Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 16, 1995 TAG: 9511160037
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
That was the gist of a speech that the Nixon administration's commerce secretary would have given in Roanoke on Wednesday if not for plane trouble.
The missing speaker was Peter G. Peterson, now president of the Washington, D.C.-based Concord Coalition, a three-year-old group that enlists citizens to fight federal deficit spending and has a chapter in Roanoke.
Peterson, who has had a varied career in government and private investment banking, was to fly to Roanoke in a private jet owned by Roanoke-based Advance Stores Corp.
The plane went to get him in New York, but unspecified problems prevented it from taking off for the return trip in time for Peterson to give a noon speech to the Kiwanis meeting at the Radisson Patrick Henry Hotel.
Instead, former Republican Rep. Caldwell Butler, a coalition member and now a Roanoke lawyer, read Peterson's prepared remarks. He quoted the missing speaker as saying the U.S. government will ``kill'' the national economy if it continues spending more than it takes in at present rates.
The budget hasn't been balanced since 1969. Each year's excess is borrowed, which has led to a debt of nearly $5 trillion. The president and Congress partially shut down the federal government this week squabbling over what to do about it.
Entitlement programs are most to blame for pushing the country overbudget, according to Peterson.
``In Washington, they worry about what the policy wonks call unfunded mandates - in other words, promises the government has no plan to pay for. But comparing any of the other federal programs to Social Security and Medicare is a little like mistaking Woody Allen for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Social Security and Medicare are the mother of all unfunded mandates,'' Peterson wrote.
The government has promised $14 trillion more in Social Security and Medicare benefits to those who will retire in the next century than the tax system is scheduled to collect, Peterson said.
The only way to raise the cash, he said, would be for every worker to contribute about half of each paycheck.
Demographics drive such projections. Old people are living longer and the vast baby-boom generation will begin to hit retirement age in 15 years. In 1850, one in 50 people was over 65, and many supported themselves. The ratio is going to approach one in four, with the vast majority supported in some way by federal entitlement programs, Peterson said.
But the birth rate is declining. The number of working taxpayers to support payments to each Social Security beneficiary has fallen from 16 in 1950 to slightly more than three today.
Moreover, Social Security began 60 years ago, when life expectancy was 61 years and people became eligible only when they turned 65. Because life expectancy is much higher now, the program serves more people than expected.
by CNB