Commentaries
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Playing politics with Social Security
By John M. Berry
The White House’s knee-jerk reaction to the news that inflation was so low that Social Security beneficiaries won’t get a cost-of-living increase next year was a seriously bad omen for long-term control of federal spending.
The problem wasn’t the $13 billion cost of another one-time $250 payment to each retiree proposed by President Barack Obama. No, it was the utter disregard of the discipline inherent in indexing payments to changes in consumer prices.
Benefits were indexed in the 1970s precisely to stop politicians eager to curry political favor by providing large benefit increases on an ad hoc basis.
Shoveling out more checks to an important group of voters when the economy is as depressed as it is now would be a popular thing to do. Plenty of Democrats — as well as many of the Republicans who have been clamoring about soaring budget deficits — quickly endorsed the $250 payment even though prices weren’t just flat, they fell by 2 percent.
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from Rolfe Winkler:
A healthcare failure could save Obama
The rising costs of Medicare and Medicaid threaten to destroy the nation's fiscal future, but President Obama is pushing for healthcare reform that would increase costs. Instead, he should refocus his presidency on paying down debt.
America's obligations over the next 75 years now surpass $62 trillion, up 8 percent since last year. And a new report released today by the Peterson Foundation suggests that total will go even higher if the House's health care legislation is passed.
Debt on autopilot
At first glance this week’s budget projections paint President Obama as a spendthrift. The White House itself offered a grim glimpse of a future in which U.S. debt more than doubles to $17.5 trillion in a decade — an increase of nearly $10 trillion.
Merely servicing the U.S. debt will cost more than America currently spends on either defense or social security.
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The Wall
