Romeo Area Tea Party

Archive for the ‘Entitlement Reform’ Category

We’ve been holding our fire on the debt ceiling debate these many weeks, waiting to write until there was something to report to you, dear members. Well, we have waited long enough, and now we must report that while there is nothing yet passed, we can say that Conservatives have so far held fast to their principles. At this point it looks like two bills will come out, one from each chamber that can then be reconciled, both with cuts and neither with higher taxes.

It reminds us of one of our favorite movies, Master and Commander, about an English Ship on the high seas during the reign of Napoleon. The oldest sailor on the ship, as it prepares for battles, shows the other crew members his knuckles which bear the tatoo “HOLD FAST,” a single letter on each finger. It’s a forceful reminder of what it’s like to be in the line of fire, of the panic, doubt and confusion that sets into the human heart under stress.

Hold Fast

We know it has not been easy for any of us as the main stream media continuously trains its fire on anyone who has the audacity to suggest that we are spending ourselves into oblivion. The liberal media wants to blame the whole debt debacle on the Tea Party; they want to use this opportunity to sideline us, to convince our fellow citizens that we are the problem, we are the radicals.

Likewise, the Republicans in Congress have taken their share of flak. They, especially if they have any whiff of the Tea Party about them, are considered nutjobs, racists, fascists, you name it. After a while it becomes ridiculous. The left has long preached that the people of this country have to become politically active, and then when we do they whine and complain.

Frankly, we don’t know how the debt ceiling is going to be raised and what John Boehner and Eric Cantor can manage to get into a bill that needs to pass the Senate and receive the President’s signature. But we can say that we are proud that the conversation is now about how to cut and how much to cut. All but the most incorrigible Liberals, read Nancy Pelosi, now understand that massive cuts are coming. The American people will not live with high taxes, high unemployment and all the welfare state bells and whistles that have decorated our Republic these many years.

As we move to the grand finale of the debt ceiling debate, tell yourself often “Hold Fast,” and we’ll get through this stronger and more politically viable than ever before. The hottest fires make the hardest steel.

Back and forth they go; first the Republicans have the edge, then in the blink of an eye the Democrats gain the advantage. Watching the Sunday morning political shows today, we noticed that the tenor was more shrill, more caustic. Not sure if the whole country feels like the punditry but their performance was probably a good indication of the frayed patience in the capital.

But let’s forget for a moment the partisan horse races about our debt and spending currently causing the nation’s elites a huge migraine. Let’s ask ourselves about the broader implications of debt for a republic such as ours? How have we accumulated so much debt and how can we stabilize our finances?

We make promises based on current expectations. We respond to human suffering to ease burdens. But over time expectations change and the human suffering that once required a human response morphs into a government program, a rallying flag, a jobs program, a never ending entitlement.

The world changes around us, but government calcifies. People live longer, so Social Security should provide us with 30 years of retirement instead of the original 3. Instead of making sure that when work is no longer possible a person could live out there last few years in dignity, Social Security now provides golf, piano lessons, money for travelling, even as the number of current workers per retiree falls from dozens to a few.

Other social programs? Where to start, or better, why bother? The government has an answer for everything, apparently. There is no challenge known to man that does not have some government answer. And if the challenge proves greater than at first thought, no problem: The municipality, the county, the state, the federal government, there is more government than problems to solve some days.

A solution to every problem

And where in all of the government solutions is the individual, the family, the community, the society?

Therein lies the great paradox of our times. We keep waiting for the government to fix our society, but when we mistake the government for society, we end up with lots of government and no society. The government sucks up all the oxygen and naturally diminishes everything else. Yet if we continue to believe that government is society, government will continue to grab as much of our resources as possible, and continue to diminish the individual, the family, the community and the society.

The answer is not simply to cut the amount of government though this is absolutely necessary. The other half is to rebuild the society that once existed here; the thousands of voluntary organizations that worked in the community to help individuals and families respond to life’s many challenges.

We always thought that the individual versus the collective was a false choice. It’s not simply the individual that the collective destroys. It’s all of the responsibilities, the voluntary associations, the accountable decisions that create the individual’s full life, including their family, community and society. To solve our society’s problems, we need a fully functioning society, not more government. Are you, we, up for the challenge?

There is no longer any argument: We have run out of other people’s money feeding our insatiable government. The question that remains is are there enough people left to fill the void and build again an American society?

On Tuesday there was a special election for a congressional seat in upstate New York. The Republican candidate was pilloried for supporting Representative Paul Ryan’s Budget and plan to change Medicare to a premium support option.

There are lots of ways to interpret the results of this election, and we won’t go into all them here. Suffice it to say that if we are going to get our country’s fiscal house in order we must reform the entitlement programs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. So how do we persuade our fellow citizens that it is their interest to support reform? We know that reform will lay us open to attack, so what will be our response?

One way to talk about entitlement reform is to place it in the context of the greater economy. The case we make goes like this: We need jobs, and we need the economy to grow to pay for schools, roads, public safety even. Without a growing economy we can’t even take care of the basics. The only way to grow the economy is to keep taxes down so that people feel like they can take risks and start new businesses and hire new workers.

The only alternative to entitlement reform is to raise taxes a lot. Vice President Biden said as much just today. But when the government vacuums up the cash, the economy drags. It happened in the 1970s and it’s happening again right now.

Consider that the 1st quarter of this year produced anemic 1.8% growth. The job numbers look even worse, and frankly with growth this pathetic, looking at the jobs picture is just depressing. We should be seeing 5-7% growth in the economy at this point in the recovery with the creation of 500,000 or more jobs per month. At this rate, there are folks who will not find work for a decade. That’s not just depressing, it’s scary.

So how do we get the economy moving? By getting our fiscal house in order first and foremost. When risk takers across the economy start to believe that they will not be severely punished for starting or expanding their businesses, we’ll see growth start to jump. But as long as people believe that our country’s huge deficits will fall on their back mostly, why would they go out and work insane hours to get a business up and running, or expand a current one.

If we persist in being deficit scolds and acting like the most important thing is to simply cut Grandma’s health care (which is a lie of course but we know we are going to hear it) we are going to be defeated. We must tie every idea of the 2012 campaign to a single theme: Grow the economy now! Economic growth doesn’t fix everything, but it puts us into a position to fight other battles from the high ground.

Update:

Timing, as they say, is everything. This morning we started our day and came across an article that is so inspiring that is made us realize that our own post had come out a day too early.

Entitled Economic Stagnation Explained, at 30,000 Feet, the article, written by Yale University Law Professor Stephen L Carter, helps us to understand the 1.8% problem from another perspective.

On a flight, Mr. Carter has a conversation with a small business owner, a man who has built a multi-state company of probably a couple of hundred employee. What he learns is that small business owners are not hiring or investing because there is so much uncertainty in the economy, mostly regulatory and tax uncertainty:

He has no way of telling what new rules will go into effect when. His business, although it covers several states, operates on low margins. He can’t afford to take the chance of losing what little profit there is to the next round of regulatory changes. And so he’s hiring nobody until he has some certainty about cost.

and on taxes:

It isn’t just hiring that is too unpredictable, he says. He feels the same way about investing. He has never liked stock markets; he prefers to put cash directly into businesses he likes in return for a small stake, acting, in short, as a small- time venture capitalist.

“Can’t do that now,” he says. For people like him — people who aren’t filthy rich — it has become too hard to pick winners. But he doesn’t blame the great information advantages enjoyed by insiders. He blames Washington, once more, for creating a climate of uncertainty.

And we wonder why 18 months after the recession ended we have growth of 1.8%? We now have an answer. We just wish that the current administration in Washington, that all together can now be said to have spent less time with a small business than Mr. Carter has, would take the time to understand what they are doing to the economy and take the following advice from our favorite small business name:

I ask him what, precisely, he thinks is the proper role of government as it relates to business.

“Invisible,” he says. “I know there are things the government has to do. But they need to find a way to do them without people like me having to bump into a new regulation every time we turn a corner.” He reflects for a moment, then finds the analogy he seeks. “Government should act like my assistant, not my boss.”