By Louis Avallone
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You heard about this, right? President Obama was lobbed a question regarding the likelihood that social security benefits would not be paid in August, unless the federal debt limit was raised by $2.2 trillion this month. You might think that this would have been an opportune moment for him to engage the American people on principles, not politics, and in facts and figures, not fear and foolishness. Unfortunately, President Obama didn’t think so.
Instead, even with rising unemployment and higher and higher food, gasoline, drug, medical care, and housing costs, Obama spoke directly to millions of already worried American senior citizens, many of whom are living on meager, fixed incomes. Here’s what he said about the August social security payments, which total approximately $20 billion: “I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven’t resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it,” reminding us, as well, that “this is not just a matter of Social Security checks. These are veterans’ checks, these are folks on disability, and their checks.”
This uncertainty might be considered important information, even instructive and educational, for our nation’s president to communicate to voters in such a candid and forthright way. But there’s one issue there, though: It’s just not true. Those payments to our nation’s senior citizens (and veterans alike) will be made, even if Obama doesn’t stamp and lick the back of every check envelope before mailing.
Although it is unconscionable that the office of the presidency of the United States would be used like a baseball bat, held over the heads of senior citizens, to intimidate Congress into raising the federal debt limit, neither the facts nor the American people support the substance, nor the spirit, of Obama’s doom and gloom.
The fact is that the U.S. Treasury is expecting $172 billion in tax receipts next month. Based on historical data, it is unlikely that interest payments in August will exceed $35 billion. This leaves approximately $137 billion for other August bills such as Social Security, Medicare, and military salaries.
What we don’t have enough money left over is to pay for the continued expansion of government, exemplified through Congress passing a $700 billion financial bailout of the banks, plus over $1 trillion in economic stimulus, a $1.5 trillion health care expansion, a $447 billion omnibus spending bill, and a $15 billion Medicaid bailout, not to mention a 25% rise in discretionary spending.
You see, the legal limit on borrowing, by the federal government, is at $14.3 trillion currently. Democrats want to raise that limit to by $2.4 trillion. So, if the debt ceiling is not raised, Obama has some tough decisions to make, all in a run-up year to his re-election campaign.
But not being able to send out social security and veterans’ benefit checks is not one of those tough decisions. In fact, President Clinton’s lawyers, in the Department of Justice, in 1995, laid out how federal agencies should operate if Congress failed to appropriate funds. Because the program doesn’t need Congress to authorize funds for Social Security each year, those benefit checks could be mailed during a government shutdown, if the federal debt limit is not raised. During the last major shutdown in 1995, the Social Security Administration mailed checks during that shutdown and it appears that the agency has the legal authority to do so again.
Now, there are some folks, out there, that will make the case for Obama’s “non-guarantee” statement that Social Security benefit checks may not be mailed in August. They might say that he is technically correct because, in 1960, the Supreme Court ruled that workers do not have a legal right to their Social Security benefits and, therefore, benefits cannot be guaranteed where there is no legal right. While this is a debate all unto itself, the American people should be able to rely upon the spirit of what the president says, without having to read the fine print first, for exceptions and exclusions. By saying that he could not “guarantee” that Social Security checks would be mailed out in August, he unnecessarily and callously frightened millions of senior citizens; many of whom simply took their president’s words for the plain meaning he intended for them to understand.
With the national debt at its highest point in 50 years, compared with the size of the U.S. economy, and with Americans opposing the raising of the federal debt limit by a margin of 2-to-1, we need more responsible government, not more rhetoric.
Lyndon Johnson once told Richard Nixon, “The Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You’ve got to just stand there and take it.” Sure feels like it is the other way around today, as the American people seem to be the ones caught in the hailstorm. Oh my, how times have changed.