A couple things bug me. First, Social Security is not part of the budget or the deficit, but some people keep dragging it into the discussion and pretending that it is. Second, calling Social Security and Medicare "entitlements" is intentionally misleading -- a GOP catch-phrase designed to conjure them as some sort of federal giveaway or handout, like welfare or government cheese. That's bullshit, my friends.
In fact, both Social Security and Medicare are officially defined as "mandatory spending", not discretionary. It would be more accurate to call them "earned benefits" -- programs which we've paid into for years in return for some guaranteed retirement income and health coverage. (But yeah, in a practical sense, they are entitlements. I've paid for them and I feel entitled to use them. I bet you do too.) Both programs enjoy overwhelming public support and most people, especially older people, are strongly opposed to any reduction in coverage or benefit.
Many say that both programs are financially unsustainable as presently configured and are headed toward insolvency. This is at least partially, sort of, true. It's also true that both programs could be quite easily fixed without significant, or any, cuts to recipients. Mainly, this would be done by increasing our contributions to the programs, i.e. paying more for them.
Is this a problem? For Republicans, yes. Just as an example, in the current budget kerfuffle, Soup Nazi John Boehner has said, "President Obama got his revenue" (via the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, but only on the top 1% of incomes), meaning "No soup for you!" -- no more revenue, ever, for anything.. Orange John and the R's are the Great Income Preventers. Tax increase? No way. Close a loophoole, tighten a deduction? Not without an equivalent spending cut somewhere else. A zero-sum game on the income side, which makes a deficit deal impossible. Despite their "fiscal responsibility" talk, Republicans have opposed deficit deals for 20 years -- they are, in fact, deficit creators and deficit perpetuators.
This attitude is the crux of damn near every problem in Washington DC. If, as the GOP wants, our income is to be eternally frozen while costs continue to rise, all that's left is continual cutting, contraction and recession. Grover Norquist's insane vision would be realized. The government would be the Pentagon and the Chamber of Commerce, period.
Why don't the Democrats call bullshit on this nonsense? Especially for popular programs like Social Security and Medicare, why doesn't someone have the nerve to say, "Hey, Mr. & Mrs. America, you're smart enough to know that things don't stay the same forever. We all like Social Security and Medicare, but the simple fact is there are more of us, we're living longer, and health costs are up. We'll trim the fluff and the waste wherever we find it, but if you wanna keep your costs the same, we gonna have to cut your benefits. On the other hand, if you wanna keep the program benefits exactly as they are, you're gonna have to pay a little more for them. So whadya say? You willing to pay a bit more to keep some stuff you really like?"
I think the majority of us would gladly pay more to keep things that are important to us. Allow me to illustrate:
The Lesson of Indian Hills
I live in a nice middle-class neighborhood of 300 homes called Indian Hills. I became aware of it more than forty years ago, when I was in college. My roommate was from Indian Hills and his family still lived there. When I first visited, the houses were fairly new and the neighborhood had a pool, tennis courts, and lettered entrances. I was informed that it was home to a few high muckety-mucks like the mayor, a congressman, and a couple judges. Ooh!
Twenty-five years ago, the lovely Mrs. Gammons and I proudly moved into our home here. The neighborhood amenities were still there, but were showing signs of age and neglect. Neighbors regularly went door to door, trying to raise money to preserve and fix them.
We soon came to find out that our homeowners association was going broke, and quickly. It's only source of funding was a mandatory HOA fee collected whenever a home sold and changed hands. That was good enough when the neighborhood was being built and home sales occurred frequently. But now the construction phase was long gone, and as home sales slowed to a normal turnover pace, fee income slowed as well. The original HOA "membership" fee of $50 was tripled to $150, but it was still not enough to cover the association's property tax, insurance, and utility costs.
And no one had thought about the long-run costs to maintain and repair our pool, tennis courts, parking lot, and entrances. Users of the pool and courts paid fairly healthy additional fees for the privilege, but these weren't enough for proper upkeep. The pool had mechanical problems and the tennis courts needed to be resurfaced. The parking lot was crumbling. The wooden entrance lettering was rotting and falling apart.
So just two years after the missus and I moved in, all Indian Hills residents faced a decision. The current financial model was a loser. Relying as we had on sporadic home sales, donations, and volunteer labor just didn't work any longer. There were two options: 1. Admit defeat and let the association fail, or 2. Find a way to generate enough predictable, regular income to continue.
With Option 1, pool and tennis would be closed and demolished, and the association land they occupied would be sold, with the proceeds distributed to current homeowners. Pole security lights in the neighborhood would go dark. Our six entrance walls would eventually deteriorate for lack of maintenance.
I was shocked at how many of my neighbors favored this approach. At meetings, they'd say things like, "I don't use the pool, so why should I pay to maintain it?" (Because we all own it, and users pay extra.) "Our kids enjoyed the pool when they were growing up, but now they've moved out, so I don't care." (We got ours, but screw you.) "Let's turn that whole area into something everyone can use, like a playground, or a community garden." (It'd be one big-ass playground.) "If we sold it, how much money would I get?" (You selfish, greedy bastard!)
With Option 2, the question was how to raise the necessary income. Increase the HOA membership fee? Nah. Home sales are too few and too unpredictable, and the fee would need to be $1000 to $2000. Realtors would shit themselves. (Not necessarily a bad thing, but still . . .) How about a small-ish annual fee charged on every property? Like maybe $50 per home per year? YES!!
And in short order, the vast majority of our homeowners voted in favor of a $50 annual fee. This saved our association and allowed us to preserve and improve our commonly-owned assets. With eyes open, the majority of our residents gladly and knowingly taxed themselves. They willingly chose to pay more to keep some things they felt were important. In 2007, after 17 years at $50, we asked for an increase to $75 a year. Our costs, inevitably, had gone up. There were a few squawks, but the new fee passed by a wide margin. In our common, everyday, collective wisdom, we had again agreed to pay a bit more to maintain some things of value.
That's the Lesson of Indian Hills: Cutting isn't always the answer. Sometimes, you gotta pay to keep the good stuff.
If, here in central Ohio middle-class suburbia, we can do that, you'd think our elected geniuses in Washington DC could do the same.
Of course, I could be wrong.
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