An Open Letter To the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform

The Fiscal Commission now starting its work needs to begin on the right footing. If this effort is based on incorrect assumptions to start with it cannot achieve success. Erroneous ideas and facts about the deficit and debt are all too often found in current political rhetoric and in shallow and uninformed media coverage. This can only cause confusion, anxiety, and anger among Americans.

The most important and significant of these erroneous ideas is that the so-called "entitlements" have something to do with the increasing deficits. Social Security is separately funded through the payroll tax, which is covering all expenses of paying benefits and currently producing a surplus.

Medicare is also separately funded through payroll taxes, premiums, co-payments, etc. Of course, the escalating costs of medical care need to be addressed but this should not be within the purview of a fiscal policy commission. The excessive costs of administration of medical care including excess profits, executive compensation, research and development incurred by medical device companies, hospitals, clinics, laboratories, insurance companies, etc need to be studied and reformed. This should be done by a commission consisting of medical professionals, management consultants, etc. Your commission is not qualified to do this. Therefore a decision should be taken at the outset to set aside the entitlements and to adopt a plan that will focus on tax and revenue reform, and discretionary spending on such items as defense, military spending, foreign aid, earmarks, corporate subsidies, the war on drugs, etc.

If the Commission insists on placing primary attention on the "entitlements" it will endanger the whole project and disappoint the President's hope for real progress in reducing deficit spending. Attacks on Social Security and Medicare can only produce an outpouring of angry citizen protest which will make the so-called anti-government Tea Party passion look puny.

"Messing around" with Social Security and Medicare is playing with people’s lives, health and well being. Changes in these programs mean less food on the table for many, no doctor to help when sick, no hospital to perform life saving surgery.

Therefore, the most important decision the Commission can make at this crucial starting point is to clearly disassociate itself from those influential figures and groups in the anti-government business and investment communities who are motivated ideologically by a desire to dismantle the New Deal and Great Society originated programs. These programs have become so integrated into the lives of ordinary Americans that adverse changes would in effect tear the heart out of American civilization. We have seen the violent citizen reactions in certain European countries to reductions in life sustaining benefit programs. To activate this kind of political and social disorder in America will not provide any solution to the deficit problem

Sincerely,

Lawrence D. Greene, Vice Chair,
South King County Chapter,
Alliance for Retired Americans

Editor’s note: We urge our readers to write their own letters. Tell the commission to keep its hands off Social Security and Medicare. Address the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, 1650 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20504.

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