Fear and Lies Used to Promote Fiscal Disaster

We could cut every dime from national defense, and it wouldn’t be enough. We could confiscate 100% of the earnings of the so-called “rich” and it wouldn’t be enough. We could do both of those things, and unless our Congress and the President agreed to undertake serious entitlement reform, this nation would still be on the road to bankruptcy. At some point China and everyone else who purchases our Treasury bills, bonds, and notes would simply cease to fund our national profligacy. Yet, the left continues to use fear and lies in an attempt to stop any discussion of meaningful entitlement reform.

We have come to expect the nonsensical politics of fear from national political figures and leftist groups. Sadly, local citizens have now decided to enter the fray, attempting a homespun veracity, while simply promoting the same misinformation that will push this nation farther down the path of fiscal disaster.

The latest case is a letter to the editor in this morning’s Daily Times from a Mr. Tom Wallace of Ocean Pines. Mr. Wallace is going for a “twofer”, attacking House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform plan and chastising First District congressman Andy Harris for supporting it. We can only hope that the DT’s readers are critical enough to see the truck size holes in Wallace’s argument.

What Harris voted for was to privatize Medicare with a voucher system. Seniors would be thrown into the private insurance system; many without enough money to pay for needed services. Republicans claim anyone 55 and over won't be impacted. I find that difficult to believe. As Medicare winds down, so do available funds, services and resources. Seniors know these programs work. They see themselves as guardians of Medicare for their children and grandchildren.

It is not true that any bill has even been brought before the House. It is true that under Ryan’s plan future generations of seniors would get their coverage through a privatized system. The federal government would pay for all, or part, of that coverage based on an individuals income level. It’s known as a “premium support” structure. The individual would share in the responsibility of his or her health care for the first time since Medicare’s inception. Mr. Wallace chooses to call it a “voucher” because he seems to believe that vouchers have a negative connotation. Mr. Wallace should ask any parent of school age children if they wouldn’t love to have a voucher to help send their children to a private school.

Rather than insult readers with the laughable argument that Republicans are attempting to kill todays seniors, he admits that the plan will not impact anyone who is 55 or older today. He then claims that this isn’t true.

I can only speculate that Mr. Wallace must have enjoyed a long career sucking at the teat of the taxpayer. What other explanation is there for his claim that seniors see themselves as guardians of the system and that the current system works? Only someone who has no skin in the game or has spent a lifetime sponging off of the productive classes could believe that the current system is functioning and viable in the long term.

Is Ryan’s plan perfect? No. However, it is courageous and, at the minimum, a starting point for meaningful discussion. Rep. Andy Harris should be cheered for willing to tackle the issue.

If America wishes to remain great, we need to meet this crisis head on. Hopefully, the majority of Americans will see through arguments like those put forward by Mr. Wallace and the usual suspects of the left. If not, the children and grandchildren that Mr. Wallace claims to care for face a future as bleak as anything portrayed by Dickens.