The first fix to our debt problem

Our government spent roughly $3.8 trillion in 2011.

The total revenue was about $2.9 trillion.

I realize almost every media outlet is beating readers over the head about our country’s current $1 trillion deficit.

At the same time we have been so lucky to listen to President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney try to explain to us how they will fix this problem, which neither of them has truly done.

Cutting the deficit and balancing the budget are  much more perilous tasks than either of the presidential candidates would lead voters to believe.

Government spending can be divided into two major categories: mandatory and discretionary.

Mandatory spending includes Social Security, Medicare, interest payments and a few other entitlement programs. Mandatory spending is not subject to Congressional approval. Our country has to spend this money.

Discretionary spending consists of defense spending and funding for various other government agencies. Discretionary spending must be approved by Congress.
For our country to stop running a deficit, all discretionary spending would have to be completely erased.

Tax revenue in 2011 barely covered mandatory expenses.

It is impossible to eliminate all discretionary spending, so adjustments or restructuring of mandatory spending must happen.

The three biggest expenses in mandatory spending are Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

The easiest and most logical way to adjust mandatory spending would be to reform Social Security or eliminate it altogether.

When it was created, Social Security seemed like a fine idea, but the federal government has turned it into a piggy bank from which they take money, and put I.O.U’s to the American people back into.

As of 2011, the federal government owes about $2.7 trillion to the Social Security Trust Fund.

The truth is, it wouldn’t be that hard to reform Social Security and shut down the government’s piggy bank.

Instead of taking a percentage of every taxpayer’s paycheck and putting it into the government’s cookie jar, that same percentage could be taken out of a taxpayer’s paycheck and put into a 401k, IRA or some other retirement investment for themselves.

When that person turns 65, they would have access to their own form of Social Security, and the government would not have been able to create debt by borrowing money that is clearly not theirs.

This program could be mandated for people around or less than the age of 30 and would give these people plenty of time to build their retirement fund.
Implementing a program such as this would reduce the future debt obligations of our country and eventually stop the government from creating more debt out of social security.

Medicare and Medicaid are political black holes that no one wants to touch.
Restructuring Social Security is the simplest way to tackle our country’s mandatory spending problem.

­— wfgryna@indiana.edu