Townhall trickery

Back when Republican Bob Inglis was desperately trying to hang on to his 4^th District Congressional seat, I attended one of his ‘trash H.R. 3200’ anti-health care reform Town Hall meetings. Before I even entered the building where the event was held, I was given a handout listing 16 reasons why H.R. 3200 was the anti-Christ of health care legislation.

I’m only going to mention one of the reasons (all easily refuted) since it conforms to the true purpose of this entry. Inglis’ document asserted that H.R. 3200 represented an entitlement program equaling a $32 trillion Medicare obligation. That certainly is one whale of an obligation all right. What Inglis neglected to mention was the obligation was spread out over a 75-YEAR period. In other words, it covered a period from quite early in the century to quite late in the century.

I couldn’t help but see the similarity in Inglis’ sleight of hand and the current efforts of Texas Republican Senior Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison. Hutchison, who was once an executive of a failed Texas bank, rebounded nicely and is now worth at least $5 - $7 million dollars. So, as is the case for most elected officials who already have theirs (beaucoup bucks and a handsome pension)…she wants to take away a lot of ‘yours’ – (substantially fewer bucks).

Here’s Kay’s proposal. She wants you to work until you’re 69 years old, though it would take 16 years to reach that number. Of course the current average life span is 75 for men, so if that stays essentially the same, that’s a whooping 6 years of fun in the sun for you fellows after nearly 50 working years. Here’s where Hutchison mirrors Inglis. She claims a Social Security burden of $6.5 trillion in unfunded obligations. That’s actually about $15 trillion less than a figure sited in a recent scare-piece in the June 7^th edition of USA Today. I’ll have more about that in a future entry. Like Inglis, Hutchison’s number is spread out over 75 years. The differential is explained by the smaller figure reflecting taxes collected from future workers, failing to account for the benefits workers will get in the 76^th year.

75 years?  Let’s expand that to 275 years…that’s a whole lot scarier. Where’s my calculator? My conservative estimate is that we will have 117 quadrillion dollars in unfunded obligations. That’s a terrifying 17 TRILLION PER HOUSEHOLD!!! Vote republican in 2012 so those poor folks in 2286 won't have to suffer needlessly.

Stay tuned for a reasonable response to the latest nonsensical republican echo chamber. I’ll close by telling you one truth…your household doesn’t ‘owe’ $534,000 to the government as claimed on the June 10^th SHJ editorial page.

Explanation coming soon.