You are the problem redux

I explained beginning back in 2003 how the overlords in Washington (presently Dems but before that the Reps) think that America is a problem to be fixed , and Americans are a people to be managed. Most recently, I echoed George Will that in the eyes of the Obama administration, you are the problem.

And also in the eyes of the Democrat-dominated Congress. Yesterday House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on "This Week" that spending hundreds of millions of dollars to promote and provide birth control (which in Dems' minds includes abortion) will actually stimulate the economy. She said,

"Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."

See? You, the people, are the problem with America today. There's just too darn many of you! You are costing the government too much money. To which US News columnist James Pethokoukis responds,

Me: This is wrong on so many levels, one of which is looking at children born to the "wrong people" as economic burdens rather gifts, the music makers, the dreamers of dreams. She sees them as a cost instead of blessed benefits. Wow. Maby [sic] this purely economic argument from the book Empty Cradle by Phil Longman will sway her:

Population aging also depresses the growth of government revenues. Population growth is a major source of economic growth: more people create more demand for the products capitalists sell, and more supply of the labor capitalists buy. Economists may be able to construct models of how economies could grow amid a shrinking population, but in the real world, it has never happened. A nation's GDP is literally the sum of its labor force times average output per worker. Thus a decline in the number of workers implies a decline in an economy's growth potential. When the size of the work force falls, economic growth can occur only if productivity increases enough to compensate.

So who exactly does the speaker expect to pay for the increasing costs of the future if not the little babies being born today? Here's the answer: she does not care. As a future-retired speaker of the House, her personal fortune is assured no matter how many or how few future taxpayers there are. Back in 2006, CNNMoney reported,

Add it all together and the Congressional pension program is about two-to-three times more generous than the average corporate executive pension plan, according to the National Taxpayers Union.

And their contributions to their own pension fund,

... cover about one-fifth of the actual cost of their pension, according to the Taxpayers Union.

So Congress folk get a better pension and don't have to pay for all of it. They also have the equivalent of a 401k program (complete with a 5 percent employer match). In some cases Social Security kicks in. And given their medical, dental and travel benefits, plus expenses paid by the office, members of Congress have plenty of opportunity to save for retirement. (And if they get into trouble, as they sometimes do, the pension often isn't up for grabs). At $165,200 a year (after their raise this month), seems like they have some money to do it with too... .

They got theirs and it isn't going away ... that would take an act of Congress.

So where does the Congress' pension fund get the money to pay for the 80 percent that members' contributions do not cover? Well, where will the Obama administration get that $850 billion it wants to divvy out to "family planning" and other entrenched leftist causes? They write a check on your account and mine, but not theirs. "They got theirs" and now "they got ours," too.

But keep this in mind every time you read about what the Congress or the administration are doing: they think that you are the problem.