Joe Doakes from Como Park emails in re a recent Powerline article:
“Mandatory” [spending] does not include defense, it covers things the government must spend because people are entitled to them: i.e., welfare, medicare, social security, etc.
Entitlements are the big growth. Not a surprise. For my wife and me, it’s $22,000 worth. That’s an eye opener.
Joe Doakes
It’s amazing how conservatives can warn people about something for six years, and it can still be a surprise, even to smart people, how bad it actually is.
Now that conservatives control both houses, I eagerly await the reform republicans have ‘talked’ about for “years”.
Did those mythical reforms happen 2001-2007 when we had a GOP senate, house, and president?
When we had George W Bush and Bill Frist?
No, they didn’t – to the chagrin of not a few conservatives.
I supported Forbes in 2000. I was right.
Reform should include means–tested Social Security with a (mandatory) savings plan requiring individuals to put aside a portion of their earnings in a regulated individual account of some sort. Social Security tries to combine those two, and ties itself up in knots trying to reconcile the many contradictions of being both a welfare and savings vehicle. Government is best when it is simple, with no secondary or tertiary motives.
Everything you describe, Emery, goes against the goals of SSI (Social Security Insurance). It was purposely designed to provide collective, not individual, economic security. Means testing SSI would make it a welfare program, not a social insurance program. If the well-off know that they will pay for SSI, but not receive SSI, the program will lose political support.
SSI is a cruel tax. It takes 12.5% of earned income (but not welfare) from dollar one to $118k. The poorer you are, the more you pay, and the less you collect, since poor people don’t live as long as well-off people.
SSI was designed and delivered to Americans by progressives. The idiots on the Left think that SSI is a big success because it is popular. They honestly don’t seem to realize that the popularity of SSI is due to A) people get out more than they put in (until recently) B) it is simple. One determination that you qualify, and you get a check every month until you die.
It’s settled then, more bread and circuses.
Yes, more bread and circuses.
Nearly every problem we have that is national in scope is a direct result of the federal government taking on responsibilities it is constitutionally and institutionally unable to perform well.
FDR called SS the “third rail” for a reason. And at some point, politicians need to wise up and lay it out;
“AARP, here’s your choice. We can move away from government entitlements, or you can impoverish your own grandchildren trying to keep the system we have. Choose wisely.”
And barring that we will, as a people, somehow decide that it’s OK to allow foolish people to go hungry as a result of their actions, I’ve got to admit that Emery’s proposal is about as good as we can hope for. The one big improvement I’d hope for would be to not have it be means tested, but rather simply have Socialist Insecurity be something of an income “floor” for those who participate. And allow people to “max out” on their retirement–something like when you get to 500 ounces of gold net worth, you don’t have to pay in anymore.
Might be interesting what happens with corporate America when people figure out they’re sitting on a bunch of money and can start their own businesses, too.
SSI, I think, will always be paid. You can nibble around the edges a bit, but the bulk will be paid. The government will cripple the military with budget cuts before they will stop sending out SS checks.
BTW, Michael Medved is an idiot on this topic (as he is on immigration). Medved thinks we can solve SSI’s financial problems by raising the retirement age. This is desk-jockey thinking. Does he think that we’re going to have carpenters in their late 60s climbing a ladder with two sheets of half-inch plywood and a tool bucket? Who is going to hire these 70 year old construction workers?