In any policy battle, it helps to have allies. So it’s good that AARP seems finally ready to help press for reform of entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
AARP’s shift can be seen in its latest TV ad, “Future Champions.” It shows children stressing the need to “find real long-term solutions to some of America’s most pressing issues -- health care and long-term financial security.”
The ad is misleading in some ways. Speaking about entitlements, one boy asks, “Will we keep those promises?” when, of course, this child has made no promises. In fact, the big three entitlement programs are promises made by older generations -- to give themselves benefits that younger workers will have to pay for through ever-rising payroll taxes.
But the overall message of the ad is that we need to make some big changes to fix entitlements. That’s a refreshing change from two years ago. Back then, when President Bush was urging the creation of individual retirement accounts within Social Security, AARP’s ads insisted, “If you had a problem with the kitchen sink, you wouldn’t tear down the entire house,” hinting that entitlement problems weren’t all that bad.
But the organization now seems to understand that the country’s on the verge of a fiscal catastrophe.
The Congressional Budget Office predicts that spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will soar from just over 8 percent of GDP today to almost 19 percent in 2050, when the cute children in today’s TV ads will be middle-aged parents. Their bill will be gigantic: $38 trillion to pay for the Social Security and Medicare benefits their parents have promised themselves -- but not arranged to pay for. Add in the national debt and other entitlements, and it works out to $440,000 for every household in the U.S. today -- enough to buy each of those families a new home. Or two.
So how can we fix things? Well, as we learned in the debate over Social Security, we can’t simply take on one problem at a time. If we attempt to reform just one of the big programs, some group will always fight for the status quo. We need to fix all three at once.
Also, we need to give lawmakers some cover. To accomplish that, Congress should form a commission such as the one Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., proposed last year. Wolf would label it “SAFE,” for “Securing America’s Future Economy.” It would have 16 voting members, including at least four members of Congress, the director of the Office of Management and Budget and the secretary of the Treasury.
The commission would be bipartisan and have one year to develop plans to:
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