A column about history, culture, policy, and things in between.
It was just over two years ago that President Bush continued his journey into the political wilderness by putting our Social Security program on the table, saying, in essence that "it is time to do something about it".
There was not one politician from any party or persuasion that dared respond to, much less support this move; and the matter once again disappeared below the sea level of our political debate. Just last Wednesday, however, Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve and David Walker, National Controller General, again raised the alarm.
Bernanke addressed the "aging of America's population" and the implications this has for our entitlement programs. "Unless something is done", Bernanke warned, there will be significant "economic dislocations and negative repercussions". Mr. Walker was more pointed, referring to the staggering entitlements contained under the prescription drug program (part of Medicare), as "the most irresponsible legislation of the last forty years".
The Chairman and Controller General are only voicing what we all intuitively know to be true. Namely, that there is an enormous day of reckoning coming with respect to entitlement programs. As our population ages, the number of people receiving FROM these programs will become inexorably and insupportably greater than the number of people putting INTO them. This is a simple equation not only for financial mayhem, but also for tremendous social strife on a generational level, as we see our children's lives turned into little more than revenue machines for the funding of retirees. The implications of this scenario will affect virtually every aspect of our lives; and they will do so in a horrifically negative way.
Whatever your view of government spending, where it is too great and where it is too little; there is no disputing the simple reality that entitlement programs are the overwhelmingly dominant cause of our fiscal ills. The Department of Defense could reduce spending by fifty percent, or indeed, be eliminated, and it would not substantively change this twisted entitlement metric. It is these programs that form the iceberg our ship of State is steaming towards.
Social Security and Medicare are the two largest and most obvious examples. In addition, there is the matter of entitlements contained under retirement programs for government employees. As the level of America's workforce employed by government approaches fifty percent, tremendous additional pressure is added to an already overwrought and bankrupt system.
Addressing these chasms of debt is going to be painful, but NOT addressing them is suicidal. It must begin with forcing this matter out into the arena of political debate. There are some solutions to this quagmire, and I will be writing about them in the coming months. But one thing I will say is this:
The solution is NOT Federal healthcare, or Federal pension insurance or any Federal "we'll take care of you" promissory note.
Why would we expect solutions from the same system that brought us these disasters?
