2. Social Security pending problem
By Maura Satchell
Sidelines (Middle Tennessee State U.)
03/08/2004
(U-WIRE) MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — The government has a daunting task
ahead of it in addressing two serious fiscal problems: The ballooning federal
deficit and the impending retirements of millions of baby boomers.
Bruce Bartlett, a staunch supporter of the Reagan administration tax cuts and
trickle-down economic theory, said tax increases are inevitable and likely to
come right after the elections, no matter which party is in office. Bartlett is a
senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative
thinktank.
In an article written for Townhall.com, Bartlett predicts some really bad times
ahead, based on his reading of the 2005 federal budget drafted by the Bush
administration.
"Buried in an appendix volume where reporters are unlikely to notice, it paints
a chilling picture of long-term budgetary trends," he said in the article.
That section of the budget projects federal spending will increase from 20
percent of the gross domestic product to 52 percent in 2080, primarily due to
interest on the national debt, Bartlett wrote, which expands to 20 percent of
the GDP.
But will the current administration wait until after the elections in November to
raise taxes?
"Oh, absolutely. They're not going to do anything before the election unless
their hand is forced by extraordinary economic events that can't be
contemplated at this point," Bartlett told National Public Radio in an interview
last Friday.
Bartlett said that most fellow Republicans misunderstand his motives by
sounding the tax increase alarm.
"When I'm predicting tax increases, I'm not advocating them," Bartlett said. "I
figure that to be forewarned is to be forearmed."
He said that it is wise to plan ahead to structure the inevitable tax increases to
do the least economic harm.
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan agreed in testimony before the
House Budget Committee last week to a bleak assessment of the deficit
situation, and called the impending retirement of baby-boomers "one of the
most difficult fiscal situations we've ever faced."
In the House budget hearing, Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., said that the federal
deficit is so large that to erase it by only applying spending cuts, the federal
government would have choices: To slash Social Security benefits, cut Medicare
spending and eliminate all federal monies contributed to Medicaid or to choose
an across-the-board cut in all areas other than defense, homeland security,
Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid or to cut all domestic discretionary
3. Possibility of draft renewed after Congressman calls for
service
Copyright 2004 Sidelines via U-Wire (On Dean Website) University Wire
April 26, 2004 Monday
LENGTH: 1092 words
HEADLINE: Possibility of draft renewed after Congressman calls for service
BYLINE: By Maura Satchell, Sidelines; SOURCE: Middle Tennessee State U.
DATELINE: MURFREESBORO, Tenn.
U.S. military forces have faced the deadliest month since the fall of Saddam Hussein, and
talk of reinstating the draft has resurfaced in Congress.
Tuesday, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb) hinted of the draft at a Senate Armed Services
Committee hearing on Iraq and Afghanistan when he called for mandatory national
service. Comparing thinly-stretched forces and the evolution of serious fighting in Iraq to
"a steam engine coming right down the track at us," Hagel said his intent is to spread the
burden of fighting wars among the wealthy as well as the less affluent.
Similar thinking led Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) to introduce a bill in January 2003
entitled "Universal National Service Act of 2003." This act, which is currently held up in
committee, would require a two-year period of national service, either in the military or
some other form of government service. A bill proposed by Rep. Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.)
is in a committee in the Senate, too.
"I don't know anyone in the executive branch of the government who believes it would be
appropriate or necessary to reinstate the draft," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
told the Newspaper Association of America recently.
In early November 2003, the Department of Defense prompted speculation of the
possibility of the reinstatement of the draft by posting a message seeking " Draft Board
Volunteers" on the DOD's Web site. After media notice, the post was removed but has
recently been revamped and placed back on the DOD's Web site with a clear message that
the solicitation is not in any way related to a perceived need to reinstate the draft in the
near future.
Conscription would be needed if force readiness becomes a serious issue. The Pentagon
announced that all of the branches of the military met or exceeded their targeted re-
enlistment goals and recruiting goals for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2003, and for the
six months ended March 31 are encouraging as well. No figures have been released for
the reserves or National Guard, however, and those numbers are expected to come in well
below target. Targeted numbers were reduced for most branches due to stop-loss orders
Greenspan's two hours of testimony before the House Budget Committee did
provide some good news on the state of the nation's current economic health
though:
"The U.S. economy appears to have made the transition from a period of
subpar growth to one of more vigorous expansion, and prospects for sustaining
the expansion in the period ahead are good," the Greenspan said. He
cautioned, however, that the rosy short-term outlook is tempered by growing
concern over the escalating federal deficits. He made three key
recommendations.
First, he advised, Congress should reinstate balanced budget policies that were
highly effective in the early 1990s. These include discretionary spending caps,
and PAYGO spending controls which would prevent spending without equal cuts
in other areas, and would prevent tax credits without tax increases in other
areas. He also urged the House lawmakers to maintain the current tax cuts and
make them permanent because reinstating them may slow economic growth.
"Tax rate increases of sufficient dimension to deal with our looming fiscal
problems arguably pose significant risks to economic growth and the revenue
base," he said.
He called for bringing the budget back into the black from the spending side,
through cuts in spending on entitlement programs but said that tax increases
may be necessary to control the deficit.
The third recommendation proposed by Greenspan is to revise the Social
Security benefits program, first by using a cost-of-living index which would be
more realistic than the one currently applied and second by increasing the
retirement age, which, for those retiring in the next two decades is set to
increase to age 67.
In addition to the exploding federal budget deficit, due in large part to the
costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Greenspan said he is very concerned over
the aging of the baby boomer population and how that will affect Social
Security pension funds once that group retires.
Currently, the Social Security pension fund receives contributions from more
than three persons to each individual retiree. In the coming decades, once the
boomer generation checks out of the workforce, that number of contributors
will fall to 2.25 per retiree.
"The degree of uncertainty about whether future resources will be adequate to
meet our current statutory obligations to the coming generations of retirees is
truly daunting," he said.
"Something must give. Either a decrease in benefits or raise taxes," said David
Alan Penn Director of MTSU's Business and Economic Research Center,
referring to social security taxes which are paid for by both the individual
employees and employers too.
Penn said that Greenspan has broached the subject of social security cutbacks
over the past ten years. It is coming to the point, however, where something
must be done.
"If Congress does nothing, then in 10 years time, they are going to be forced
to," Penn said.
A deeper and more complex problem is the long-term budget prospects laid out
in the 2005 budget's appendix.
5. With 135,000 troops stationed in Iraq, with a need for a similar-sized force until at least
September 2004, the military is stretched thin. Rumsfeld confirmed that fact in February
when he advised Congress that an additional 33,000 troops would be necessary to fight
the global war on terrorism. This expanded military force will be needed for four to five
years.
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed
Services Committee that units were identified to quickly deploy to Iraq in the event they
are needed. So much military committed in Iraq exposes a vulnerability that Rumsfeld
spoke of to author Bob Woodward that has been repeated in some way or another by
many analysts and experts in other forums.
Rumsfeld considered this, he said in his 2002 interview with Woodward according to the
recently released transcripts. "While you were engaged in Iraq another state could try to
take advantage of your involvement or pre-occupation," he said.
The military has a trump card in the inactive ready reserves forces.
One Army spokesperson said recently that these forces were last used during the Gulf
War when Vice President Dick Cheney was the Secretary of Defense.
Every military enlistee agrees to a commitment in the inactive ready reserves once the
active duty time has been completed. Typically a period of two to six years is required in
the IRR. The number of inactive ready reserve members was not available.
(C) 2003 Sidelines via U-WIRE
Tennessean, The (Nashville, TN)
July 11, 2002
Author: MAURA SATCHELL
FREELANCE OK
Edition: 2ND
Section: Main News
Page: 1A
Confederate theme would be at heart of all-male college
Military school gets Bedford County OK
By MAURA SATCHELL
State Correspondent
Plans are under way to build an all-male private military college in Bedford County with
strong Confederate ties.
The Southern Military Institute, whose organizers received national attention when they
publicly called for such a school to be built in the South in 1997, has received a zoning
6. exemption to build its school on a 446-acre site just west of Shelbyville, Bedford County
Planning Director Sam Riddle said.
"All the necessary approvals at the county level were granted," Riddle said.
The property has not been purchased because the group hasn't come up with all the
funding, but two possible architects have volunteered to provide their services for free,
said Michael Guthrie of Madison, Ala., one of the founders of the nonprofit college. Once
the property is purchased, he said, it will take about a year to get the school up and
running.
"We have kids that want to come now," Guthrie said. The school will set its capacity at
1,200, he said, the size of a typical Marine Corps brigade.
The school will display the Confederate flag and celebrate Confederate Memorial Day,
which is April 26. It will have no problem accepting minority students, Guthrie said.
"We honor the military tradition of the South, a military history that has served this
country well," said Guthrie, a VMI graduate of 1977 and commander of a field artillery
unit in the National Guard based out of Manchester, Tenn. He is the president of the
school's board of directors.
"The intent is understandable, but I think they also need to step back and look at the
perception," said the Rev. Dwight Ogleton, head of the NAACP chapter in neighboring
Rutherford County.
"Our hope would be that they would adjust to the climate and environment in
Shelbyville," Ogleton said, "and move forward in a progressive way."
Guthrie was the president of the Tennessee chapter of the Virginia Military Institute
Alumni Association in 1997, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the public college
had to let in women.
Guthrie said that he and other alumni of VMI and the Citadel, a South Carolina public
military college that was also once all-male, turned their disappointment into action and
drafted the mission statement that would become Southern Military Institute.
Reactions to the school and its proposed all-male admissions policy were skeptical.
"I think (Guthrie) will put himself in for a lawsuit there," said Sam Arnold, the Bedford
County veteran's service officer.
John R. Vile, professor and chairman of the political science department at Middle
Tennessee State University, said, "Frankly, it seems to me that they're probably shooting
themselves in the foot. I don't think there are that many fanatical Confederates with
enough money" to support such a school.
He pointed out, however, that niche markets exist. "You have your Bob Jones
Universities," he said, referring to the conservative, religious, private South Carolina
school.
7. Southern Military Institute intends to incorporate a Christian atmosphere, with Christian
course work to be required of all cadets, including those of non-Christian faiths, a fact
that the school organizers announce publicly on their Web site.
Guthrie is confident that Southern Military Institute can exclude women. First, he said,
the school will be strictly privately funded.
Second, the school will not have any ties to the U.S. military's Reserve Officer Training
Corps programs, in which college students are groomed for an officer's commission in
one of the service branches after gaining a bachelor's degree.
Students attending the school will receive military training all the same. Upon entrance to
the institute, each student will be required to enlist in one of the U.S. military's reserve
programs: the Marine Corps Reserves, the National Guard, or Air Force or Army
Reserve.
Copyright (c) The Tennessean. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of
Gannett Co., Inc. by NewsBank, inc.
Record Number: nsh2002071108193740