Subject: Rep. Thurman and the President's proposal
Representative Karen Thurman wrote " The Administration has submitted a plan to Congress which would strengthen Social Security by putting 77 percent of the surplus over the next 15 years into the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds."
This does not represent any budget choices by the President during that period. Calling it 77% of the surplus has about the same connection to the surplus as calling it 400 trillion percent of the price of a Whopper. It's an arbitrary comparison. What he did was propose to give the trust fund bonds backed by general fund with no stated rationale. This gifting, while creating a significantly new obligation of the general fund, was not accompanied by any corresponding current budget sacrifices.
While I believe there are strong rationales for the general fund to pay for much of what Social Security does, I find what seems more like President Clinton acting as a Social Security Santa Claus rather strange. Since Rep. Thurman seem to indicate approval for this plan, perhaps she will explain her reasoning for this significant change in funding Social Security. I would also have to ask her why such a large future general fund obligation shouldn't trigger some corresponding effect on the near term budgets. I'm tired of those who sing the praises of fiscal responsibility while spending now and pushing the budget pain forward, in many case to a different set of government representatives and taxpayers.
