Today is
the feast of Christ the King and the last Sunday of the liturgical year. Today’s gospel has Jesus standing before
Pilot, revealing that He is a king, but not of this world. Importantly, He also reveals the reason why
He came into the world, “For this I was born and for this I came into
the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone
who belongs to the truth listens to my voice." If there is one thing we and our world need
badly, it’s Truth. It’s nearly
impossible to know what is true, and what is hype these days, depending on your
source of information and the agenda of the author. Jesus
came into the world to testify to the Truth of God’s love. Several times in the gospels Jesus points
out that there are times when people do not see with their eyes or hear with
their ears. Apparently He was referring
to the fact that at times, we just don’t want to hear the truth, even the truth
of God’s love as revealed by Jesus Himself.
Daily
scripture readings these last few weeks before Advent, have been from The Book of Revelation, also called “Apocalypse.”
The word “apocalypse” means “unveiling,”
and is derived from the same word used during Jewish wedding ceremonies when the
groom unveils his bride. This cryptic
last book of the bible is often misunderstood and taken out of context, but it
contains numerous references to the truth of God’s plan for our salvation. Although steeped in exaggerated images and
metaphors, it reveals the role of Jesus as the Lamb of God, and attests to the
importance and Truth of God’s word as revealed in scripture. For example, it describes Jesus as the Alpha
and the Omega, our beginning (our creator) and our end (our destiny in
eternity).
All of us
could benefit from facing the truth, especially when it comes to acknowledging the
mistakes we have made and the problems we face in our lives and relationships. The same goes for our legislators who are all
too likely to ignore, deny, or distort the truth of the problems we face as a
nation. Perhaps the new congress will be
willing to openly and honestly address (“unveil”) the serious issues we face as
a nation. For starters, it would be nice
if everyone could agree that we need to curb the spending binge we’ve been
on. Last year our federal government
took in $2.45 trillion in revenue but spent $3.54 trillion – adding $1.1
trillion to our national debt. In fact,
we’ve added $1 trillion in debt each of the last four years, the equivalent of
$17,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. The interest alone on our $16+ trillion debt
amounts to $258 billion a year, more than the annual budget of the departments
of Energy, Education, State, Interior,
Justice, Commerce, and Homeland Security, combined. And this is with interest rates at historic
lows. Of course, the biggest expenses we
face are Medicare and Social Security which carry unfunded liabilities in
excess of $128 trillion.
The sad
fact is that these problems are fixable if the two political parties could
agree on common sense solutions which have already been posed but ignored due
to partisan rivalry. The thorniest of
our fiscal problems is Medicare and there is a viable solution that was
vilified during the election cycle, accusing Romney and Ryan of destroying
Medicare, when in fact, their proposed solution was a bipartisan proposal
co-authored by Paul Ryan and the liberal democrat from Oregon, Ron Wyden. The name of the bill is actually the
“Wyden-Ryan Plan” which has been endorsed by the liberal Brookings Institution
and the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Debt Reduction Task Force, headed up by the
former chief of the Office of Management and Budget during the Clinton
administration.
For those
of you not familiar with the Wyden-Ryan plan, it proposes to let seniors choose
between staying in their existing Medicare plans, or, if they can get a better
plan, purchase one in the free market with the assistance of federally funded
vouchers. This would be very similar to
the current Medicare Advantage program in which seniors choose among insurers
who compete on the basis of cost, quality and access to providers and drug
lists. The Medicare Advantage insurers
are paid by Medicare to assume the insurance risk of their Medicare-eligible customers. Now
that Rose and I are eligible for Medicare, I shopped around and found that
there are dozens of Medicare Advantage plans available to us, many at no
additional cost, other than the federal Medicare premium we pay for Parts B and
D. The coverage is so comprehensive,
that unlike the standard Medicare plans that require seniors to purchase
supplementary coverage at their own expense, no additional coverage is needed,
so we save quite a bit of money. This
is the plan that the Obama campaign referred to as “destroying Medicare.” This plan would move Medicare in the
direction of fiscal viability by transferring some of the risk to private
insurers who would have strong incentives to operate efficiently while offering
competitively priced, attractive plans with excellent service. It is a responsible, viable plan that has
already been accepted by those who understand health care on both sides of the
aisle, but during the election cycle it was demonized ad nauseam.
Similarly,
Social Security will run out of money in less than 20 years unless minor
changes are made in eligibility age for younger Americans. I still like the idea of making at least a
portion of Social Security a defined contribution program, rather than a
defined benefit. When Bush 43 proposed
this, he was ridiculed, but I’d feel a lot more secure about my social security
benefit if at least a portion of it was actually in an account with my name on
it, rather than sitting in a trust fund that is easily raided when the
government needs money.
So as the
liturgical year and the 112th Congress both wind down, lets’ look forward to
the Light of Truth coming into the world, and a bit more willingness to be
truthful among our politicians so that we can move toward the “unveiling” of solutions
for a change.
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