THERE SEEMS TO BE MORE TALK, lately, of Social Security cuts—mostly in the context of balancing the federal budget.
The deficit hawks are out in full force, using the the financial problems created by Republicans in the first eight years of this century as an excuse to rob old people of the security they paid into, and were promised.
The first thing to notice about this trend is that it has nothing to do with money.
It has to do with a political trend, and we are all guilty—even the old who are getting the shaft.
Look at it from the angle of your own household budget.
What do you do when income is suddenly less than expenses?
One of two things:
- You cut back on expenses, which means that you prioritize.
You decide what is really important, and what is nice, but unnecessary.
You may not take that vacation you planned, or you may do your own gardening.
On the other hand, you continue to do the important things: you don't stop feeding the children, or the grandparents who live with you.
You don't tell your aging mother or father that they'll just have to find somewhere else to live—or turn the children out into the street.
If you do end up in that position, it's probably because you, too, are going without food, or medical care, or shelter.
It's the last thing that happens, as long as you have a choice, and if it happens it isn't because you chose it. - But cutting back on expenses is usually not your first choice.
Your first choice is normally to pursue ways to increase your income.
You take an extra job. You look for a better job. If you're self-employed, you look for ways to improve business.
You take a positive approach.
Take those lessons, and apply them to the current national budget problems:
- If we are going to cut back on expenses, the first step is to prioritize.
We could, for example, cut back on some of the military spending which even the military doesn't think is necessary.
We could also mow our own lawns for a while—stop out-sourcing government work to the private sector, where it's not getting done as well, and where it's costing us more.
Or we could cut back on some of the corporate welfare—things like subsidies to the oil industry, which really doesn't need them, or to other corporations that are already too wealthy as it is.
The things we shouldn't be cutting back are those that affect the health and well being of our children, or of the aged.
We shouldn't be throwing children or grandma and grandpa out on the street. - But we also shouldn't even be cutting expenses until we've considered ways to increase income.
While there are lots of ways a nation can increase its revenues, one is simple and obvious: raise the top tax rates.
Right now we are taxing the wealthiest people in our country at lower rates than we used in the Clinton years, and much lower rates than we had under Reagan—in times when the budget was in better shape than it is now.
We should simply restore the top taxes to what they were under Reagan, and use the money to cut the deficit.
Most of the deficit hawks will scream at this alternative—especially those on the right.
Every time the budget has been in good shape their response is to give the money to the wealthy—remember when the Democrats left a three trillion surplus under Clinton?
Every time the budget is in bad shape, their response is to cut programs which help the average citizen, or the poorest, or the most defenseless among us—throw the kids and the grandparents to the wolves.
And since giving the money to the rich in the good times means we don't have it to help us through the bad times—wouldn't that three trillion have come in handy in the last year or two?—we end up in a downward spiral.
At every turn the rich get richer, and the rest of us get a little poorer, a little less secure.
And it happens over and over again.
Before we think about throwing grandma and grandpa into the street, we should simply think about pulling in a little more money.
Just like we would in our own household.
At least, that's what I think today.
