President Obama recently tried to scare seniors by claiming that he wasn’t sure social security checks could be sent to seniors unless Republicans raise the debt ceiling on his terms. This, of course, is a lie.
On average every month the US Treasury collects about $186 billion.
Social security payments are about $49.2 billion monthly. Even adding Medicare and Medicaid costs ($50 billion), military salaries ($2.9 billion), interest on the national debt ($29 billion), Veterans affairs funding ($2.9 billion), and federal employee salaries and benefits ($14.2 billion), there is almost another $40 billion left for other programs.
Currently the Federal government spends about $306 billion every month, so our government borrows about 43 cents of every dollar of spending. Thus, unless the debt ceiling is raised or spending is cut dramatically, President Obama will have to prioritize how the available money is spent.
Our government funds thousands of programs that should be eliminated or severely cut because they provide little or no value to American citizens. Here are a few examples: $2.6 million to train Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly, promotion of rural tourism in Lebanon, $12 million to promote economic growth in Lebanon, a study to determine if male genitalia size is related to gay men’s health, subsidies (as the ethanol and oil subsidies show, it is hard to ever end subsidies), bailouts (taxpayer dollars used to save politicians’ friends from their failures), military equipment the military doesn’t want, and funding welfare services for illegal aliens. Federal departments which do not meet their objectives should be eliminated, some have overseen a worsening of the situation they were created to improve. E.g., we are more dependent on foreign oil today than when the Department of Energy was created thirty years ago to end our dependence on foreign oil. (Turn the American energy industry loose.) E.g., American education is comparatively worse (although more expensive) than when the Department of Education was created to improve education about thirty years ago. (Turn education back to the states and local governments.)
One wonders why we would fund things like these even if we didn‘t have to borrow 43 cents of every dollar of spending and have a $14 trillion debt. Funding these things with borrowed money is evidence of insanity in the US Congress. It is time to eliminate all this wasteful spending.
If seniors don’t get their Social Security check, it will only be because President Obama chose to pay for things like failing government programs and training Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly rather than pay Social Security obligations.
Don Ewing
