Americans Are Ready for Entitlement Reform, Politicians Aren't

They'll understand that moderates reforms to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid aren't a threat--the status quo is

March 17, 2011 RSS Feed Print

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That same Prudential poll found that three quarters of women surveyed expect to work longer than they originally planned or wonder if they'll be able to retire on time. That might explain why women voters—who also make up a greater share of the electorate than men—might be more open to reforming Social Security and Medicare than the politicians in Washington are.

Recent polls show that majorities of voters now support raising the retirement age to 69 by the year 2075, and reducing Social Security and Medicare payments to wealthier Americans. Depending on how those two reforms are implemented, they could eliminate as much as 60 percent of Social Security's underfunding, according to the Wall Street Journal, and would result in increased—not decreased—benefits. And don't forget that a larger proportion of those benefits will go to retired women.

I suspect most women are ready to reform entitlements. They understand that it's not the moderate reforms that threaten their benefits, but an unsustainable status quo. Chuck Blahous, one of two public trustees for Social Security and Medicare, says that doing nothing will ultimately result in benefits being cut by a full 22 percent. To most women, if the choice lies between a 22 percent drop in benefits during their long retirement, or working a few more years—something they were already planning to do—it's a no-brainer.

Women will continue to grow in number in the workforce and to have a primary responsibility for home and family matters, so they deserve a voice in these budget debates. Women get it. If told the truth about what needs to be done to save entitlement programs that we may need someday, we will listen and make decisions on the facts, as we do every day at the office or around the kitchen table. We got used to tightening our belts a long time ago, and if treated as the intelligent caregivers, voters, taxpayers, and businesswomen that we are, why would we not do what needs to be done?

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Tags:: Democratic Party,; Congress,; deficit and national debt,; Republican Party,; unemployment

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The United States is not like an individual or a family when it comes to budgets and spending in one very substantial way: it is a monetary sovereign nation. Congress has the sovereign authority to issue all the money it needs or wants. The United States has no need of a national debt.
Having a national debt is the biggest mistake our government has committed since slavery.
The national debt is a welfare program benefitting banks, bankers and Wall Street brokers, with eight out of every ten dollars in the national debt was created to pay the interest on the national debt. According to the US treasury Dept.’s web site, of the $9.9 Trillion increase in the national debt that accrued during the past twenty years, interest payments made up more than $8.0 trillion of the increase.
The privately-owned monetary and banking system, in addition to creating money by fiat and lending it to the government, has created enormous private sector debt using fractional reserve lending procedures that multiply the money in the economy. The total debt in the economy is now about $55.8Trillion. With an average interest estimated at 5%, the annual interest on such a debt is about $2.75 trillion. At that rate of interest the lenders will consume the entire money supply in fewer than twenty years.
Formalizing a debt-base monetary system in the late 1690s with the establishment of the Bank of England, changed the nature of slavery from a worker-owned system to a wage-based system where workers take care of their own needs as the masters simply control the currency. Every nation where the system has been adopted has suffered the same results, concentrating that nation’s wealth in the hands of a few bankers and corporations at the expense of the general public.
If the United States is to survive, it must exercise its sovereign authority by issuing all of the nation’s money and operating the banking system as a public utility.

Bill parks of MD 8:55PM March 23, 2011

N O P E...
http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16

Bill Hedges of MO 8:36AM March 20, 2011

“The tax cuts of the 1920s”
“Tax rates were slashed dramatically during the 1920s, dropping from over 70 percent to less than 25 percent. What happened? Personal income tax revenues increased substantially during the 1920s, despite the reduction in rates. Revenues rose from $719 million in 1921 to $1164 million in 1928, an increase of more than 61 percent.”
The Kennedy tax cuts”
“President Hoover dramatically increased tax rates in the 1930s and President Roosevelt compounded the damage by pushing marginal tax rates to more than 90 percent. Recognizing that high tax rates were hindering the economy, President Kennedy proposed across-the-board tax rate reductions that reduced the top tax rate from more than 90 percent down to 70 percent. What happened? Tax revenues climbed from $94 billion in 1961 to $153 billion in 1968, an increase of 62 percent (33 percent after adjusting for inflation).”
The Reagan tax cuts”
“Thanks to "bracket creep," the inflation of the 1970s pushed millions of taxpayers into higher tax brackets even though their inflation-adjusted incomes were not rising. To help offset this tax increase and also to improve incentives to work, save, and invest, President Reagan proposed shweeping tax rate reductions during the 1980s. What happened? Total tax revenues climbed by 99.4 percent during the 1980s, and the results are even more impressive when looking at what happened to personal income tax revenues. Once the economy received an unambiguous tax cut in January 1983, income tax revenues climbed dramatically, increasing by more than 54 percent by 1989 (28 percent after adjusting for inflation).’
“Harmful Spending & Complexity
Lower tax rates are important, but they are not the only critical issue. Both the level of government spending and where that money goes are very important. And even when looking only at tax policy, tax rates are just one piece of the puzzle. If certain types of income are subject to multiple layers of tax, as occurs in the current system, that problem cannot be solved by low rates. Similarly, a tax system with needless levels of complexity will impose heavy costs on the productive sector of the economy.”
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2003/08/the-historical-lessons-of-lower-tax-rates

Bill Hedges of MO 8:19AM March 20, 2011

Americans Are Ready for Entitlement Reform, Politicians Aren't

They'll understand that moderates reforms to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid aren't a threat--the status quo is

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