Prioritizing Our Problems
Michael Barone has written an interesting column for Real Clear Politics with the same title as the one on this post.
He’s asking what is more important in the immediate future: Social Security reform or Global Warming:
Sometimes politicians get things upside down. They ignore problems that are plainly staring them in the face, while they focus on dangers that are at best speculative.
Consider two long-range issues that are not pressing matters this year but pose, or are said to pose, threats a generation or two away. One of them you don’t hear much about: Social Security. The other you hear about all the time: global warming. Yet this gets things upside down. We have an unusually precise knowledge of the problems that Social Security will cause in the future. But we don’t know with anything like precision what a continuation of the current mild increase in temperatures will mean.
He then goes on to show us what we already know: Social Security in its current form cannot support itself much beyond 2017.
The Social Security Trustees’ report issued on April 23 paints a pretty clear picture. Social Security costs will exceed Social Security revenues by 2017. That’s a big problem, because for years Social Security revenues — FICA taxes — have been far greater than the cost of benefits, and so those monies have in effect been spent on other federal programs. But roundabout 2017 — that’s just 10 years away — we’ll have to dip into other revenues, or borrow or increase taxes, to pay Social Security recipients.
As early as 2035, the cost of paying promised benefits will absorb more than 17 percent of workers’ wages — nearly half again as high as current Social Security taxes. By 2041, Social Security taxes will finance only 75 percent of benefits.
These numbers and dates may prove to be off, but only by a little. Yet politicians are not eager to tackle the problem. In 2000 and 2004, George W. Bush campaigned for changes in Social Security. But his 51 percent in 2004 didn’t give him enough political capital, and while he talked up the issue in 2005, he failed to present a specific plan. He failed to engage with young voters, the prime beneficiaries of changes and the age cohort likely to either suffer greatly reduced benefits or much higher taxes or both.
Congressional Democrats were happy to demagogue this long-term issue for short-term political gains. Exactly one Democrat in the House endorsed changes. House Republicans, happy to vote for a $260 million bridge to nowhere in July 2005, sighed with relief in August when Hurricane Katrina gave them an excuse to take Social Security off the agenda in September.
He holds both parties responsible for not taking care of Social Security now. And the reason is the AARP people have scared those already on Social Security into believing if the new workers are allowed to invest some of their FICA payments it will mean the existing recipients will lose benefits. Not true, but scaring old people has managed to get one party a lot of votes, so if it works, don’t tinker with it.
He then goes to the topic of global warming, a topic I am personally sick of hearing. If Mars is experiencing higher temperatures equal to what we are experiencing how can we believe it’s anything but the sun getting warmer as it does in cycles all the time?
Contrast this with global warming. Science tells us that temperatures have risen a bit in the last century, as they have at other times in history, and that human activity — primarily carbon dioxide emissions — seems to have contributed to this trend by some unknown amount. An international panel recently reported that, with a considerable margin of error, this could cause sea level rises of up to 23 inches in a century. But it admits that there’s a wide margin of error, because we simply don’t know enough about how weather works to be anything like as sure as we can be about Social Security.
Written by ~J~The politicians resist fixing Social Security because the short-term costs are well understood by voters and the long-term benefits, while clear to actuaries, are invisible to voters because no one is decrying them with religious intensity. The politicians sprint to address global warming because the short-term costs are unknown to voters and the long-term benefits, while unclear in the extreme to those who rely on science, are portrayed in apocalyptic terms by the prophet Al Gore. Democracy isn’t perfect.
Hootsbuddy Says:
May 7th, 2007 at 8:54 amVisit Hootsbuddy
I’m tired of the social securiy discussion. All my working life (and yours) many pounds of flesh have been sent off for use by the Social Security Administration. But they didn’t need that much—and WON’T for another decade. So what happened to all that money? It went into the general revenue and was spent for other purposes. That is what our Colonial ancestors called “taxation without representation.” Today we don’t have a name for it because it is so well hidden from a hoodwinked electorate.
When the time comes the cap on earnings will simply be increased to where it needs to be to meet expenses. Our national money management is very much like a homeowner who refinances the mortgage periodically to “pull out” the “equity” to be spent…forgetting that the whole purpose of the mortgage is to pay off the house. The day comes when income dries up and the homeowner wants to declare that foreclosure is not “fair.”
The financial ticking bomb of our lifetime is not only the future demands on Social Security, but the impending tragedy that will happen when out children face retirement with no pension plans at all unless they have been disciplined enough to feed privately-owned “plans” through thick and thin, stretches of unemployment, unexpected health care expenses, and the ravages of inflation.
I’m just an old guy blogging, but my suggestion is that we change the name from Social Security to Individual Security. The “social” aspect of the program is neither well understood nor appreciated these days. The notion of taking care of those who don’t for whatever reason care for themselves is no longer in vogue.
Yesterday’s Old Testament reading from Leviticus enjoined the early Hebrews not to cut their crops too closely and to leave the “gleanings” for the poor. (19:9-10)We like to think of the Old Testament as a repository for the harsh, judgemental side of Jehovah, tending to forget that even in the Torah we find guidelines to love one’s neighbor as one’s self (19:18) and “when an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt.” (19:33-34)
These values are not modern. They are timeless. And the federal treasury is being violated in ways that are not on the side of the angels.