I turned 43 this May, and I can sense that I’m getting old. I’m growing hair in my ears. My students no longer recognize my “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” references. And I feel a strange urge to yell at kids to get off my Lawn.
Not all kids, mind you. Just the ones who work for an organization called The Can Kicks Back. You may have seen them tabling on the Lawn on Monday, wearing snazzy red shirts and handing out expensive-looking swag.
So what is The Can Kicks Back? It’s an astroturf (fake grassroots) organization with close ties to an outfit called Fix The Debt. And what’s Fix The Debt? Glad you asked. It’s the pet project of a Wall Street billionaire named Pete Peterson, who’s spent recent decades pushing for cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Another Peterson-funded group is called “Up To Us.” It has similar goals — and a branch at U.Va.
Let’s look at some of the lines these folks are peddling.
• “If we don’t act now, Social Security won’t be there for our generation!” This is nonsense. On current projections, Social Security can pay full benefits into the mid-2030s; after that it can pay around 80 percent of current levels. If we want to “fix” that shortfall, let’s raise the cap on income subject to the Social Security tax. (Currently all income above $113,700 is exempt.)
• “When Social Security was implemented, life expectancy was lower.” Average life expectancy in 1935 was lower for one main reason: higher infant mortality. But people who die in infancy are irrelevant here: they don’t pay taxes or collect benefits. What matters for Social Security is how many more years people who reach their sixties can expect. And that hasn’t risen much in recent generations — least of all for lower-income people, who need Social Security most.
• “Health care costs are bankrupting us!” Health care costs are high, but we won’t rein them in by cutting Medicare, a simple and cost-effective program that efficiently covers older Americans.
• “The national debt is like running up money on your credit card. Sooner or later the bill comes due!” Actually, the U.S. government’s budget is not at all like ours. We can’t create money: the Federal Reserve does it daily. We’re not an immortal entity: the United States is. In fact, the U.S. (aged 237) has had a national debt for all but a year of its existence.
• “An out-of-control debt will lead to inflation!” Actually, inflation is at historically low levels. Many economists think it needs to be higher, pushing up salaries and reducing the value of debts like mortgages and college loans. Moderately higher inflation would be good for middle-class families and college students — but bad for wealthy creditors like Pete Peterson.
In a recent op-ed published in The Cavalier Daily, Up To Us member Elizabeth Brightwell called the national debt “the most pressing issue facing young people today.” Really? More pressing than income inequality or climate change? What about unemployment, currently at 7.2 percent and at historic highs since 2008? Why don’t Peterson’s acolytes find those problems pressing? Perhaps because the solutions might include hiking taxes on Pete Peterson. Better to “raise awareness” about an imaginary problem two decades off than tackle the real ones staring us in the face right now.
Peterson’s efforts are supported by some distinguished people, including Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.). Some of them may even have good intentions. But their goal is a shabby one: to cut Social Security and Medicare for aging Americans, people who depend on the benefits they’ve earned.
So get off my Lawn, debt fixers.
Gregory Hays is an associate professor of classics.
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