born in 1949 was 61 years old. I was 62 when I read that depressing fact.

What is even more interesting is this fact - my Dad lived to be 90, my Mother is almost 95 1/2, and my Father-in-Law is about to turn 90. I am sure that if the life expectancy in 1949 was 61, it was less than 61 when these folks were born. So what does all this have to do with the price of tea these days? When you look at the core issue of our debt and resulting government shutdown - everything.

When Social Security was established as part of the New Deal, it was never intended to be a retirement program. It was an insurance program. Should you be stuck here on the Planet Earth after turning 65, the government would help you out by giving you some extra money. Not much, but just enough. The bet was that most people would not make it to 65, so the ones who won the "lotto" by making it that far, would be able to access the fund. Actually, at one time the fund made sense. Today however, it does not.

One of the statistics the government will NEVER disclose is the amount of our REAL debt. No, it is not $17T. That number is scary enough. The real debt is tens of trillions of dollars higher due to the obligations left to pay on Social Security and Medicare. Now I am not the sharpest blade in the drawer, but I am not stupid either. Right now we are still using a system designed on the premise that most people will not live to be 65. It was never intended to support a whole bunch of people in their 80's and 90's. Unless of course, everyone had a dozen or so kids that would work to support this group of geriatric citizens.

I will now use a term the Left loves - to make the system SUSTAINABLE, we must do one of two things: 1) Adjust the system to reflect today's lower birth rate and longer lives or 2) More people need to die earlier. Although this sounds flip, there is some truth in this. We refuse to adjust the system. We keep giving yearly COLAs as well as allowing more people to access the system early.

As we go through the next twelve weeks doing the same stork dance we have many times before, remember this - the Social Security fund (of which Medicare is part of) is the Mother Lode. It is the 600 pound gorilla in the corner of the room. Until the truth tellers can win the argument with the American people that this NEEDS to be fixed, our only other option is to lay down and die early.

The irony of the fix, is that it is not hard. It needs only four things to start with:

• Gradually, over the next ten years, increase the retirement age to 70.
• Eliminate COLAs immediately.
• Don't let people in who have not contributed to the fund.
• Take the cap of Social Security earnings.

For the sake of all of us, please, please, let's be serious this time about fixing the problem. Our time is running out.