Maxing Out The Credit Card

Maxing Out The Credit Card

During a recent TV debate my counterpart, a prominent local Democrat and good man, observed airily that if Medicare needed a little “tweaking” to be put on a sound financial footing, we should do the “tweaking” and move on.  His implication was that hyperventilating about looming entitlement costs was a nettlesome and probably bogus distraction from the business of government—which, to Democrats, is… more government.

Would that all that we needed to restore our financial health is a little entitlement “tweaking”—a “smidgen” more taxes on “the rich,” maybe raise the age of eligibility “a tad,” add a “splash” of price controls and viola—plenty of room for more Medicare, Obamacare, and soon, no doubt, Fidocare, ’cause what’s a society good for if it doesn’t ensure every living thing against every conceivable risk?

My Democratic friend wasn’t  blowing smoke; many Republicans are just as willfully blind to the avalanche of entitlement claims about to crush us, as the Boomers retire and devote their full attention to achieving the immortality which we all assume is the least we deserve.  Yet if we don’t act, now, we’re bankrupt.  Finished.  Kaput.

The Congressional Budget Office has told us what it’s going to take if we try to keep the entitlement programs on anything remotely like their present path: Everything. And then some.

That’s right:  the CBO informs us that the entitlement programs—principally Medicare—are on track to eat the entire federal budget by roughly 2050.  Not a cent left for anything else—defense, education, agriculture, what have you.

Unless, of course, we raise taxes:  a top bracket of 80%, with a mere 50% being taken from “average” income Americans, should do it.  It will also give us an economy resembling Zimbabwe’s.

What’s that?  Too far away, you’re a live-in-the-moment kind of person?  Okay, try this:  Today over half the federal budget goes to entitlements—more than 2 ½ times the amount spent on defense.

The money taken out of your paycheck this month (assuming you get one) to pay for my rotator cuff surgery under Medicare?  That’s money that isn’t available to send your child to college, to invest in a new business, or to buy Red Sox tickets to see someone perform whose rotator cuff repair was actually a rational investment.

In a few weeks, GOP Rep. Paul Ryan will release the Republican’s proposed 2012 budget.  He’s promised major entitlement reform—no “tweaks” for this realist.

Democrats will demagogue Cong. Ryan’s proposals:  “Republicans want sick, old people to die,” yada, yada.  Many DC Republicans will run for cover.  Courage to do what’s needed must come from…you.  You determine whether your children and grandchildren live in a “shining city on a hill,” or a slum.

It’s going to take more than a “tweak”; a kick in the pants for those unwilling to face the music would be a start.  You’ve got the kicker—your phone.  Use it.

For more information, contact us at CCNHGOP@GMAIL.COM

Maynard Thomson

Chairman, Carroll County Republican Committee