The President’s Deficit Panel released its report yesterday, and suffice to say, when Democrats suggest cutting Social Security Benefits, you know something is pretty out of whack in government. After all, the senior vote is probably the largest voting block for the left, short of the union block. After the 500 billion dollars in cuts to Medicare, in order to pay for Obamacare, now they suggest raising the retirement age to 69, and cutting the COLA adjustment. A steeper tax curve for income tax, as well as corporate taxes. Paycheck cuts to defense department employees, and an elimination of the mortgage tax deduction.
Of course, though, that’s on the surface.
The math of the suggestion doesn’t even affect anyone that’s even born yet, if you read the fine print- it wouldn’t kick in until 2075. This is typical of the current left though; sacrifice our children’s legacy in order to garner votes today. It easy to pass tax increases and cuts on people in their diapers I suppose.
You see, these guys just don’t get it. Real cuts need to come to the size and scope of government. Social Security is not a bankrupt system- in fact, its solvent until 2056 even under its current depleted funding levels and assuming a 2.5% annual COLA growth, which is substantially higher than the last two years. But it’s easy to suggest cuts to benefits to people that aren’t even born yet- they can’t vote.
Real cuts need to come to government. Kill the health care bill, rewrite it to protect the uninsurable and the poverty stricken, and take the 500 billion in recommended cuts to Medicare and apply it to our debt instead. Re-privatize a portion of Medicare, and turn it back over to the private sector that can do it cheaper and more efficiently with a voucher system. Eliminate the departments of Energy, Education and Transportation which should be individual state matters, not federal ones. Simplify the income tax system to a three tier tax system like they suggested for the corporate tax system, and leave in place the mortgage tax deduction- then shut down 75% of the IRS bureaucracy. Deregulate most industries, and hold companies accountable instead, through the criminal courts system, and cut government bureaucracy by reduction of the massive payroll and pension system. Re-evaluate the Defense department’s procurement system, as Senator Inofe suggested, which is wasteful on a massive scale.
The Heritage Foundation estimates that government could reduce spending by almost a trillion dollars by simply running its offices based on productivity and production rather than seniority, as private industry does.
Yes, that’s a TRILLION dollars.
In short, reduce the size and scope of the Federal government, across the board in a massive scale.It’s not likely that is going to happen anytime soon though. You see in order for Congress, and government, to do that, it would mean giving up power and influence. It would mean the senators would be more beholden to people and have less influence on how things on run. It would mean giving up power.
This is the mandate that voters wanted this past election. They want less interference in their daily lives, they want to stop worrying about what the government will do next, or how they will tell a business owner to run their business. They want government to stop making more money on their business than they do.
It’s a lot to ask, after all, no government or government official has ever willingly given up power. Reagan tried it in his first term, and almost lost control of his party. Gingrich tried it again in 1994, going so far as to actually hold up the budget and shut down the government until the left acquiesced to his demands- and ultimately was undone by it.But it’s time that the infection of big government is addressed with more than a band-aid. The cancer of big government and entitlement is growing in the body of America and it’s time for the chemotherapy
Defunding and derailing the agenda of the people that perpetuate the illness is what is needed now.