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Show THE VOICE OF BUSINESS COLAs responsible For haltf the national debt By Richard L. Lesher, President Chamber of Commerce of the United States George Washington looked at the newly new-ly created federal government and gave future generations this warning: "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence it is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master,, never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." I repeat, "never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." A moment? Irresponsible action has been the hallmark of Congress for the past 20 years! While Congress fiddled, the fire George Washington spoke of exploded uv to a conflagration as federal spending and the national debt tripled in the last decade alone. And yet the politicians look up at us with large cow eyes and tell us that they certainly mean well, but so sorry-much sorry-much of the federal budget is "uncontrollable." "uncon-trollable." By this they mean that the pay and pensions of government bureaucrats and now more than 30 percent per-cent of the entire federal budget is automatically indexed to increase with inflation. These "entitlement" programs funny how bureaucrats and welfare recipients are "entitled" to money you earned grow like Topsy without any vote by Congress. But Congress is hardly the innocent bystander here. Congress itself created this problem when it indexed federal pensions to the Consumer Price Index in 1962. The bureaucrats are recipients of federal give-away programs knew a good thing when they saw it and the lobbyists lob-byists went to work. Soon, all federal pay and many government programs received receiv-ed annual automatic cost-of-living adjustments ad-justments (COLAs). Congress put federal spending on automatic pilot and walked away. The costs to taxpayers have been staggering. Between 1970 and 1982, the automatic COLAs have cost taxpayers over 500 billion! What was Everett Dirksen's comment, "A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you're talking real money." Well, $500 billion is real money in my book. It is half our national debt. And if the runaway growth of those COLAs continues unchecked, the bill will climb to over one and a half trillion dollars by 1988. And that money is going to come from one source-paychecks. source-paychecks. ' Ever wonder why welfare payn are skyrocketing, while working and women are struggling to make meet? Well, for starters, 48 percent growth in transfer payments ove ' last 12 years is a result of the autoi COLAs. In 1982 alone, federal spending $136 billion higher than it would been without COLAs. The deficil $110.6 billion. Had Congress not em ed on the tragedy of indexing go ment spending there would haveb budget surplus last year not a d( And the politicians would not be suing su-ing like lemmings to demand h taxes from the American people. These figures are in indictment ol gress and its "irresponsible action' George Washington warned us ag; The answer is inescapable. Coni cannot slow the growth in federal ding until it takes its lead foot off II celerator and this means repealii reforming the cost-of-living adjuster And what's more, Congress know No, my dear Congressman, 0 and federal spending are not "u trollable," they are simply uncontrolled by you. |