In Search of Leadership

What is a leader?  When I think a “leader,” I think a person that leads a person or group towards achieving a positive goal as a whole.  Leaders must be honest and understandable.  As citizens of the United States, we have not done our country justice by electing “leaders” who have led to higher unemployment and Medicare and Social Security that have continued to rapidly lose money and go broke continuing social programs not capable of being sustained.  If action is not taken soon, the economy will continue on its downward spiral and reduce our potential, long into the future.

Currently, the money being taken out of workers' paychecks is being used to pay current benefits with any excess that is being invested in U.S. Treasury bonds, or the "trust fund.”  In just ten years, the current population known as the Baby Boom generation is going to force the Social Security system to start paying more in benefits than it receives in payroll tax revenues.  From that point on until, benefits are supposed to be paid from a combination taxes withheld from the workers and amounts redeemed from the trust fund.  However, the trust fund will have been spent before the system could honor all of the unfunded expectations.  In order to redeem the bonds in the current trust fund, the government is going to be forced to increase taxes or change the system.  It is currently estimated today, that more than $13 trillion gap between the promises we have made to future retirees and what the system will actually collect in taxes.  This seems to assume the economy is as strong as it was in the recent past.  The challenges we face now with recession will make matters worse.

As for unemployment, it is 6.7 percent, and we have continued to see it rise each month.  The system is demanding higher wages to help bail out companies that are in so much debt right now, and that in turn results in cuts for the workers.  This will put social programs like Social Security in more peril.  

What should be done?  To have a quick, short-term fix, we could cut benefits by raising the retirement age and taxing payouts more.  We could continue to raises taxes, but what is this going to solve in the long run?  By resorting to these solutions, it will only make Social Security and Medicare even more challenging for American workers.  We must address the recession and increasing problems with unemployment. 

Looking at the bigger picture, we should allow American workers to create and budget a separate personal retirement account that can never be touched or taken away from them by a large-spending political system.  This allows them to have partial control of their futures and perhaps their children’s futures.  The accounts can continue to grow with economy and be supported by the workers payroll taxes.  This will also secure the elderly of the future with a secure retirement income and hopefully break America free from the downward spiral of Medicare and Social Security problems.  Also, education to young people in schools could be much more emphasized and have a higher priority on vocational skills. 

Unemployment should not be put on the back burner.  It is just as important as Medicare and Social Security.  Reducing migration is not an effective solution.  Many of these workers pay into the Social Security and Medicare systems; however, they are unlikely to use the benefits.  This is especially true for undocumented workers.  Allowing for early retirement with funds that have been created and funded by the worker themselves could help reduce unemployment in America for the future.

If we keep things going the way they are, America will be on the verge of an enormous fiscal crisis that we may not be able to solve.  Our political leaders have led us to this and misused our money by promising what they and future leaders cannot deliver.  We can not sit back and watch anything else plummet the way it has. There needs to be a change now because if we sit back and do nothing, the economy will continue on its downward spiral and create unsolvable problems. 

               Our fiscal problems stem from leaders who over promise and expected others to deliver.  We can elect leaders who can follow through and speak honestly about the sacrifices we must make.  We must not allow them to propose things without finding a way to pay.  Our future depends on it.