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Morton’s weekly Rotary meeting plays host to many different speakers throughout the year, inviting members to perk interests in attendees.
At the Jan. 25 meeting, U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Peoria, spoke to a filled room of Rotarians and guests about the state of the country.
Schock said the most discussed issue brought to his attention is spending cuts, and what constituents think should be cut.
“We’ve done three national polls this year of a random sampling of American people asking, ‘If you were in Congress, what would you cut from the budget?’ The first one is to eliminate foreign aid we give to other countries. No. 2 is to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government and the third is to cut Congresses salary,” Schock said.
“Just so you know, we could do all of that, and it would be less than 2 percent of our spending.”
Schock explained that of the $3.5 trillion in government spending, 65 cents of every dollar goes to mandatory spending — Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and interest owed on debts.
“The other two portions of the pie are defense and non-defense, often times referred to as discretionary spending,” he said. “That’s the pot that the appropriations committee gets to play around with.”
Schock said $692 billion goes to defense each year and $666 billion goes to non-defense discretionary costs.
Discretionary costs range from education to pell grants for college students to human service budgets for the mentally handicapped and disabled.
Schock explained, “Every dollar we spend, 40 cents is borrowed. When we got into this big debate in August on whether the debt limit should be raised or not, there were many of my friends that I serve with who said don’t raise it, just prioritize the spending,” he said. “The dirty little detail is, if you were to do that and we had not raised the debt limit, we would have had to immediately cut benefits to current Social Security and Medicare recipients.”
Schock said because the government really only has 60 cents out of the dollar, and 65 cents goes straight to mandatory spending, if the government were to try to keep Medicare and Medicaid benefits as they are, the military would have had to be disbanded, so they raised the debt ceiling.
Schock then went on to explain that the issue with Social Security is there are only three people paying into Social Security for every one person drawing on it.
Morton’s weekly Rotary meeting plays host to many different speakers throughout the year, inviting members to perk interests in attendees.
At the Jan. 25 meeting, U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Peoria, spoke to a filled room of Rotarians and guests about the state of the country.
Schock said the most discussed issue brought to his attention is spending cuts, and what constituents think should be cut.
“We’ve done three national polls this year of a random sampling of American people asking, ‘If you were in Congress, what would you cut from the budget?’ The first one is to eliminate foreign aid we give to other countries. No. 2 is to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government and the third is to cut Congresses salary,” Schock said.
“Just so you know, we could do all of that, and it would be less than 2 percent of our spending.”
Schock explained that of the $3.5 trillion in government spending, 65 cents of every dollar goes to mandatory spending — Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and interest owed on debts.
“The other two portions of the pie are defense and non-defense, often times referred to as discretionary spending,” he said. “That’s the pot that the appropriations committee gets to play around with.”
Schock said $692 billion goes to defense each year and $666 billion goes to non-defense discretionary costs.
Discretionary costs range from education to pell grants for college students to human service budgets for the mentally handicapped and disabled.
Schock explained, “Every dollar we spend, 40 cents is borrowed. When we got into this big debate in August on whether the debt limit should be raised or not, there were many of my friends that I serve with who said don’t raise it, just prioritize the spending,” he said. “The dirty little detail is, if you were to do that and we had not raised the debt limit, we would have had to immediately cut benefits to current Social Security and Medicare recipients.”
Schock said because the government really only has 60 cents out of the dollar, and 65 cents goes straight to mandatory spending, if the government were to try to keep Medicare and Medicaid benefits as they are, the military would have had to be disbanded, so they raised the debt ceiling.
Schock then went on to explain that the issue with Social Security is there are only three people paying into Social Security for every one person drawing on it.
In the 1970s, when Social Security was designed, there were 15 people paying for every one person drawing.
“The problem here is you all didn’t have enough kids. Our population is aging. There are fewer people in the work place and there are fewer people paying into Medicare and Medicaid,” Schock said.
Schock said for this reason, he supported the budget that was passed.
“If you’re under the age of 55, we’re going to have to make changes and give you the time to plan. Social Security we can make solvent for the next 150 years by requiring one thing — you work one month longer for every year you are under the age of 55,” he said.
Schock used himself as an example, saying that since he is 30 years old, 25 years under the age of 55, he would work 25 more months, getting his benefits at age 69 and one month instead of at 67.
“The idea that I will have guaranteed benefits is far better than the uncertainty of it not being there and it’s far better than paying a higher tax rate or higher payroll tax,” he said.
