Solving the Nation's Fourteen Trillion Dollar Debt

I'm glad to see that the President and Congressional leaders appear to be getting closer to reality about lowering the national debt. At least, all sides now acknowledge that defaulting on the debt or endless raises in the debt limit are dead ends. I hope they will also see that cuts in spending and increases in revenue must both begin now, not two years or ten years down the line, if we are to retain our creditors' trust. Some suggestions where to start:

Social Security is one of America's biggest expense programs; I and tens of millions of other senior citizens depend on it for a major part of our old age income. My wife and I contributed to the fund for decades, and now our combined SS benefits are a little over 2,000 a month. We have about an equal amount of other, non-government income, and with our house and our children's college paid for, a modest reduction would not be a hardship for us, as it would be for some who depend on a 500 dollar benefit as their only income. Leave theirs intact, but many of us who are better off could make both Democrats and Republicans happy by accepting a few per cent reduction in our benefit, and a less generous tax break at income tax time. (Because of my low tax bracket, I am only taxed on about 30% of SS income.) You could call that last one either a spending cut or a tax increase, depending on your political view, but there is no doubt that applying it to upper-middle and upper class families translates into billions of dollars off the deficit annually.

Medicare is another big budget expense. My open-heart surgery at age 77 has given me five more years of active life so far, and I am grateful to both the program and to my surgeon, who may have accepted a reduced fee at Medicare rates. But I have a neighbor who also could have benefited from such expensive surgery; he had a heart attack, had to quit his physically active mining engineer job, lost his employer-funded insurance, and ran out of unemployment benefits. There are few new jobs for a fifty-five year old. Emergency rooms have to accept him even if he can't pay, but the ER has to charge over $1,000 per visit to the rest of us to make up for the 45,000,000 Americans like my neighbor whom no insurance company will accept.

Medicare is an even bigger problem than Social Security, because SS beneficiaries eventually die (and that's okay—I sure don't want to be kept alive on machines for months). Patients eventually die too, of course, but medical science keeps on growing, and growing more costly every year. New tests, new machines, new and vastly more expensive medicines come on market, and more training and knowledge is expected of doctors, nurses, technicians and therapists. No matter how rich the nation, there will come a point where there won't be enough funds to pay for all the medical inovations each year.

Some nations' medical systems deal with this problem by having waiting lines. Others have hospitals whose pharmacy shelves are empty before the end of the fiscal year. Still others simply let their people starve or die untreated. Call these methods rationing if you like, but eventually every nation must prioritize. America is to be congratulated on having a good public health system in general, with emphasis on prevention, immunization, and maternal and child health care as priorities

Doctors could share in the burden, too. During my fifty years of medical practice, many doctors would accept some patients that couldn't pay much, or could pay nothing at all. The doctors kept track of how much medicines cost, and prescribed generics when possible. And they listened to the patient first, before firing off orders for routine tests. Today many doctors prescribe with no idea of the cost.

Government could help. Everybody talks about simplifying tax forms, but it hasn't happened yet. I have always been a big fan of charitable gift deductions, but I bet most of us who support charities would continue our support even if only 50% of each gift were deductible instead of the more generous deduction of 50% of adjusted gross income. Hey, are you giving to help the needy or to help yourself?

As to complicated tax forms, consider Singapore, arguably the nation with the largest budget surplus (and one of the smallest populations) in the world. My son has lived there for years, making a well-paid living. He says it takes him only a half hour to fill out his Singapore income tax return, but takes days to do his US form. 'Nuf said.

Military costs are a big budget item too. Sometimes it's necessary to defend our nation, or to stop genocide as part of an international effort. I would like to think failed nations like Somalia and a few others have taught us we cannot police the whole world alone.

National debt interest payments of half a Trillion dollars are one of the biggest expenses we should learn to do without. Every trillion we reduce the debt this year means 60 billion dollars less interest we must pay next year (@ 6%.)

Millionaires and corporations, are you part of this nation or not? You need to contribute to debt reduction too.