Congressman Adam Schiff: Democrat without solution to coming insolvency of entitlements

Posted by B. Daniel Blatt
3:48 pm - April 22, 2012.
The Gay Patriot:

Welcome Instapundit Readers! I see Glenn compared Mr. Schiff to the Treasury Secretary. I address Mr. Geithner’s acknowledgement in this post.

Just returned from a townhall with my soon-to-be new Congressman (provided he isn’t defeated in November) Adam Schiff. When the 113th Congress convenes next January, thanks to redistricting, Henry Waxman will no longer represent me in the U.S. House.*

Despite his more civil demeanor, Mr. Schiff acknowledged that he had no plan to address the coming insolvency of federal entitlements.

Citing the warning of Medicare’s trustees about the program’s coming insolvency and this report about Social Security failing even faster than anticipated, I asked the Democrat what specific reforms had he proposed or supported to address the problem. After he stumbled around for a while acknowledging the complexity of the problem and offering some broad goals for reform, I interrupted him, repeating my question, this time emphasizing the adjective, “specific”.

He then said, “I don’t have a specific plan for Social Security.” (When, after the townhall, I showed him that sentence on my notepad, he started to blather on about his goals, but acknowledged that I had quoted him correctly, that he had no specific plan.)

Later, when I asked point blank, “So you don’t have a plan?”, he replied that he did not. And yet, when I inquired about the bipartisan plan the Democratic senior Senator for Oregon Ron Wyden backed, he faulted that proposal while taking potshots at the types of reforms Republicans had proposed and were considering. Perhaps, I should have reminded him what Jon Huntsman said in expressing admiration for “Congressman Paul Ryan’s honest attempt to save Medicare“:

Those who disagree with his approach incur a moral responsibility to propose reforms that would ensure Medicare’s ability to meet its responsibilities to retirees without imposing an unaffordable tax burden on future generations of Americans.

Mr. Schiff attacked Mr. Ryan’s plan, yet has not met the “moral responsibility” of proposing those such reforms.

My new congressional district will be ill-served who, although acknowledging our the crisis of federal entitlements, has failed to offer a solution. By failing to put forward (or sign on to) legislation offering real reform, Adam Schiff, simply put, is not doing his job. And should be replaced come November.

If all goes well, then, he will, technically at least, never become my Congressman.

*So, technically he still serves as my Congressman and hence my choice to modify Mr. Schiff’s title with “soon-to-be.”