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Jewish World Review April 20, 2005 / 11 Nisan, 5765 Don't get old By Tony Blankley
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Question: What is the difference between squirrels and members
of Congress? Answer: Squirrels make provisions for the future.
It has long been thought that one of the mental attributes that
sets man apart from the lower beasts is his capacity to mentally abstract
himself from the moment and contemplate the middle and long-term future. (As
consolation for being given that gift, man was also uniquely given the
capacity to laugh.) But if the current responses to fixing Social Security
and Medicare by senators and congressmen — both Republican and Democrat — is any indication, we might want to consider electing squirrels to Congress
rather than humans.
There is a building consensus in Washington that any meaningful
rectification of Social Security's finances is dead for at least the next
year or two. I am not quite prepared to join that consensus yet, but I
understand why smart people think that way. Democrats are wandering around
Washington proudly bragging that they have never been more united than they
are now to kill any Republican-supported Social Security proposal. They note
with pride that they are ahead of where the Republicans were in 1993 in
their successful project to kill Hillary Care.
To the extent that they have a policy argument, it is that
Social Security is not in any trouble that a modest little tax increase
can't solve, and that President Bush has his priorities wrong — he should
be solving the problems of Medicare first. As the unfunded Social Security
liability is $3.7 trillion (over 70 years), the little tax increase would,
by definition be at least $3.7 trillion dollars.
As the Democrats sincerely believe that regular, big tax
increases are good for the country, I will concede the possibility that they
are in good faith when they propose the world's largest tax increase as a
cure for Social Security. But that can't happen until there is a Democratic
president and at least 60 Democrats in the Senate, as almost all Republicans
would oppose such a tax increase. Given that they are at only 45 senators,
with a good chance of losing more in the next election, the Democratic
leadership has to know that their policy of total opposition and total
obstruction to any Bush bill on Social Security is in effect a formula for
inaction for many years to come.
So, absent fairly prompt reform, the baby boomers will have to
be satisfied with only $0.72 on the dollar of promised Social Security
monthly payments. That is all the existing law promises when the revenues
fall short.
The Republicans (except for the president and a few others) cast
equally slender profiles in courage on Social Security. Give it to the
Republicans, like good squirrels they are providing for their own future
re-elections by refusing to support or fight for the financial retirement
future of the general population. There is admittedly some risk to about one
in 10 Republican members of the House that they might lose re-election if
they support an unpopular bill. But even many members in safe districts are
taking no chances in supporting reform.
Of course, if Social Security were the only financial threat
lurking just over the horizon, even late efforts to fix it could be
plausible, if more painful (the later we wait, the more painful the cure
will be when it is forced on us).
But over precisely the same time period that we have to come up
with the money or benefit cuts to keep Social Security solvent, we also have
to do the same for Medicare. If the Social Security financial wave that will
hit us is a scary 25-foot wave of water, the Medicare wave will be something
the wrathful Hebrew Bible G-d would send if he was in an apocalyptic mood.
Think in terms of Noah — or worse.
According to the Medicare trustee's report last month, Medicare
costs currently consume the equivalent of 8.7 percent of all federal tax
revenues. That number goes up to 32.8 percent by 2025, and an unbelievable
but true 90 percent of all revenues by 2075. Calculated another way, the
unfunded liability of Medicare by 2075 will be a little over $60 trillion —
that's T as in Totally insane. Any way it is calculated, it can't be
afforded. Not only is Medicare challenged by all the same demographic forces
that are hitting Social Security, but also by the fact that demand for
health care is going up, on average, about 3 percent more than GDP every
year.
That is to say our demand for health care goes up much faster
than our collective capacity as a nation to be productive. Currently,
Americans spend, from all sources, about 15 percent of our GDP on health
care (public and private). If current trends continue, that will increase to
an impossible 79 percent by 2075. In other words, there will be little left
for everything else in American life — public and private — shelter, food,
transportation, education, clothes, capital investment, the military — all
other economic activity.
Neither the British, the Germans, nor the Canadians, nor we have
the slightest clue how to maintain funding for the levels of health care
their populations assume will be available to them through their
retirements. Those politicians who say solve Medicare before Social Security
are in effect saying don't solve Social Security. If we don't have the
political will to solve the easier problem of Social Security, my advice to
boomers as they get older is: Don't get sick.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. Tony Blankley is editorial page editor of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.
© 2005, Creators Syndicate |
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