"You have to. It's . . . . One of the things that my, you know, the political advisers say to me is, 'Whoa, don't touch that third [rail].' Look, the American people aren't stupid. It's a real simple proposition . . . . You've got to put all of it on the table."
--Joe Biden, in 2008, when asked about looking at changes to entitlement programs.
Is there any news coming out of Washington, D.C., these days? Any news at all? We've been watching a lot of basketball, so we might have missed a few news cycles.
We did catch this, though: The president mentioned cutting entitlements, one day, possibly, maybe--and his opponents on the left lost their collective minds. Which they tend to do. But this time they had precedent: The left always loses its mind when Republicans talk about responsible budgeting.
As far as the president goes, it's about time. The yearly budget deficit is now more than a trillion dollars. And every year, that money keeps going on the nation's credit card--that is, the national debt--which now stands at an accumulated $23.2 trillion. Twenty years ago, before 9/11, the wars, the bank crisis, the bailouts, Obamacare and the Trump tax cuts, the debt stood at less than $6 trillion. And certain economists claimed the debt was a crisis then.
At the World Economic Forum in Switzerland the other day, President Trump's thoughts must have turned to budgeting, because he told reporters that entitlements were on the plate, metaphorically speaking.
"At some point they will be," the president said. "At the right time, we will take a look at that."
That incredibly non-specific, vague, rough guesstimate at, well, something on some timeline down the road made some folks apoplectic. Somebody with an outfit called Protect Our Care sputtered: "The president has made it clear that he wants to make draconian cuts to both Medicare and Medicaid--something that the American people vehemently oppose--and today he said he's going to try again."
First, the president hasn't made anything clear in this regard. And the fact that any would-be cuts, or at least slowed growth, could be called "draconian" before they're even proposed shows how difficult this will be. Of course, the president said, in his style, that tackling entitlement spending would be "the easiest of all things."
Well, tackling Social Security might be. The late great Charles Krauthammer called it "back of the envelope solvable."
First, raise the retirement age. Then tweak the indexing formula. And means-test so that government checks go to those who need it, not Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.
Medicare and Medicaid are going to be harder. The president says he wants to save money by reducing fraud, but that bit is tried by every single president. And it never works.
But the good news is at least this president recognizes the problem. The last one didn't.
The last president trotted out his budget director to write a piece in USA Today that said Social Security was okay until 2037. But 2010 was the first year that more payments were going out in Social Security benefits than Social Security withholdings brought in. And over the past half-century the money that was coming in was never protected--it went right into the federal till. These days, Social Security is adding to the debt, not reducing it.
What can be done? isn't the right question. For there are many things that have to be done to keep the nation from going bankrupt one day. Keeping this fantastic Trump-administration economic growth going is Step One.
Next step: Scratch on the back of that envelope to solve Social Security's underwater problem. Then the debate can begin. There are those who study these things, and have ideas, if we all listen without becoming draconian.
Medicare and Medicaid are going to have to be touched, third rail or no third rail. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget works to . . . . Well, its name explains its purpose. And folks there have good ideas. From limiting malpractice claims to reducing drug prices to adopting competitive bids for certain programs. And there are many other ideas, some of them even good.
For most of us, astronomical terms like "trillion" and "trillions" might as well be light-years. They are that hard to grasp. And Americans have grown accustomed to living beyond our means. Look at the national credit card.
But one day, this debt will bring another meaning to the phrase, "Going for broke." Unless We the People demand that our representatives--during this economic bloom--stop us from ourselves. And act like national leaders.
Editorial on 01/26/2020