Natalie Gonnella
The discord among House Republicans over how much discretionary spending to cut is a good sign that a healthy appetite for rolling back unneeded government exists in large measure in some quarters of Congress. The $74 billion in proposed cuts in the recent Continuing Resolution are a good start.
But lawmakers know that even if they increase that amount and thereby satisfy greater numbers of tea party voters, they are still avoiding the 800-pound gorillas in the budget.
Even if Congress were to cut the last penny of discretionary spending, long-term fiscal stability would still be next to impossible due to unsustainable program commitments like Social Security and Medicare. David Brooks puts it well in a recent New York Times blog post:
If people are going to spend 45 years of their lives working, say from 22 to 67, and they are going to live 43 years not working, in youth and old age, then we’re going to have some problems because each year people work they are not productive enough to support 2 years of their lifestyle.
With most of Washington conspicuously silent on the topic of entitlement reform, a slow but steady stream of Republicans (freshmen included) have been stepping up to the plate to advocate for the kinds of changes we need:
The era of Social Security surpluses is over…It’s very significant that this year Social Security has more money going out than coming in, and it’s very significant that in the next ten years Social Security will add a half trillion dollars to the deficit. Social Security would be a good place to start when dealing with these mandatory entitlement programs that are 57 percent of our budget.
Right now if you put money into Social Security for 40 years of work and then you die at 63 years old — there’s zero…you’re not passing anything down to the next generation. To me that’s inconsistent with basic values.
But people that are 49 and under, I think you're going to see reforms that are looking at raising the qualification ages…I think that's a reform I could get behind.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor
We must act though to prevent these programs from going bankrupt for future generations by beginning the discussion in earnest of how to reform the way the programs operate for those 54 and younger.
Let's keep the promises to people near the age of retirement. You know I've said many times that I believe personally that we ought draw the line at the age of 40 and say anyone over the age of 40 we'll keep you in the same deal that you've been promised in social security and Medicare all of your life. But for Americans under the age of 40, I believe it's absolutely imperative in addition to taking strong steps to put our fiscal house on order on the domestic side it's absolutely imperative…I'm an all of the above guy. We need to look at everything that's on the menu for people under the age of 40. It's not about giving younger Americans less of a deal in the new deal; it's about giving them a better deal. It's about saying to younger Americans if you will accept changes in the system, whether it's retirement age or whether it's the structure of the benefits that we will create new vehicles for you to engage in private savings and begin to create the kind of personal reserves…What I'm saying is you replace the new deal program for the people under age of 40 with a better deal.
I will not vote for the debt ceiling increase until I see a plan in place that will deal with our long-term debt obligations, starting with Social Security, a real bipartisan effort to make sure that Social Security stays solvent, adjusting the age, looking at means tests for benefits.
On the entitlement reform, nobody's talking about making it go away. We're talking about changing the structure. So, for instance, the kind of reform of Social Security that I've advocated, give younger workers the opportunity to accumulate savings.
We're not going to do anything that's going to put the American people or our seniors or anyone's life at jeopardy. And I don't want to hear all of this fear mongering and the use of propaganda against what you all know that we must do. It is time that we start talking to the American people like adults, and stop talking to them like children.
Although entitlement reform is unpopular among voters (ConservativeHome's latest survey revealed that only a little more than a third of conservative voters are willing to work longer and scale benefits toward those who need them most), the need for it is simply an imperative. As my colleague Ryan Streeter noted in a Fox News op-ed this week:
Entitlement programs will eventually overwhelm our economy. If we do nothing, our deficit – which has historically been around 2.9 percent of GDP – will rise to more than 20 percent when a newborn baby today reaches her 40th birthday, and will climb to nearly 50 percent when she retires.
The GOP’s $74 billion in cuts is a good start, but we all know that even if we tripled or quadrupled that amount, we still wouldn’t get ourselves out of our future fiscal bind. We need to stop hiding from the entitlement gorillas.
Unfunded entitlement liabilities will obstruct American prosperity more and more with each passing year. Slowly at first, and then with a gathering pace that will produce economic uncertainties that will be hard to endure.
The next generation won’t be helped by the political games Democrats want to play with entitlement reform, but they also won’t be helped if Republicans aren’t bold enough to start pushing more publicly for reform. Let’s see if we can add to the ranks of those above who have been willing to start having the public discussion we need.
Comments