Demographics vs. Public Finance

This is mainly a wonky look at trade-offs in Social Security reforms — some of the changes that can be made: payroll tax rates, maximum salary amount to be taxed, salary base for benefit credits, weights in the benefit formula — but at the highest levels, the trade-offs to be made in increasing taxes and in decreasing (or even increasing) benefits. Links are below to the American Academy of Actuaries, UPenn’s Penn Wharton Budget Model applied to Social Security reform, Andrew Biggs’s commentary using the Wharton model, and a recent Congressional hearing on the matter.

While the state of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s health (and potential “is he alive/dead?” Schrodinger’s cat-like situation) plays out right now, I look at the real issue: there is no way to deal with incapacitated members of Congress. I look at prior situations in the Senate itself, and then I do go off on some tangents: historical situations where leaders’ deaths were covered up and more recent situations where a bad health situation was allowed to linger before the plug was finally pulled. Episode Links and Text On Congressional Incapacitation 26 Mar 2020, Bipartisan Policy Center: What If a Member of Congress Is Severely Incapacitated and Cannot Perform the Duties of the Job? Presidential incapacitation, either anticipated and short term or unexpected and longer term, can be handled by a transfer of power to the Vice President under the procedures of the 25th amendment. But if a member of Congress becomes incapacitated, there is no legal avenue to replace that person. Recently, many in Congress have been trying to deal with the issue of members unable to come to Congress, either due to sickness or quarantine, or because hygiene recommendations or logistical issues makes showing up at Congress difficult or impossible. A separate issue, however, is what to do if a member is so sick or severely incapacitated that they could not perform the duties of the job (either remotely or in person). Congressional history is filled with examples of members who have had severe, debilitating illnesses. Senator Karl Mundt of North Dakota suffered a stroke and was absent from the Senate for the final three years of his term. Illness forced Senator Carter Glass of Virginia to be absent from the Senate for nearly two years. In the case of Glass, citizens of Virginia petitioned courts to remove Glass from his seat, as it was effectively vacant. The court refused to take action. Never has a sitting member of Congress been removed from office due to incapacitation. Karl Mundt U.S. Senate Biography From 1948 until his retirement in 1973, South Dakota senator Karl Mundt was known as a fierce opponent of communism. As a member—and eventually ranking member—of the Committee on Government Operations and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Mundt worked to expose communists in the government. In 1954 he chaired the Subcommittee on Investigations for the Army-McCarthy hearings, remaining loyal to Senator Joseph McCarthy. Mundt gained prominence with two major investigations into bribery allegations against officials at the Agriculture Department and the Pentagon. Mundt voted for cloture to end debate on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 after striking a deal with Republican Leader Everett Dirksen. Mundt also became one of the leading conservationists in the Senate, which earned him an award from The World Wildlife Fund in 1969. After he suffered a debilitating stroke in 1969, Senate leaders took the unprecedented step of removing Mundt from his committee assignments. Wikipedia: Illness On November 23, 1969, Mundt suffered a severe stroke and was subsequently unable to attend sessions of Congress, although he received extensive speech and physical therapy. His wife, Mary, led his staff in Mundt's place and refused calls for the crippled Senator to resign. Mundt was stripped of his committee assignments by the Senate Republican Conference in 1972, but he remained in office through the end of his term on January 3, 1973.[3] He did not seek reelection in 1972, and was succeeded in the Senate by Democrat James G. Abourezk. Carter Glass Wikipedia: Family, decline, death Carter Glass was a Methodist.[18] When he was twenty-eight, Glass married Aurelia McDearmon Caldwell, a school teacher. They had four children. She died of a heart ailment in 1937.[19] Glass remarried in 1940 at the age of 82. His second wife, Mary Scott, was his constant companion as his health began to fail over the next few years. They lived at the Mayflower Hotel Apartments in Washington, D.

April is the cruelest month in dropping all sorts of awareness topics on our heads: Autism, Cancer (various types - I covered testicular cancer earlier this month), financial literacy, and poetry… suppose we become “aware” of all this? What are we supposed to do with all this awareness and knowledge?

March is Problem Gambling Awareness Month (were you aware?) — and many people are becoming aware of an increasing problem with all sorts of gambling and betting being available 24/7, in easy reach, on our phones. People wrestling with gambling debts and gambling addiction are not a new phenomenon, as these have featured as major items in literature (which I mention)… and unfortunately, too many politicians have pointed to people’s attraction to gambling via lotteries in supposedly helping to fund governmental functions.

Paul Ehrlich died recently at the age of 93, best known as a Malthusian in a modern age of growth and then population decline…with no famines, except man-made ones. His best-known book was The Population Bomb, published in 1968, which was already wrong when it was published. It’s fine to attack the man’s ideas, as they were just plain wrong, he was told this when alive, and he had never admitted this. While not the only person with his ideas, he contributed to the suicide of expertise, by claiming authority in the face of his own falsity.