Briefly, I have one major complaint with the strategy of Congressional Republicans with regard to the budget. Senator McConnell and Speaker Boehner have basically said they will kill any proposal to raise the debt ceiling without something on the order of a trillion dollars (that's $1,000,000,000,000) in cuts. But whenever you ask them or the rest of their party to get specific about where those cuts should come from (aside from just naming entitlement programs in general), they get very quiet.
Here's the thing, defense spending, debt service, and entitlement spending make up something like 3/4 of the federal budget. Obviously, there's no choice on debt service. Bring up the possibility of deep cuts to the DoD (as Secretary Gates has done) and suddenly the GOP starts hemming and hawing about how every dollar the Pentagon gets is sacrosanct. And entitlement spending, as someone on MSNBC brilliantly phrased it yesterday, is a political dirty bomb. Social Security has long been called (correctly) "the third rail of American politics." As in, "touch it, and you die." Add Medicare to that score now, as NY-26 demonstrates. Voters are awfully quick to which ever party wants to interfere in their entitlement programs. So basically, the Republicans are complaining about the debt being run up, blocking any measure to, I don't know, raise revenue, opposing efforts to cut defense spending, and essentially expecting President Obama to either go along with the ridiculously unpopular Ryan plan* to blow up Medicare, or find another way to commit political suicide by proposing deep entitlement cutbacks. President Obama may be many things, but a political neophyte he is not, and I'm pretty sure he's not in a hurry to commit seppuku just to do the Republicans a favor.
Personally, I think serious thought has to be given to a few things. 1) Raising the retirement age. People are living longer, period. You don't need to be an actuary to figure that out. Unfortunately, say the words "raise the retirement age" to most people, and you get immediate hostility. But if anyone could sell it, it would be President Obama. 2) Raising the payroll tax cap to ensure the long-term viability of Medicare and Social Security. 3) Raising corporate and individual income taxes generally, or at the very least cutting out some loopholes and deductions. Revenue must increase. If the Republicans weren't committed to being the Church of Cut My Taxes, they might realize that.
My point: One party is being serious about the debt. The other is not. I think we all know which is which.
*A plan which also would require the debt ceiling to be raised by another five trillion dollars. Fiscally responsible, my ass.
People are living longer, period.
ReplyDeleteThis is true if you define "people" as "the top half of the income distribution."
I'm sympathetic to that position, except that when the concept of a "retirement age" was concocted, living to 65 was no guarantee. And your source says it exactly right: "If such inequality in improvements persist, then the bottom half of workers born in 1973 will have retirements no longer than those born in 1937." I don't really have a huge problem with that. Maybe I'm just a workaholic, but I don't see the point in tying our progress as a society to how long people get to go at the end of their lives without working. Rich people get to have longer retirements? That's not news.
ReplyDeleteMy point is this: Medicare goes bust in thirteen years. Social Security does likewise not too long afterwards. The Republicans want to demolish Medicare and give a non-inflation-adjusting voucher for seniors to shop for their own insurance. That's asinine, but the mere fact that the Republican plan is idiotic and unpopular doesn't change the reality that something has to be done to keep the system solvent. Doing nothing isn't an option.
I don't see the point in tying our progress as a society to how long people get to go at the end of their lives without working
ReplyDeleteThe point is that life expectancy for the bottom half of wage earners hasn't increased. Saying that "people are living longer" is akin to saying the average net worth of people in Qwest Field increases when Bill Gates enters his luxury box to watch the Seahawks.
Well, in both cases, the thing you're arguing against is mathematically true. The average net worth of people in Qwest Field does increase if Bill Gates or Paul Allen is present. That's how math works.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, if you want to argue that life expectancy for the bottom half hasn't increased, fine. Now return to the matter at hand: Would you prefer a raise in the retirement age now, or the total destruction of the social safety net later?
Well, in both cases, the thing you're arguing against is mathematically true
ReplyDeleteRight. But when used to argue that the retirement age should be raised because "people" are living longer, it becomes slight of hand.
The rich are living longer. Raising the retirement age makes those in the bottom half of the income distribution work longer to pay for the top half's extended benefits.
The rich are living longer. Raising the retirement age makes those in the bottom half of the income distribution work longer to pay for the top half's extended benefits.
ReplyDeleteLook, the fact of the matter is that if you put life expectancy on a graph, it's indisputable that Americans in general are living longer than they were in the 1930s. And in this case, there is no Bill Gates throwing off the curve. No one is living to 150, or some other statistical outlier. Talk about a misleading comparison.
If you want to equate the top half with "the rich," that's your prerogative. But you're ignoring my other proposals. Raising the cap on the payroll tax without increasing benefits is effectively taxing the wealthy to pay for Social Security and Medicare being there in the future. Lower income earners do not make enough to pay to the limit of the payroll tax. If you don't think that is a fair trade with raising the retirement age to reduce strain on the system, I'd really like to hear how you propose to keep entitlements solvent.
I suspect you and I are on the same side of this. Bottom line, I want the wealthy to pay more. But you have to give a little to get a little, and I'm really curious if you're so militantly opposed to raising the retirement age as to what you would propose. Care to tell?
Also, it's "sleight" of hand, not "slight."
Americans in general are living longer than they were in the 1930s
ReplyDeleteI just explained why this is a meaningless statistic, if you care at all about how it will affect people in the real world. You're asking those who perform physical labor to work two additional years in their late 60s, shortening their life span even further. Your really down with that?