Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Kevin McCarthy’s Politically Convenient, Fiscally Reckless Plan

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Newly minted House Speaker has pledged to use the debt ceiling fight as a means to spur a serious effort to curb runaway federal spending.

That would be fine and good…except in an appearance on “Face the Nation,” McCarthy said both and are “off the table.” According to the 2022 annual report from the trustees of the two programs:

Social Security and Medicare both face long-term financing shortfalls under currently scheduled benefits and financing. Costs of both programs will grow faster than gross domestic product (GDP) through the mid-2030s primarily due to the rapid aging of the U.S. population. Medicare costs will continue to grow faster than GDP through the late 2070s due to projected increases in the volume and intensity of services provided.

Leaving them “off the table,” then, is fiscally reckless. But it is 100 percent on brand for the bipartisan political class, which fears senior voters in the next election more than it does fiscal calamity a decade from now.

That said, Mr. McCarthy did say he was willing to consider putting some portions of defense spending on the table for cuts. That's fine and good, too. And essential. But what sort of cuts does the Speaker have in mind?

“Does defense getting more than $800 billion, are there areas that I think they could be more efficient in? Yeah. Eliminate all the money spent on ‘wokeism.' Eliminate all the money that they're trying to find different fuels and they're worried about the environment to go through,” McCarthy added.

That's nebulous and unserious. But still – it's progress. If Mr. McCarthy and his cohorts are at all serious about rationalizing defense spending he could (and likely will) do worse than consult a (2019) paper from the Center for International Policy that outlines more than $1.2 trillion in savings from defense spending over 10 years.

Or consider these items, from Reason's Eric Boehm:

Dress a welfare program in camouflage, however, and it suddenly becomes an untouchable asset. It's unpatriotic to even suggest that perhaps military contractors shouldn't get to attach 3,800 percent markups on spare parts or that the nation will still be secure if we don't blow $1.7 trillion on new fighter jets that might never work.

Remember how we finally ended the in 2021? You wouldn't know it by looking at the military budget, which has continued increasing even as the war on terror winds down. “The Congressional Budget Office has determined that, if current trends continue, the Pentagon could receive a monumental $7.3 trillion-plus over the next decade…

There are several important caveats on defense spending, not the least of which are a hot war in Eastern Europe between Russia and and a cold war developing between the U.S. and . These are genuine global security issues that demand a robust level of defense spending.

But that does not mean the DoD gets a blank check. And that's especially true if two of the biggest drivers of federal spending – Social Security and Medicare – are off limits.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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Norman Leahy
Norman Leahy
Norman Leahy has written about national and Virginia politics for more than 30 years with outlets ranging from The Washington Post to BearingDrift.com. A consulting writer, editor, recovering think tank executive and campaign operative, Norman lives in Virginia.

16 COMMENTS

  1. Is Norman a veteran? I’d like to know because I am retired USAF and have read my history. When the enemy believes they can win, we have been dragged into wars. The Germans thought they could wing WW I before we could be effective. The Japanese in WW II, the civilians, thought they could outlast us and get a suitable negotiated win at the bargaining table. I like Teddy Roosevelts statement. “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” I’d like to know what fighter (or bomber) will cost $1.7 Trillion? We started out WWII with fighters inferior to all the front line fighters of our enemies. I don’t want that to happen again. As for the 3800% markup, have you seen the front part of the F-15 separating from the rest of the fuselage because they did not use the manufacturer bolt? That bolt need to have the history attached to it from where the metal was mined to the final bolt delivered for putting into the aircraft. You cannot go out and just buy a commercial part for much military hardware. Unless Norman has a background in the military procurement of weapons, or a historian that has studied military logistics, he ought not jump to the first conclusion that he has.

  2. Is the writer, a recovering thinker, ready to put MY monthly Social Security stipend and medical care on the table for negotiation? It was solemnly promosed, I invested faithfully. Don’t chip away at MY retirement! Give away your own damned money!

    • If you had invested faithfully, you wouldn’t be counting on Uncle Sam to finance your retirement. Paying taxes IS NOT investing. That ceased to be YOUR money the instant it was confiscated in the form of taxation.

  3. Social Security is not a budgetary spending problem and should not be lumped together with Medicare. They are two completely different animals (so to speak). If Congress had and would leave SS the way it was originally intended there would never have been a question about its solvency as it is a self-funded (by payroll contributions) supplemental retirement plan. Congress changed the definition and the Supreme Court followed by upholding their change/s which took SS from solely for and by participants to allow funds to be taken from SS for non-supplemental retirement funding so Congress could use SS funds for whatever they wanted) and to include non-participants as beneficiaries of SS funds. SS was never subsidized by tax dollars and was never meant to be, it is and was the participant’s contributions which have been stolen by Congress!
    Bottom Line: All SS recipients/participants need to be on the same page, making a very loud statement to their members of Congress about the truth and for them to admit that truth and act accordingly:
    (1) SS is not an Entitlement; it is money that was contributed by workers to Social Security (a supplemental retirement fund) to be paid to the contributor as retirement when they met entitlement age (62-65).
    (2) SS should be legally defined (by legislation and then law) as what it was originally intended to be, a supplemental retirement fund for contributors/participants only. Congress has had manty opportunities to do so but has refused this simple legislation because they do not want to lose their source of income, our SS contributions!
    (3) SS is not a Social Welfare Program as presented/defined to the Supreme Court by Congress, who, by stacking the deck in their favor got the ruling they wanted to justify their theft and fraudulent spending of money that is not theirs, not the government’s and is not a federal tax. Congress has no legitimate right to SS money, none!
    (4) SS should not include disability allowances/payments which does not meet the definition of a supplemental retirement account. Disability should be covered under a separate, tax-based fund.
    (5) AND, after Congress fraudulently took control of SS funds they expanded benefits, benefit payments to include non-contributors/participants and spent SS contributions on pork barrel projects completely outside the intent of the funds as a supplemental retirement account for SS members/participants/contributors.
    (6) Congress, all Congressional members are guilty of misleading the public, the Supreme Court, and the Administrations they have dealt with since the inception of SS.
    (7) Congress must be accountable, and they must pay back all the funds that they have fraudulently removed from the SS account. Congress must pay fines as well for all interest the stolen funds may have accrued.
    (8) Congress must remove the 80% of SS contributions as taxable income.

    • They are both IMPOSSIBLE promises made by the government. They are not completely different animals. They are nearly identical animals.

  4. I just started on SS this month at full retirement age of 66 and 5 months. I’ve been working and paying into SS since I was 15 years old. I’ve been self employed for 20 years so I’ve been paying both employer and employee shares that entire time. This is not an FN entitlement program to me, so go stick your head back where it belongs.
    Too many people are getting SS disability without having paid much into the program.
    Yes, SS does need reforming, but don’t lump every recipient with the same broad brush.
    BTW, EVERY SINGLE government program and entity should be audited and changed or eliminated completely. Then you’ll have billons upon billions of
    savings.

  5. They can eliminate 1/2 of the omnibus bill and it wouldn’t touch Social Security or Medicare, or the military. We don’t need unused charging stations for electric cars strung all across the country. or a Nancy Pelosi building. Plenty of pork can be cut.

  6. What should be “on” the table, foreign aid, welfare, dept of education, family planning, doj, epa, ebt, ect… and STOP giving money to Ukraine!

  7. As far as budget cuts go, Social Security and Medicare should be off the table. These are programs that are partly funded by the workers in our country and are guaranteed. However, these programs should be looked at and scrutinized to assure that they are not being abused by those who are scamming the system. There are plenty of other area in which the budget can be cut!

  8. Stop funding the UN and the WHO. Stop sending money over to Ukraine to keep the war going. US spent $50 billion on Ukraine in 2022. US is spending $6.72 billion dollars on WHO in the current year as our share of their budget. The WHO completely mismanaged the Covid pandemic in every way possible, and spends a lot of their money going around the globe to try to get pro-life nations nations to start doing abortions. The WHO does nothing that benefits the US, and we will not miss them. The WHO actually wants to force us to have vax passports etc. and is, with Biden’s help, trying to do a major power grab to be able to force otherwise sovereign nations to obey the WHO 100% in any health emergency – with the ability to send in UN troops to enforce their edicts. We should get out.

    Besides the WHO, and Ukraine, our regular “foreign aid” totals $50 billion.

    Within the UN, there is the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) which primarily goes around the world promoting abortion; in fact I attended some UN meetings a couple years ago in which abortion activists were talking about lobbying the US to get money to pay for all kinds of equipment to do more abortions globally – in countries where it is not actually wanted. In any case, we pay UNFPA was $30.8 million for their main budget, and $62.5 million more for other project activities.

    IF we stopped throwing money away for these few budget items, we could entirely fund Social Security and have money left over. Those who are retiring today paid Social Security taxes their entire working lives and it is not right to take money that we earned and paid in, and spend it to buy abortion equipment for other countries, or to pay for the WHO to force masks and vax passports, or to spend what we paid in, to perpetuate the war in Ukraine. That is not our country, and we are using up our own resources on a war that is not in our interest. WHY should Social Security and Medicare be robbed, which will serve all of our people in their turn, to spend money in other countries for things that are in no way in our interest, and are not necessarily helping anyone. Black Rock is making money on their investments in weapons of war, and they stand to make money on rebuilding Ukraine after it is destroyed – but America is impoverishing itself on this war, and it is wrong to rob American citizens to pay for any of this.

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