The Kids'll Handle This

Well, hallelujah. The House and Senate finally reached an agreement on the Payroll Tax holiday. It’s a 10-month extension, and we’re paying for it.

Well, not “we’re paying for it” as in the Republicans got what they wanted and the tax break extension is accompanied by spending reductions. In fact, the CBO is predicting the package, which includes the payroll tax cut, along with changes to unemployment benefits and medicare payouts, will increase the deficit by $167.5 billion over the next three years.

Oh, but that’s ok. Once those offsets they’re so proud of kick in, it will only add $89.3 billion to the deficit. Sure, with a deficit is currently over 15 trillion, that’s “just a drop in the bucket,” but it’s a sign of just how absurd the solutions today’s generation come up with are.

For years, the current generation of politicians overspent on everything from entitlements to Bridges to Nowhere. And every time they went over budget (quite the popular move, seeing as how they did it all but four years since 1970) they spent all the money that came in for the Social Security fund, money everyone expected once they turned 65 and stopped working. Everyone who elected the current crop of politicians into office over and over and over because, like a kid who accuses his sibling of not closing his eyes during prayer at the dinner table, there’s only a problem if the earmarks and budget overruns are for someone else’s benefit. And now we’re screwed. Royally.

We’re not even trying to stay afloat in a leaky rowboat. We’re like the Costa Concordia--only the crew is frantically trying to plug the hole with bubblegum. But hey, today’s “problem solvers” and their electorate will join Captain Schettino and his lovely lady for dinner and drinks at Social Security Restaurant long before the ship goes belly-up. They’ll leave it to the next generation, those of us in college and younger, to deal with both a sinking ship and their bar tab.

Their latest “fix” for “working-class” Americans is the payroll tax cuts, which at best will put about 40 extra dollars in the average person’s pocket each month (a point my economics professor always mentions with a bemused smile). For those of you keeping score at home, that’s about 480 dollars a year, although depending on whom you ask it ranges from that to around a thousand dollars.

What politicians are painstakingly careful to avoid is the fact that the payroll tax is the money that funds Social Security. But the government is still mailing off checks to granny and grandpop in the retirement home, even though there’s no money coming in to back those checks.

I’m not saying we should cut off granny and gramps (after all, where else is granny gonna get the money to buy the ingredients for her amazing chocolate chip cookies?). But the fact remains: they spent their Social Security long before they started collecting checks. Maybe our generation should be more adamant about getting an opt-out from Social Security for an IRA so our money will actually be there when we retire.

UPDATE: Thanks to The Other McCain for the link!