Ideas on Liberty

BY HANS F. SENNHOLZ

WE are never beneath hope; in all things it is better to hope than to despair. In the political world much can be done if man changes his mind and brings a thorough will to do it. There is no inevitability in the coming of inflation, deflation, or regimentation. Man makes laws and repeals them. He has made laws that are sowing the seeds of conflict and strife; he can repeal them. He has enacted laws that are promising to do what laws cannot do; he can rescind them. Man may live above his circumstances or decide to live within his means. He may indulge in deficit spending or balance his budget; there are no uncontrollable expenditures, no unavoidable deficits.

He who reforms himself is doing much to reform others. Reform, like charity, must begin at home. Once accomplished at home, it will radiate outward, kindle new light, and ever spread in geometric proportion. The true reformer is a seminal reformer, not a radical. He does not pass laws that mandate the reformation of others. He himself makes a beginning and does not think of himself as a reformer. The world may reject him as odd, impractical, and even irrational; but he clings to his principles regardless of the world around him. There is boldness, a spirit of daring in the heart of a reformer.

Significant reforms, in final analysis, are moral reforms, changes in the perception of right conduct. Certain moral standards are basic to the social order: sanctity of human life and dignity of the individual; they may not change much from one generation to the next. Other standards may undergo visible changes in the span of one generation or two, such as individual independence and self-reliance, the ethos of labor and thrift, honesty and integrity, respect for private property. Changes in these standards lead to changes in the system of economic and social organization. In this century they sowed the seeds of economic and social conflict and paved the way for political intervention in our lives. They gave birth to a transfer and entitlement system that is eroding the private property order. A reform that would restore it and remove the transfer predilection would have to restore the harmony of interests and repair the moral standards. It would have to rebuild the economic order on the old foundation of the eighth Commandment—Thou shall not steal—and of the tenth—Thou shalt not covet anything that is thy neighbor’s.

Breaching the Strongholds

To reconstruct a moral order is to set shining examples in the very strongholds of the political transfer system.1 Reconstruction would have to begin with Social Security and Medicare, the most expensive and imposing bastions of the system, formidable and intimidating to all reformers. They are the very pillars of the transfer system; to exempt them from review and render them untouchable is to leave the system untouched. To exempt them from budget restraint when massive deficits are suffered and other programs are cut, is to reaffirm the very transfer system. The Reagan Administration reconfirmed the Roosevelt Social Security system and the Johnson Medicare system when it not only rendered them untouchable and uncontrollable, but also reinforced them with “catastrophic insurance” and “nursing care.”

It is difficult to castigate the transfer system with economic arguments. Surely, economists can point out that political transfer breeds economic and social conflict, that it reduces labor productivity and income, and that, in the end, it weakens and impoverishes the transfer society. All these effects are subject to explanation and interpretation; the causes can be explained away and the effects may actually be used to justify ever more political transfer. Growing poverty may bring forth ever more government intervention seeking to alleviate poverty. Moreover, economic arguments deploring “lack of funds” and “red-ink spending” are likely to be counterproductive. To point at empty pockets and treasuries in the sight of much wealth and luxury all around us does not ring true. It is utterly ineffective against passionate descriptions of human need and want. Yet, the most common criticism leveled at the transfer system is “we cannot afford it.” It leaves the moral argument for transfer and entitlement completely unanswered; instead, it initiates a search for funds that make it affordable. In the end, the funds are promptly secured through higher taxes on young people or deficit financing that consumes their savings.

Social Security

It is futile to point at the costs of the Social Security System. Today, 126 million workers (more than 9 out of 10) pay more than $227 billion a year so that some 40 million retired or disabled people and their dependents may receive monthly Social Security checks. They pay more than $82 billion so that over 23 million people, 65 and over, nearly all of the nation’s older population, draw healthcare benefits under Medicare; another 3 million disabled people under 65 enjoy the same benefits. Obviously, every American has a stake in Social Security, either as a beneficiary or a victim, or both.2

It is a formidable system built on political expedience and political immorality. It exacts income and wealth from one social class in order to enrich another. It keeps on growing and shifting an ever-growing burden on the working people. Sooner or later the victims may resent the shifting and endeavor to lighten their load through realistic reductions in benefits or outright repudiation. They may want to abolish the System because it is the product of politics, very popular with politicians and their beneficiaries, and yet so grossly unjust and unethical. The reform generation may want to halt the feverish efforts at transfer and liquidate the System proceeding along the following lines:3

Information to Recipients. To restore a commonplace truth and realism, every recipient of Social Security benefits should be informed of the nature and source of his benefits. Every check should carry a stub that reveals the dollar amount contributed to the System by him and his employer and the cumulative amount of benefits received by him as of that check. The stub should show that he or she contributed a total of $817.15 and as of now has withdrawn $69,501.15. Such shocking revelation would soon silence the most common defense: “I paid in.”

Means Test. When the total benefits received in retirement exceed the contributions made during the productive years, the recipient should undergo a means test. Anyone who can cover his own expenses should be expected to do so. Millionaires and other affluent retirees should be expected to pay their own bills. A poor retiree who is lacking the means of support may seek public assistance. He is getting it now, but calling it “Social Security.”

Parent and Child. When public assistance seems to be called for, the children of a retired worker should be given an opportunity to contribute to the support of their parents. As the parents are responsible for their children, so are children responsible for their parents. No Social Security System should eradicate this moral law and Biblical Commandment.

Conscientious Objectors. The System should not violate the religious and moral principles of conscientious objectors. Even in such a vital matter as national defense, American society has always respected the principles of those Americans who refused to bear arms or participate in military service. The same respect should be accorded to all religious and moral objectors to Social Security.

Relief for Young Workers. To grant relief to the primary victims of the System and abate the frantic shifting of burdens to future generations, we should seek to protect our youth by limiting its losses. To this end it is proposed that no one should be forced to remain in the System. Anyone willing to assume self-responsibility for his old age and his medical expenses should be permitted to do so.

The financial dilemma of the Social Security System is giving rise to numerous reform proposals. Many turn out to be new concoctions of the same old redistribution medicine, prescribing new victims for old beneficiaries. In contrast, these proposals begin with truth and information, which are the seeds for a true reform, and build on moral conduct rather than political expedience. Reformation is a work of time. We must rebuild and regenerate moral awareness which in time will bring forth genuine reform.

Medicare

In the meantime, it is time to brace ourselves for another financial crisis: the crisis of Medicare.4 When the U.S. Congress is not coping with Social Security losses it is struggling with Medicare deficits. Just recently it was facing staggering Social Security deficits that were estimated at $180 billion over a seven-year period; now the budget office is warning us of a $310 billion accumulated Medicare deficit by 1995. It is clear that the Health Insurance Fund is in serious financial trouble. In fact, it is facing insolvency within four years unless Congress finds a way to raise revenue or control soaring medical expenditures.

The dilemma of Medicare is a dangerous political issue. At any moment it may explode into a partisan fracas such as the bitter confrontations on Social Security. Vying for the votes of the elderly, the political parties may again accuse each other of callous disregard of decency, responsibility, and morality. Surely, in the end they can be expected to cooperate again by raising the tax levies on some hapless taxpayers. The question of morality then will be shelved until such time when Medicare needs to be rescued again.

To many observers, Medicare is an unfailing index of political immorality. Born from the transfer entitlement mentality in the 1960s, fostered by political power and government force, nourished by tax collectors and IRS agents, Medicare is a creature of politics. It takes income and wealth from some people in order to finance the medical bills of other people. It rests on brute political force that uses the instruments of government to benefit one social class at the expense of other classes.

According to all financial analyses, the distribution of personal wealth is directly proportional to the age of the individual. Young people as a class are much poorer than old people, most of whom managed to accumulate some measure of material comfort and wealth. Unfortunately, transfer policies are rarely guided by considerations of comfort and wealth; they are determined by political power and popular majority, which places youth at a distinct disadvantage in the political process. The elderly manage to vote themselves benefit entitlements and allocate the costs to younger people. They work through Medicare which seizes income and wealth from the poorer classes and bestows free medical benefits on their own.

The very existence of Medicare raises difficult questions of political morality. Is it moral for a political majority to seize income and wealth from one social class, in this case the younger poorer population, in order to benefit another social class? Is it right to use the apparatus of government to benefit one social class at the expense of others? Is it proper and just to establish permanent transfer agencies that redistribute income and wealth?

The moral question of Medicare raises many questions of individual conscience and behavior. Is it proper, fair, and moral for an individual to partake of the transfer benefits derived by political force? Someone’s Medicare benefit is always a painful financial exaction from someone else. Is it moral for anyone to inflict such pains on others? In particular, the dear old lady in mink and a six-figure bank account, is she acting morally when she inflicts the Medicare pains on young people by claiming her benefits? The Medicare card in the pocket of an heiress to the Rockefeller, Ford, or Mellon fortunes, is it not a glaring badge of political immorality? Is it not such a badge in anyone’s pocket?

What are we to think of an affluent family whose aging mother depends for her medical needs on government and Medicare? What are we to think of sons and daughters who deliver their parents to Medicare? How are we to judge a Medicare society?

We may not find fault with the doctor who serves Medicare patients unless he becomes a spokesman and promoter of the system. After all, a doctor who is providing health care services to the sick and needy cannot be expected to search into the sources of the money he receives in exchange. He may even specialize in and concentrate on services rendered to Medicare patients because there is a profitable demand. And yet, he should not be faulted as long as he does not promote it, he himself does not use it, or urge his mother to use it. We may even applaud him when he reminds the dear-old-lady patient in mink of the poor taxpayers who are forced to pay her bills.

Many critics of the Medicare system are questioning its medical effectiveness and cost efficiency. They are lamenting the health-cost inflation and are searching for solutions. They rarely raise the crucial question of political morality. Should an immoral system be made more effective and cost-efficient? Or should it be reformed along the lines of Judeo-Christian morality? Can the cost issue ever be resolved without first solving the moral issue?

The federal government must be extricated from the health care business. To allow politicians and bureaucrats in any business is to inject political immorality. After all, most politicians make decisions on the basis of popular majority rather than given morality. They take polls rather than reflect on basic principles of morality. Unfortunately, opinion polls provide no guidepost for questions of morality.

Medicare reformers are concerned about the special interests in the health care industry that make it the special target of politics. Surely, in the lives of most people, food, clothing, and shelter are more important than medical care. Most of the time they are more important also in the lives of the elderly. To sustain human life the farmer, butcher, baker, textile worker, carpenter, plumber, and many others are as indispensable as the doctor and nurse. Why then should the former be taxed so that the latter be subsidized? Why should health care of the elderly be singled out and be regulated and controlled by politicians?

Medicare critics applaud anyone’s effort to force Medicare cuts through Congress. They favor all efforts to trim costs by raising premiums and “co-payments,” the share of the health care burden borne by Medicare recipients. In particular, they are demanding a “means test” that would eliminate the most glaring cases of political immorality, the Medicare cards issued to millionaires and billionaires, and all others who are more able to pay their medical bills than young people. They would extend the means test also to the children of the elderly claiming Medicare and Medicaid benefits. Why should affluent sons and daughters not be expected to cover the medical bills of their needy parents?

When children abandon the care of their parents to government and its institutions, both suffer tragic losses. Most of all, the children lose their possibility of growth in being human and moral. And in days to come, their iniquities will be visited upon them as their children imitate them.

What the critics of the system are unable to accomplish through information and education, the AIDS virus may achieve in less than a decade.5 It is devastating the government health care system. Some three to four million Americans are presently infected by the dread disease, and every ten to twelve months the number of AIDS patients is doubling. If it continues to double every year, 64 million Americans are estimated to be infected by the end of 1990, just three years from now. Health officials expect that one million patients will soon die every year, and ten million in 2000. With just 1,260,000 hospital beds available in the U.S., the hospitals are likely to be crowded. At the present, AIDS patients are staying an average of 167 days in the hospital before they die, at an expense of some $147,000 per patient. In the year 2000, if no cure is found, it will take nearly $1.5 trillion to nurse them until they die.

The immoral transfer system places the financial burden on Medicare and Medicaid. The dying call out for Medicaid to bear their medical expenses; the survivors of the deceased who worked under Social Security for at least 1 1/2 years in the 3 years before death, qualify for Social Security survivor benefits. No matter what dollar amounts the system may exact from its working people, the revenue will be grossly insufficient to cover the AIDS health care demand.

In ages gone, when moral obligation meant conformity to the will of God, carriers of contagious diseases who knowingly and willfully infected other individuals and thereby inflicted great suffering and early death on others, would have been treated as criminals, yea, even as murderers, and been promptly quarantined from the healthy community. The transfer society, in contrast, is jealously safeguarding the civil rights of AIDS carriers who may infect others with criminal immunity; it is eagerly loading the financial burden of their care on working survivors, and squarely placing politicians and officials in charge of it all. A mysterious death wish seems to drive the transfer society; the AIDS epidemic may make it come true.

A Spending Freeze

The critics of the transfer order draw an important distinction between political intervention that is continuously misdirecting economic activity and hampering economic production, such as all forms of price and wage controls, and that intervention which benefits one class of people at the expense of another. The former must be abolished without delay, the latter in an orderly fashion.

The strongholds of the American transfer system, Social Security and Medicare, must be dismantled in an orderly fashion. The beneficiaries must be made aware of the nature of their benefits and be placed on notice that the transfer process will be terminated. The first step in this direction must be a spending freeze that calls a truce to the political struggle.

In reaction to popular criticism, a few politicians have made deficit reduction proposals and even urged spending freezes in order to meet certain deficit targets. Spending does not need to be cut, taxes need not be raised, they inform us; expenditures must be frozen until the natural growth in revenues catches up with the spending. If expenditures are kept constant for a while, the budget deficit will shrink and eventually disappear.

Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico recently proposed that Congress freeze Fiscal Year 1988 budget authority at Fiscal Year 1987 spending levels.6 Federal spending in 1987 is estimated at $1 trillion, revenues at $850 billion. Revenues are estimated to rise to $933 in FY 1988, to $996 in 1989, and $1.058 trillion in 1990.7 If expenditures were frozen at 1987 levels until 1990, the Federal budget would be in the black.

The Domenici proposal, like so many other deficit reduction proposals, attacks the symptoms instead of the disease. Surely, it points at the high growth rate of spending and urges temporary moderation until receipts catch up with outlays. Unfortunately, it does not in the least touch upon the root cause of the evil, the transfer mentality, which generates outlays faster than revenue can be collected. The Domenici proposal holds out new hope for more benefits in 1990 when surpluses would be expected. While it deplores the red ink it implicitly welcomes the transfer accounts.

It is significant that the Domenici freeze would exempt government pay increases and Congressional salary raises. If it is true that example is more forcible than precept, the Domenici exemption is likely to be more persuasive than the proposal. To an outside observer, political objectives present inscrutable puzzles of intent, design, and sincerity.

A New Beginning

A world is a scene of changes. Conditions will either get better or grow worse; they are unlikely to remain the same for long. Pessimists who instinctively take the gloomiest possible view of a situation are holding to the belief that all things ultimately tend toward evil. They are preparing for ever larger fiscal debts and deficits, followed by soaring inflation and deteriorating levels of living. They are convinced that a society that is preoccupied with entitlement and depredation cannot remain free for long. Pessimists take a dim view of optimists who, observing the present trend, may not deny the ultimate destination of the transfer road, but expect society soon to take another road. With their disposition to expect the best possible outcome, optimists dwell on the most hopeful aspects of the situation. Trust men, they assure us, and they will be true in the end; expect greatness and they will show themselves great. Trust America, it will remain the home of freedom and the hope of the world.

Changes in human affairs are the work of changes in moral standards. The American transfer system with all its political power is an elaborate product of contemporary standards. It is changing continually as the public perception of right conduct is changing, which wields more power than the U.S. Congress and a thousand judges. Changes are cosmopolitan, sweeping across national boundaries, affecting human affairs everywhere. Governments cannot prevent them; they may smother them and coercion may suppress them temporarily, but nothing can prevent them for long.

American economic conditions may deteriorate because false ideas may guide the body politic towards stagnation and disintegration; but conditions elsewhere may improve rapidly because economic policies are guided by inexorable economic law. They may deteriorate slowly in the U.S. and improve visibly in Japan, Hong Kong or Singapore. They may deteriorate in Mexico, but improve in Argentina, always in direct proportion to man’s moral order. When economic conditions are improving elsewhere while they are deteriorating in the U.S., the American people may repent of their ways and return to the proven road. The success of more prosperous societies may set the example.

The American people may remember someday that, in order to sustain human life and well-being, they must labor. Income and wealth are the fruits of individual effort and service; to extract them from each other by political force is both immoral and counterproductive. Political largesse raises an army of idle beneficiaries, promotes consumption without production and discourages effort and thrift. Transfer income by political force is worse than no income at all. The transfer state openly and officially hampers economic output. It may erect production barriers, impose tariffs and quotas, parity prices and acreage restrictions; it may resort to inflation, credit expansion, and deficit spending. It tends to be self-destructive.

An American Freedom Party may some day put an end to political intervention designed to favor half the population at the expense of the other half and to reduce the supply of goods and render them more expensive. An organization of persons united for the purpose of influencing government policy toward greater economic well-being may signal the end of the transfer system. Although recent history contains many sordid and selfish chapters, political parties may be powerful forces for good in a free society. A Freedom Party may educate and organize public opinion by keeping the people informed on the follies of policies restricting output, reducing supplies and benefiting some voters at the expense of others. It may contribute to civic education, present candidates for public offices, and serve to represent millions of Americans who are interested in rising standards of living and lower goods prices.

Many American voters are women who are homemakers and mothers. It is difficult to believe that, if they were informed, they would cast their votes for benefits and bounty for themselves and debts for their children. American women are the natural members of a Freedom Party that opposes policies designed to restrict production, to raise prices, and to favor one social class at the expense of another. Young people who are vitally interested in the preservation of the apparatus of production are their natural allies. The present system has made youth the primary beast of burden and victim of transfer; the most monstrous burden, Social Security and Medicare, has been placed squarely on the shoulders of youth. An American Freedom Party would show mercy and promptly remove the horrid load.

No affliction nor temptation should induce us to despair. It is necessary to hope, for hope itself is happiness and the beginning of reform.

Dr. Sennholz is chairman of the department of economics at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, and a former chairman of the Board of Trustees at FEE. He is a well-known writer and lecturer on economic, political, and monetary affairs.

8. Hans F. Sennholz, Debts and Deficits (Spring Mills, Pa.: Libertarian Press), pp. 32–42.

9. Peter J. Ferrara explores important philosophical questions in his Social Security (Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1980); he also edited Social Security, Prospects for Real Reform, which is an up-to-date analysis of the continuing problems of the System (Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1985); cf. also Douglas Brown, An American Philosophy of Social Security (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1972); Edwin E. Witte, the Development of the Social Security Act (Madison, Wise.: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1972); Joseph A. Pechman, Henry J. Aaron, and Michael K. Taussig, Social Security: Perspectives for Reform (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1968); Alicia H. Munnell, The Future of Social Security (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1977).

10. Cf. Hans F. Sennholz, Social Security, Is Reform Possible? (Grove City, Pa.: Public Policy Education Fund, Inc., 1981).

11. Hans F. Sennholz, “Another Federal Catastrophe” Private Practice (Shawnee, Okla.: CCMS Publishing Co.), Vol. 18, No. 4, April 1986, p. 21 et seq; John C. Goodman, The Regulation of Medical Care: Is the Price Too High? (Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1980).

12. Congressional Quarterly, Almanac, 99th Congress, 2nd Session, 1986 (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc.), pp. 258, 261; cf. also Cheryl Russell on the fear of AIDS ending the sexual revolution, The Wall Street Journal, 3/30/1987, p. 18; Gary North, “The Plague Has Come at Last,” Remnant Review, Vol 14, No. 5, March 6, 1987 (Fort Worth, Texas: Remnant Review).

13. Facts on File, March 8, 1985 (New York: Facts on File, Inc.), p. 151.

14. Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 1987, pp. 4–15.

• 1. Hans F. Sennholz, Debts and Deficits (Spring Mills, Pa.: Libertarian Press), pp. 32–42.
• 2. Peter J. Ferrara explores important philosophical questions in his Social Security (Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1980); he also edited Social Security, Prospects for Real Reform, which is an up-to-date analysis of the continuing problems of the System (Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1985); cf. also Douglas Brown, An American Philosophy of Social Security (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1972); Edwin E. Witte, the Development of the Social Security Act (Madison, Wise.: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1972); Joseph A. Pechman, Henry J. Aaron, and Michael K. Taussig, Social Security: Perspectives for Reform (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1968); Alicia H. Munnell, The Future of Social Security (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1977).
• 3. Cf. Hans F. Sennholz, Social Security, Is Reform Possible? (Grove City, Pa.: Public Policy Education Fund, Inc., 1981).
• 4. Hans F. Sennholz, “Another Federal Catastrophe” Private Practice (Shawnee, Okla.: CCMS Publishing Co.), Vol. 18, No. 4, April 1986, p. 21 et seq; John C. Goodman, The Regulation of Medical Care: Is the Price Too High? (Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1980).
• 5. Congressional Quarterly, Almanac, 99th Congress, 2nd Session, 1986 (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc.), pp. 258, 261; cf. also Cheryl Russell on the fear of AIDS ending the sexual revolution, The Wall Street Journal, 3/30/1987, p. 18; Gary North, “The Plague Has Come at Last,” Remnant Review, Vol 14, No. 5, March 6, 1987 (Fort Worth, Texas: Remnant Review).
• 6. Facts on File, March 8, 1985 (New York: Facts on File, Inc.), p. 151.
• 7. Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 1987, pp. 4–15.
• 8To reconstruct a moral order is to set shining examples in the very strongholds of the political transfer system. Reconstruction would have to begin with Social Security and Medicare, the most expensive and imposing bastions of the system, formidable and intimidating to all reformers. They are the very pillars of the transfer system; to exempt them from review and render them untouchable is to leave the system untouched. To exempt them from budget restraint when massive deficits are suffered and other programs are cut, is to reaffirm the very transfer system. The Reagan Administration reconfirmed the Roosevelt Social Security system and the Johnson Medicare system when it not only rendered them untouchable and uncontrollable, but also reinforced them with “catastrophic insurance” and “nursing care.”
• 9It is futile to point at the costs of the Social Security System. Today, 126 million workers (more than 9 out of 10) pay more than $227 billion a year so that some 40 million retired or disabled people and their dependents may receive monthly Social Security checks. They pay more than $82 billion so that over 23 million people, 65 and over, nearly all of the nation’s older population, draw healthcare benefits under Medicare; another 3 million disabled people under 65 enjoy the same benefits. Obviously, every American has a stake in Social Security, either as a beneficiary or a victim, or both.
• 10It is a formidable system built on political expedience and political immorality. It exacts income and wealth from one social class in order to enrich another. It keeps on growing and shifting an ever-growing burden on the working people. Sooner or later the victims may resent the shifting and endeavor to lighten their load through realistic reductions in benefits or outright repudiation. They may want to abolish the System because it is the product of politics, very popular with politicians and their beneficiaries, and yet so grossly unjust and unethical. The reform generation may want to halt the feverish efforts at transfer and liquidate the System proceeding along the following lines:
• 11In the meantime, it is time to brace ourselves for another financial crisis: the crisis of Medicare. When the U.S. Congress is not coping with Social Security losses it is struggling with Medicare deficits. Just recently it was facing staggering Social Security deficits that were estimated at $180 billion over a seven-year period; now the budget office is warning us of a $310 billion accumulated Medicare deficit by 1995. It is clear that the Health Insurance Fund is in serious financial trouble. In fact, it is facing insolvency within four years unless Congress finds a way to raise revenue or control soaring medical expenditures.
• 12What the critics of the system are unable to accomplish through information and education, the AIDS virus may achieve in less than a decade. It is devastating the government health care system. Some three to four million Americans are presently infected by the dread disease, and every ten to twelve months the number of AIDS patients is doubling. If it continues to double every year, 64 million Americans are estimated to be infected by the end of 1990, just three years from now. Health officials expect that one million patients will soon die every year, and ten million in 2000. With just 1,260,000 hospital beds available in the U.S., the hospitals are likely to be crowded. At the present, AIDS patients are staying an average of 167 days in the hospital before they die, at an expense of some $147,000 per patient. In the year 2000, if no cure is found, it will take nearly $1.5 trillion to nurse them until they die.
• 13Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico recently proposed that Congress freeze Fiscal Year 1988 budget authority at Fiscal Year 1987 spending levels. Federal spending in 1987 is estimated at $1 trillion, revenues at $850 billion. Revenues are estimated to rise to $933 in FY 1988, to $996 in 1989, and $1.058 trillion in 1990. If expenditures were frozen at 1987 levels until 1990, the Federal budget would be in the black.
• 14Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico recently proposed that Congress freeze Fiscal Year 1988 budget authority at Fiscal Year 1987 spending levels. Federal spending in 1987 is estimated at $1 trillion, revenues at $850 billion. Revenues are estimated to rise to $933 in FY 1988, to $996 in 1989, and $1.058 trillion in 1990. If expenditures were frozen at 1987 levels until 1990, the Federal budget would be in the black.