As all the world knows, Mitt Romney now has a running mate, Congressman Paul Ryan. Ryan, of course, is noted as the GOP point-man for fixing the federal debt crisis (or crisis-to-be; right now we’re getting by, lenders still want to loan money to Uncle Sam . . . but at some point, we could get into a jam like Greece, Italy and Spain are in with their unpayable sovereign debt and shrinking economies). And Ryan’s key target is the complex of federal entitlements, including the two biggest ones, Social Security and Medicaid. I haven’t seen all the details of the Ryan plan, but I understand that he wants drastic cuts in benefit levels for the average citizen, with no exemptions for Baby Boomer foggies like me who are counting on these programs for a comfortable but not lavish old age. <\/p>\n
Of course, the big problem is the “Great Recession” that we are still not out of, despite the official declaration that the Recession ended in late 2009. The problem is that the economy is still growing much slower than it could and should. That has caused an appreciable net loss of national potential wealth, the wealth that these entitlement programs were counting on to stay afloat. So yes, it does seem reasonable to say that everyone has to share some of the pain, given that the pain is now unavoidable.<\/p>\n
What I don’t like about Ryan and his cronies is that they seize on a real financial problem (which most leaders in the Democratic Party don’t want to talk about) and propose solutions that pin the burden not on those most responsible for causing the underlying problem, but instead go after those who are most politically vulnerable. I.e., people like me. I wasn’t speculating on mortgage-backed securities in 2006 or issuing credit default swaps or taking repo positions on European sovereign debt. But because the people and institutions that did these things have lots of funds and thus political clout (“too big to fail”), they are mostly insulated from taking responsibility. So that leaves average people like me (and probably yourself) whose pockets are prime for picking by conservative political pocket-pickers like Congressman Ryan. <\/p>\n
Again, I can accept the idea that the country has undergone something bad, and that I can’t be fully insulated from the consequences. Personally, I could accept a 3 or 4% reduction in my Social Security levels relative to what I would get under the current rules. I believe that such a reduction would be fair; before the Great Recession started in 2008, I didn’t hear any dire predictions about current Social Security and Medicare liabilities threatening to turn us into a weak, impoverished nation. (There was discussion of Social Security problems starting back in the late 90s, but those problems seemed “fixable” back then.) It seems to me that the main problem is the loss of what was otherwise expected to go into the piggybank, because of the recession. <\/p>\n