S. A. F. E.
SENIORS AGAINST FEDERAL EXTRAVAGANCE
| KEEP UP LETTERS | WEB SITE PLANS |
| DOVER DAYS | SAVE $350 BILLION |
| PLUS FOR CASTLE | ABOUT WELFARE |
| AARP SHRINKING | CUTTING GOV’T. WASTE |
ANOTHER CARTOON
| AARP’S HORRACE DEETS SAYS |
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“SOCIAL SECURITY CAN PROVIDE BENEFITS THROUGH 2029.”
REPETITION. WE REPEAT
Since the Winter Newsletter our ideas and our name were seen by the public much more often than before. Publications in Delaware printing letters have included, The News Journal, Delaware State News, Dover Post, and Better Years. Letter writers during this period include Roland Downing, George Harper, Bob Hammond, Chuck Joanedis, Bill Morris, Gene Rowley, Jim Walker, Alan Challis,, Bob Fugitt, Ted Hill, and Bob Sigler. Our apologies if we missed anybody. Several others will sub-mit letters soon.
This is far ahead of what we've done before, but still not enough. We should be seeing at least one letter per week in the News Journal and in the State News. The News Journal will not accept a letter until to months after your previous letter was published, the Delaware State News requires a one month wait unless the letter is of "compelling interest." For Delawareans, we make this plea; Please write a letter to the News Journal during the next month. If you are outside Delaware, we make the same plea with the letter going to the highest circulation likely to print it.
Remember, your letter does not have to be long and it does not have to be unique — feel free to use parts of other letters. For out-of-staters, feel free to use any letter published in Delaware, as is. We will send copies on request. As stated before, we don't need to reinvent the wheel.
When people see our name and our ideas repeatedly, we can expect to gain credibility, influence and new members.
OLD DOVER DAYS
During "Old Dover Days," we will have an information table Saturday, May 2 on William Penn Street, Dover, DE. If you can help run the table for an hour or more, please let us know.
We will not be at the Delaware State Fair this year — the Directors concluded it was not cost effective.
A PLUS FOR CASTLE
"Castle says No to road "pork" funds" was a front page headline in the March 30 issue of The News Journal (Wilmington, DE). We called Congressman Castle's office to give him our congratulations and thanks. We also pointed out that we go further by advocating that the federal government stop sending any payments to States. This is included under "Where to Cut Government Spending" on the next to last page of the current and recent newsletters. Jeff Dayton of Castle's staff receives copies of our newsletter.
AARP IS SHRINKING
This and much more discussed by Dale Van Atta in his 1998 book "Trust Betrayed (Inside the AARP)." The often quoted 33 million membership figure was based on 22 million dues-paying members plus free memberships for spouses, with an assumption of a living spouse for every two households, multiplying by 1.5 gives 33 million members. Until 1994, AARP was gaining about a million members per year. Since then, membership has been dropping. In 1995, the AARP board decided to increase the factor from 1.5 to 1.6 thereby gaining two million members on paper. Actually, between 1993 and 1996, AARP lost about three million members. One reason they lose members is disagreement with their big government agenda (surprise, surprise). Also, they are not doing well with the baby boomers.
Van Atta says, "Ironically, the organization that preaches against age discrimination practices it. It is the Achilles heel of AARP."
In the chapter entitled Far From The Founder, Van Atta quotes the writings of founder Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus, include-ding "(AARP) is not organized to seek government relief and direction."
The book includes chapters on AARP's lavish headquarters, on Executive Director Horace Deets, and on their big businesses.
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While the influence of AARP is huge, it is shrinking, and this book may reinforce that trend. Maybe AARP will clean up their act. Let's hope so. Meanwhile, the weakening of AARP makes it easier for the voices of SAFE members to be heard. Members of Congress need to hear from us, and they are hearing from us.
WEB SITE PLANS
Our thanks to Robyn Carozza for setting up the web site mentioned in the winter newsletter. Unfortunately, Robyn is now unable to maintain it. With school, a business, a job and care of her daughter, no wonder!
We are now in the process of moving it to Wilmington, thanks to member Herbert Moss. After it is established, we'll seek links from well-visited web sites, and we'll do our best to make it easy for web users to find us using "search engines." This has the potential to multiply our membership throughout the U.S. Stay tuned.
SAVE S350 BILLION? WOW!
"The General Accounting Office (GAO) of the U.S. Congress estimates that the federal government could save as much as $350 billion annually by implementing performance-based management, eliminating program duplication, and minimizing waste and fraud. The GAO also reports that through the Results Act this $350 billion could be saved without reducing the current level of government service."
This quote is from the Winter 1998 "Market Process Update" a publication of the Center For Market Processes at George Mason University.
With Results Act type of legislation New Zealand went from 27th to 3rd in per capita GDP. With a similar approach, Indianapolis spent 10% less in 1997 than in 1992.
Even if this could be done by the U.S. Federal Government, there is a danger that the savings would be used for new programs. We need to work on getting the government to adopt the goal of cutting spending.
Despite the above reservation, SAFE should consider adopting the Results Act as an issue. This will be considered only if we have a volunteer to become knowledgeable about the Results Act, and inform us about it. If you are willing to volunteer, let us know.
GLOBAL WARMING AGAIN
In the Winter Newsletter (No. 8), the proposal was made that SAFE oppose limitation of the use of fossil fuels to combat global warming (the Kyoto agreement). However, the Board of Directors decided we should not adopt this issue because of its complexity and because it will dilute our more clear cut and important issues.
Several individual members are opposing the Kyoto agreement. For others who may be interested, excellent information is available. However, we are making it a point not to associate SAFE with this issue.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Meet for a pleasant lunch every other month, but we won't bore you with minutes. Important decisions have been not to adopt global warming as an issue and not to obtain a booth at the Delaware State Fair this year. We may get children to help dramatize the cartoon in the Winter Newsletter when we participate in the Georgetown 4th of July celebration and Newark Community Day. We'll continue to focus on letters to the editor and we'll beef up our web site to help us gain new members throughout the U.S.
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James Venema has dissolved the Delaware Taxpayers Coalition because of the press of work. He was kind enough to contribute the closing balance of $23.97 to SAFE.
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In spite of a booming economy the budget surplus is projected to be only about $30 billion per year. To pay off the debt before the baby boomers retire, the surplus needs to be about $400 billion per year. Very difficult but not impossible. Making fairness to the next generation top priority is a prerequisite to the hard-nosed spending cuts needed to pay off the debt.
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On March 12, Bill Morris talked about SAFE and its goals before a small Academy of Lifelong Learning (A.L.L.) class on national problems. (A.L.L. is a large Wilmington, DE organization where senior citizens teach and attend a wide variety of classes). Bill will give the same talk to another small A.L.L. class on April 21.
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Thank you for joining or rejoining for 1998. Your $5 contribution more than covers the cost of the newsletter. Special thanks to many of you who contributed more. We need that for literature and for other outreach expenses, including expenses related to our web site.
WELFARE & WELFARE SPENDING
Among our suggestions for cutting spending are streamlineing welfare administration to decrease the overhead, and decreasing welfare benefits to increase the incentive to be self-supporting. A book by Michael Tanner entitled The End of Welfare provides some pertinent information.
There are many overlapping federal anti-poverty programs. There are 12 different programs providing food and seven housing programs. There are 93 different job-training programs costing $20 billion/year. By 1993, welfare spending exceeded $80007 poor person, $32,000 for a family of four. Half that amount would lift all the poor people out of poverty. This paragraph illustrates there is plenty of room and plenty of opportunity to streamline welfare.
Tanner quotes several studies confirming that welfare is a disincentive to work. For example, one study showed that a 50% increase in Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and food stamp benefit levels led to a 75% increase in the number of women enrolled in AFDC and in the number of years spent on welfare. Generally, welfare recipients express a willingness to work, but only if the pay is well above the minimum wage. This illustrates the unfairness of the level of welfare payments to low income people who are self-supporting.
The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (welfare Reform) ends the federal entitlement to welfare and is a good first step on the road to welfare reform. However, as Tanner points out, it is hardly revolutionary. The Act offsets only a tiny portion of federal welfare programs. By allowing states to exempt 20% of their welfare population from the five-year lifetime limit, it will apply to few welfare recipients . Most recipients leave welfare in much less than five years.
While most recipients receive welfare for only a few months or a couple of years, at any one time most recipients are long term. Tanner illustrates this by assuming a hospital with 13 beds — 12 occupied all year by chronically ill patients. The remaining bed is used for one week each by 52 different short term patients. On a given day, 12 of 13 are long term patients but over the year only 12 of 64 are long term patients.
Tanner provides some interesting facts about poverty and welfare. Referring to the previous paragraph, 30% of those who start receiving AFDC are on the program for eight years or more, but at any point in time 65% of those receiving AFDC will be on the program for eight years or more.
There is considerable income mobility. Looking at five groups in 1979 and 1985, 15% of those in the top quintile in 1979 dropped to the bottom quintile in 1988. Of those in the bottom quintile in 1979, 35% rose to a higher quintile by 1988.
By race, 50% of welfare recipients are white, 31% African-American, 14% Hispanic and 5% other.
Immigrants pay more in taxes than they consume in government services. Percentages receiving welfare, 15 and younger, are 4% of native born and 5% immigrants. Percentages for those 15-64 are 4% native born and 3% immigrants. Percentages for 65+ are 7% native born and 13% immigrants.
Welfare fraud is not as widespread as commonly believed. The fraud rate is about 4% overall. The highest fraud rates are in Medicaid, food stamps and in Supplemental Security Income(SSI) which is part of Social Security.
Many studies show a link between the amount of welfare and the number of out-of-wedlock births, and a link between the amount of welfare and the amount of crime. Decreasing the amount of welfare would not only help pay off the debt, but also have other beneficial effects.
CUTTING GOVERNMENT WASTE
Jack Sherman, a member of SAFE, is familiar with efforts to improve government efficiency. He was a member of the "Grace Commission" formed in 1982. About 2200 members of industry participated, and no government money was spent. The 48 task forces recommended changes that would save about $424 billion over three years. About 1/3 of the recommendations were implemented. Jack led a project on property management with the help of 21 volunteers. They found that many government buildings were oversized compared to commercial practice. In most cases, energy management control systems (lights, heat, air conditioning) were not used. Many recommendations by Jack's project were implemented with savings of $2.8 billion over three years.
In spite of the savings resulting from the work of the "Grace Commission," there were large deficits. While cutting waste is good, it doesn't necessarily help us make the future safe for our children and grandchildren. Our emphasis must remain on cutting spending. This requires downsizing and eliminating government activities.
WHERE TO CUT GOVERNMENT SPENDING
The federal government should decrease the dollars spent from one year to the next. This is the responsibility of Congress, but here are a few suggestions:
ELIMINATE CORPORATE WELFARE
Elimination of corporate welfare should be easy to agree on. In fact, Congress is already moving in that direction and is considering cutting $10 billion. We could prod them to do more-- Cato institute has identified $65 billion of corporate welfare.
ELIMINATE SOME DEPARTMENTS - SCALE BACK OTHERS
Energy Dept. - The energy companies are capable of supplying all the energy we need without subsidies or excessive regulations. Most of the functions of this Dept. should be eliminated as well as the department.
Commerce Dept. - Let private companies compete on a free market. Let them promote their own products overseas.
Education Dept. - The more local control the better. There is far too much bureaucracy in the government education system.
All other departments should be viewed with a critical eye, with a bias toward elimination or downsizing.
STREAMLINE WELFARE - Much of welfare cost goes to administration. The system should be simplified to eliminate most of the overhead.
DECREASE WELFARE BENEFITS - Welfare benefits are quite substantial. This reduces the incentive to be self - supporting and is very unfair to low income people who are self - supporting. Based on a Cato Institute study (briefing paper No. 27, 6/12/96) the head of a one parent Delaware family receiving housing assistance would have to earn $10 per hour to maintain the same standard of living as that obtained on welfare.
STOP FEDERAL PAYMENTS TO STATES - Taxpayers send money to Washington, DC and some of it is sent back with government controls. Each dollar sent back is another dollar added to the debt. Stop payments to the states and let the states get along without federal subsidies.
STOP ALL SUBSIDY PAYMENTS-Subsidies mean those paying for goods and services may not want them enough to pay the full price, while someone else is paying part of the price and receiving nothing. "If you get something for nothing, someone else is getting nothing for something."
SHARE BURDEN ACROSS GENERATIONS-Retirees should do their part to help put this country on track by accepting modest reductions in entitlements.
CUT REGULATIONS TO HELP THE ECONOMY-We got along in the past without the regulations now in effect. Anyone in a small business knows how expensive and, in some cases, how ridiculous regulations can be.
SELL SOME GOVERNMENT ASSETS-The federal government owns a tremendous amount of land, buildings, mineral rights, and other assets. Many of these assets could and should be sold. A sale of assets to pay off part of the debt would help mitigate the unfairness of the debt to future generations. It would also decrease interest payments which are about 15% of the budget.