Congressmen Ron Paul R-TX (former Libertarian candidate)is a maverick in Congress. He's socially quite liberal on most issues though not perfect, is a staunch opponent of expanding federal government power in any way thru excecutive, legislative or judicial means and has been a strident and defiant opponent of the Iraq invasion from the start and voted against the autorization to use force.
Though not to my liking on every issue (who really is??), he's a good voice to have in DC. If all republicans were like him, we'd ALL be better off.
In his latest article on Free Liberal www.freeliberal.com,
he attacks all of DC on the issue of Social Security and takes the most pragmatic approach to defending its solvency. Will it matter?
the article:
http://www.freeliberal.com/...
he writes:
the coming retirement of the Baby Boomer generation will place tremendous strains on the nation's budget and economy. He stresses that Social Security and Medicare must be reformed sooner rather than later
Very true. Besides Bush's spending free-for-all over the last few years, NON-DISCRETIONARY SPENDING has grown at its fastest rate ever. This money is mandated to be spent and is currently over half of the total budget and growing. Congressmen may not talk about but it's true and they all know it.
Here's the heart of the matter of malfeasance. He writes:
The only honest solution to the future insolvency of Social Security is for Congress to stop spending so much money. When Congress outspends federal revenues, it raids Social Security funds to cover the difference. Unless Congress makes real cuts in spending-- and stops spending Social Security taxes on completely unrelated programs-- millions of Americans simply will not receive even a fraction of the money they paid into Social Security. Ignore the rhetoric about tax increases and cuts in benefits, as though you are to blame for the problem! All Social Security obligations could be met if Congress did not spend so much on other things.
A clarification here: Congress currently and has been using the SS surplus to cover other spending. Not too far down the road, Congress WILL NOT HAVE THIS SURPLUS (this problem is even bigger and immediate for Medicare). This means that Congress will have to:
1) Balance the budget WITHOUT the surplus...because all SS taxes will be going to SS payments. NO MORE EXTRA MONEY.
2) PAY BACK borrowed SS funds used on unrelated items to make good on its SS obligations.
This compounded effect, not including Medicare(!!), will crowd out a lot of discretionary spending.
Congress is basically like spendthrift parents spending their kid's college trust fund to pay a large portion of their current bills. What are they gonna do when the kid is 18? Replace the money?
Paul concludes:
Social Security contributions are supposed to be set aside from general revenues and placed in a trust fund. The truth, of course, is that your contributions are not put aside. Over the decades Congress found itself simply unable to sit on a big pile of money, so it began treating Social Security contributions as general revenues to fund the ever-growing federal government.
I introduced legislation to end this terrible practice. Under my bill, HR 219, your Social Security contributions are set aside in an interest-bearing account and cannot be spent...This is the simplest approach to Social Security reform, and it has the added benefit of making it harder for Congress and the administration to mask the deficit spending that is the real cause of our problems.
WHat will dems do with such a bill? I'm not sure. The bill basically mandates that SS taxes be exclusively for just that. Hardly a horrible idea. But this does expose the true size of the deficit. Paul proposes at least 5% cuts in discretionary spending over the next years to bring the budget under control. Surely, we can find 5% across the board to cut.