By Armando Gutierrez
SEE ALSO: FAIR dispatch: NewsHour Responds on Inequality
AND: The Political Function of PBS
NewsHour's main honcho, Jim Lehrer
WHEN I WATCH MAINSTREAM NEWS SHOWS, even those that are generally regarded as somewhat liberal, I am amazed at the extent to which what in a rational world would be considered outrageous statements and actions are passed off as reasonable and above reproach. I find myself jumping up and down on my couch and yelling at the journalist through the screen, imploring him or her to ask what would seem like an obvious question.
Two recent back-to-back related stories on the PBS News Hour show are representative. I’ll limit myself in this post to the first and will address the second later.
The first reported on the work of the so-called Super Committee of twelve members, six Democrats and six Republicans, of congress charged with finding ways to reduce the nation’s deficit by $1.5 trillion over the next ten years. The committee has a deadline of November 23, 2011 to produce its recommendations, but there are apparently out-clauses that allow it to kick the can down the road for some time, which it was reported is the most likely scenario to play out.
The analysts who were brought in by the New Hour to flesh out the committee’s activities matter-of-factly pointed out that the two sides, Democrats and Republicans, had staked out completely contrasting positions. On the one hand, the Democrats had stated publicly that they would stand their ground on any cuts to Social Security and Medicare. On the other, the Republicans were holding firm on opposing any cuts to defense.
So there was the dilemma, the immovable object and the irresistible force. There too was the reason that both analysts were firmly convinced that no progress would be made by the deadline, or likely even beyond that.
Now, is there a more telling example of the perversity of American politics circa 2011 than this developing stalemate? Let us look at the equivalents, Social Security and Medicare on one side of the scale and defense on the other.
Social Security is a program that is paid for by its eventual beneficiaries through the Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax. Those who work in the United States pay into the Social Security system throughout their lifetimes. As a general rule, the Social Security Administration considers your highest income for 35 years of your total time in the labor force when calculating the benefits to be received upon retirement. Today, roughly 56 million Americans receive Social Security benefits, while some 158 million of their fellow citizens are currently paying into the system. For nearly half of current recipients, it is Social Security and Social Security alone that keeps them out of poverty. Put another way, without Social Security, perhaps as many as 25 to 30 million more Americans over the age of 65 would be living in poverty.
Medicare is similar to Social Security in how it is funded and in its scope. Medicare is paid for through deductions from workers’ paychecks, so-called payroll taxes. Medicare services roughly 50 million Americans over the age of 65 and others with significant disabilities. For most of those 50 million, Medicare is the only form of health insurance that they have. Again, we should bear in mind that this program has been paid forward by workers during their years in the work force. Without Medicare most of these seniors and disabled would simply have no health insurance. One can but imagine the death rates for this population.
Both Social Security and Medicare are often derisively referred to as “entitlements.”
I say derisively because that has become the norm in public commentary regarding these programs, with the clear implication that beneficiaries are free loaders who are not only taking advantage of their fellow Americans but also a major cause of the long-term economic problems facing the nation. That this has become a dominant meme in today’s discourse is evident by the very fact that both are on the table for cuts.
It would seem rather obvious that indeed those who benefit from these programs are entitled. They paid into the programs for most if not all of their adult lives. Now they are cashing in their investment. How can they not be entitled to that to which they have contributed? Yet they are derided as a matter of course in today’s gasbag rants.
On the other side of the ledger holding up progress on deficit reduction is defense. The Republicans have made it abundantly clear that cuts in defense spending are simply off the table.
That part of the discretionary budget (that allocated by Congress every year) that goes to the various elements that make up defense or military spending starts with a base budget of nearly $700 billion, or almost half of what the targeted cuts are over ten years. This $700 billion is for each year. This total is very nearly as much as the rest of the world combined spends on defense.
The defense-related part of the discretionary budget gobbles up approximately 57 percent of the total discretionary budget, leaving such vital areas as energy, transportation, education, environment, health and social services begging for funds each year (for a detailed analysis of this entire budget see, One Question Only: A Taxpayer’s Manifesto, available for download at www.onequestiononly.com or from Amazon.com).
Importantly, the entirety of this base budget for defense comes out of tax dollars annually contributed by American taxpayers. Put another way, defense spending in contrast to Social Security and Medicare, is not paid for in advance. American taxpayers, of course, are allowed no say at all over how this money, their money, is spent. Congress, 535 Americans, takes it upon itself to know what is best for the 310 million of the rest of us who fill the purse they so magnanimously scatter hither and yon.
Now, I’ve been around long enough to have my rose-colored glasses shattered time and again by the many ugly realities of the modern world. There are some unsavory state and non-state actors out there. A significant number of them have no love for the United States and would love to do us harm.
But let’s get real. We have over 800 military bases scattered about the globe. Even the loneliest, buck-naked tribe living in the far reaches of the Amazon, have been spied upon (ogled?) by American spooks. We have satellites circling the globe that can send real-time images of every poor soul on the face of the globe. We have spies and informants everywhere.
And what do our “enemies” have? Not much. The Russians can barely keep up with their own internal dissension. The Chinese have a billion mouths to feed. Even the most fanatical of Muslim extremists have to keep one eye on the sky for that hard rain that could fall at any time.
The point is that the vast majority of what defense spending buys today makes us no safer. Indeed, a strong case can be made that such profligate expenditures actually makes us less safe by generating ever more enemies and making them ever more creative in how they try to strike us. One recent report found that in the decade since 9/11 we have bought one trillion dollars worth of weapons alone. Which begs at least two questions: what the hell for and do you feel safer? The most successful of the attacks against us was funded with $5 box cutters from Home Depot.
The far more significant point is that in today’s USA it is apparently considered legitimate to make equivalent on the one hand programs that keep well over 100 million Americans, perhaps as high as one-third of all of us, out of poverty and in at least a modicum of health and on the other spending that does nothing more than kill thousands every year and piss off the whole world. How in any god’s name did we reach this point?
Not as significant but equally depressing (and telling) is that this argument can play itself out in our national discourse and no one calls it into question. Not one journalist that I have seen has asked any participant in the Super Committee or the President how it is that they think there is balance between programs that are the life link for millions of Americans and others that kill almost indiscriminately and make more enemies.
It’s a question that the media will not ask, but we as Americans, must.
Armando Gutierrez, Ph.D. has taught at several universities and has had his own business since 1992. His blog can be read at www.onequestiononly.com and he can be emailed there.
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