We all have grown weary of yet another election season as the media blitz of advertisements blare or tweet to attract our attention.
While the repetitive droning of political advertisements is irritating, voters need to pay attention to them and try to separate fact from emotion and rhetoric. At the national level, all the candidates seem to be appealing to the elderly vote, focusing on the possible threats to Social Security and Medicare. As they appeal to the elderly, the candidates adroitly fail to point out that any reforms of either the Social Security or Medicare systems will affect the benefits of those who are many years away from retirement. Any major changes will not affect those who are already beneficiaries.
Promises made by the candidates that they will protect Social Security and Medicare are misleading since many acknowledge that in order to ensure the systems will remain viable, changes or reforms will have to be made. Be it an increase in the tax on working individuals or raising the age at which full benefits can be claimed, all of those changes will be considered.
Claims to save Social Security and Medicare amount to nothing more than fear mongering among the most vulnerable. If there are any changes to benefits, even those who are about to retire probably will not be affected. Make no doubt about it, changes or reform must be made to not only the tax amount but also the size of benefits. Without those changes, there may be no Social Security benefits for today’s young people when they retire.
With a shrinking workforce, there will be fewer workers paying into Social Security and with the increasing lifespan of beneficiaries, there can be no doubt Social Security and Medicare are headed for disaster unless something is done to right the balance between those who pay and those who collect. More importantly, voters need to recognize that the payment of benefits for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid costs nearly twice as much as it does to run the federal government. Does Social Security have a problem? You bet it does. And promises to protect benefits totally ignore this problem. If nothing else, those who have yet to retire should be up in arms with the political rhetoric promising to protect Social Security.
Then there is the gaffe reference to cutting funding to Big Bird and his Sesame Street friends. While that may have been the politically incorrect reference, it does underscore the more seminal problem of where elected officials will make the necessary cuts to achieve January’s mandated reduction in federal spending. Under the mandate that went into effect last year when congressional teams negotiating a reduction in spending failed to reach a compromise, lawmakers will have to make $1.3 trillion in spending cuts.
That $1.3 trillion is just about the amount it costs to keep the doors of the federal government open for one year. So there is no doubt cuts will have to be made elsewhere if the nation is to keep its defenses, provide for educational assistance, explore alternative energy resources, provide welfare assistance and the list goes on and on. One thing for sure is everyone’s favorite ox may be gored. The alternative is to go into even more debt, which already stands at $16 trillion.
The scary part about going into even deeper debt is so much of our debt is held by foreign countries who do not necessarily have the best interests of our nation in mind. This should be a no-brainer for our elected officials in Congress. We either continue to borrow and spend or we make the hard decision to rein in our spending to what the American people can afford to surrender in taxes.
Of course, that prompts the discussion of raising taxes on the rich and saving the middle class and poor. Unfortunately, there is only so much that can be pushed off on the rich who, by the way, have the resources to invest in America and create the jobs we so badly need. Unlike past challenges faced by our nation’s leaders, this one will have to be borne by all taxpayers, either in the form of higher tax rates, closing the proverbial loopholes or in reduced services and programs. Everyone will have to pay for the solution to our nation’s financial ills.
Lowell L. Kalapa is president of the Tax Foundation of Hawaii.
