Tonight Seton Hill's College Republicans got our first (and certainly not our last) big visitor on campus. Since we've chosen to focus this semester on promoting Social Security Reform, me and my colleagues have been working hard to get events and speakers on campus. Keith Schmidt, the state director for the Rick Santorum House, came to SHU last night to lead a talk on Social Sec. Reform and the problems behind the current system.


Keith Schmidt, ladies and gentlemen.

When he first arrived on campus at 6:00PM, the CR Board were waiting to greet him in front of Lynch auditorium. (For the uninformed, the board consists of me, Josh Knopp, Bryan Harmon, Emily Kasky, and Dr. Josh Sasmor). We then all ate dinner in the Greensburg room. Unfortunately it wasn't a very good meal in the dining hall last night, but Keith and his assistant Jason seemed to enjoy their pork and chili... Keith spoke to the board about how to fundraise on campus, and how important it is for us to provide the conservative voice for those on campus.

At 7:00PM we walked over to Lynch, a new venue for the College Republicans. We had arranged for a nice spread of cheese, crackers, fruit and cookies (with a little punch on the side.) As the folks filed in and filled up the bottom rows of the auditorium, it was apparent to me that we would have more than the usual number of CR loyals.

Keith began his presentation with saying a few words about the recently deceased Pope John Paul II (he was connected to the Pope through a doctor that once treated him.) He then delved in to his resume, and his experience working with long-time senator, Rick Santorum. Keith originally got in to politics as an intern with the Reagan/Bush campaign in 1980. He joined with Santorum in the early 1990's. It was in 1994 when Rick Santorum began talking about social security reform.

Here are some of the facts and issues he threw out to the audience:
• There are many ways to fix Soc. Sec., including raising taxes or cutting benefits. But logically, if you raise taxes you are in theory cutting benefits no matter what.
• Just merely tweaking the system isn't going to make it solvent forever, changing benefits or payout programs will fix things for five or ten or even twenty years, but we'll still be dealing with the issue again soon.
• The Soc. Sec. payroll tax has been raised 49 times since its conception in 1937. When founded it was a 2% payroll tax. Today it is 12.4% up to $90,000 earned.
• In 1945 there were 45 workers putting in to the system for every one retired person. Today it's 3 workers to one retiree, and by the time I retire it will be under 2 workers.
• Just 15% of wages in America are untaxed. Taxing this 15% will add just 3-5 years of solvency. But for anyone making upwards of $40,000 a year, you actually lose money in the system.
• When it was first instilled by FDR, life expectancy was 63 and the age for Soc. Sec. was still 65. It was never supposed to be for every retiree, but just for those who managed to live past their expected years. Because of this, savings in America has gone down.
• In 1983, savings in America was 10.8%. Today it is merely 1.4%. This means that more people will be dependent on Soc Security, rather than providing for themselves.
• If America chooses Personal Savings Accounts (which certainly have my endorsement!) then just 4% of the 12.4% of payroll tax will go into a personal account. The other 8.4% will go into the normal Soc. Sec. system.
• The system will be insolvent (aka completely out of money) by 2041. Each year we choose not to fix the system, it will cost $600 Billion dollars more to fix it when we finally get around to it.

Scary stats, for sure. All of his stats were provided by non-partisan research groups, this isn't spin. And it is for those reasons that the College Republicans are focusing on this for the Spring semester. I am happy to announce that this isn't the end of our efforts. A national politician has been confirmed to be coming to SHU on behalf of the CRs to lead a discussion on the topic... but more on this later...