Conway Daily Sun

2005-02-09

Column: 

Trust Busters

George Epstein

- Trust is a tricky thing-one more easily destroyed than built. I trust Belichick, Brady, and Bruschi, but I'm not feeling real confident in our elected officials.

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In 2000, New Hampshire had a constitutional amendment on the ballot to establish home rule. Home rule would have permitted our towns and cities to create regulations and ordinances to control what happens within their borders, as long as those ordinances did not violate state or federal law. Most of our legislators fought this tooth and nail. They preferred to limit local control. They painted nightmare scenarios of towns running wild, cooking up crazy rules and regulations, despite the fact that a number of states have home rule without descending into chaos.

In essence, the Legislature said, "Trust us. We know what's best for you folks. We'll keep your town meetings from doing goofy stuff." The voters did trust their legislators, and home rule was soundly defeated. Last year's SB458 violated that trust. Prior to 458, the people of Tamworth were authorized to regulate racetracks as proposed by CMI. They followed the procedure, constructed the ordinance with the input of CMI, and the Legislature quietly pulled the rug out from under them. Thanks to the efforts of Harry Merrow and Dave Babson, the Legislature has an opportunity to regain our trust and repeal 458. Rep. Betsy Patten and Senators Kenney and Gallus are the key players in fixing this appalling undermining of a whole community's best interests. Let's hold them accountable.

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Our Social Security taxes go two places today: most go into checks to pay folks currently receiving benefits, and the rest goes to pay for other government programs because the federal government runs a huge deficit. The "Social Security Trust Fund" is essentially a drawer filled with IOU's from the government. For the next 12 years, more and more of the money will be needed to pay benefits and less will be left over to loan the government. Then Social Security will need to start collecting on the IOU's to even pay the benefits. Finally, in 35 to 40 years, the IOU's should be paid off and there will not be enough money to pay the benefits.

President Bush wants to take a third of the taxes we are currently paying into the system and have us invest that in our own investment accounts. That means that Social Security will need to borrow between one and two trillion (trillion!) dollars to cover the cost of benefits to current retirees, since they won't be getting those tax dollars as they do now. If the stock market goes up the way it has historically, this will solve the shortfall 35 years from now. Cool!

Furthermore, the prez promises to regulate Wall Street so it can't take exorbitant fees. He will not let us take our money out all at once, so it will be sure to last through retirement, and he will restrict what we can invest in to "safe" stuff. In general, the president promises to protect us from ourselves. It's as if he doesn't trust us to manage our own money. I thought Republicans could be trusted to free us from regulations and government control. A real Republican would simply be honest and say he wants to reduce Social Security taxes by a third and let us invest the savings (or spend them) as we see fit.

How do the Democrats respond to Bush? They're opposed to his plan. And what do they favor? I'm not sure, but you can trust that they will oppose whatever Bush proposes. The Democratic Party runs the risk of descending completely into irrelevancy if does not offer alternatives to the Bush plan.

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New Hampshire is searching for more options in its patchwork tax system. Governor Lynch will use an increase in the cigarette tax to fund the small amount necessary to replace the donor town contributions. Some folks want expanded gambling to reduce property taxes, but the indictment of folks associated with one of the racetracks for conspiring with organized crime figures takes gambling off the table for a while. Have no fear. Trust government to be creative in finding revenue sources. Washington State is working on a tax for cosmetic surgery. Nose jobs, skin abrasions, Botox, and enlarging and shrinking various body parts would all put bucks on the state bottom line. I like it. If folks have disposable income for this kind of stuff, they should share it with all of us.

George Epstein, chairman of The Echo Group, lives in Madison and can be reached at gepstein@Echoman.com.