Congressman Ryan's Ten-Year Plan

Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wi) has revealed his ten-year plan to restore the United States to fiscal sanity. Using his roadmap, Congress will slash around $6 trillion dollars of fiscal liabilities from the national debt. Yet fiscally and morally, Ryan's budget proposal does not go far enough in curtailing the wasteful largesse undermining this county's financial house.

In order to instill institutional monetary solvency for the good of the entire nation, present as well as future generations must sacrifice. Beneficiaries must accept not reaping the same retirement and security benefits as their predecessors. The elderly-no-longer-working have no right to cannibalize the young-who-are-still-working. Analysts and economists have confronted baby-boomers with the crass handouts entitled to them, which not only impoverish the current workforce, but will not be afforded them when they retire. Retirees shrug their shoulders, acknowledge the injustice of the whole scheme, and go back to their golf games.

What else does Congress need to do? Ryan and his caucus must apply the hurt to the 55-and-up constituency.

Social Security needs to be curtailed, limited, and ultimately phased out. The original entitlement, sprung from FDR welfare-state mania, was never intended to bank-roll indolent retirees for thirty years after their last day of work. Social Security has enabled workers to grow old without growing wise, spending all without saving for the future. Dependence on the state is just a ruse for the unproductive leaning on the productive. Having concluded as much, one must acknowledge the immorality of the state in depriving the working man of a portion of his pay to subsidize the retirement of a retreating work force.

The whole concept of retirement is ludicrous. Nations and civilizations for centuries worked and saved until the dropped dead or preserved a hefty inheritance to support themselves. The United States Congress must wean individuals off its dole, however gradually.

With Medicare and Medicaid, the same fundamental problem persists as with Social Security. The federal government should not compel current workers to pay into a reserve tapped by current non-workers. Instead, the government must release itself from the costly obligation of transferring wealth and shoring up obligations beyond its capacity to honor.