After thinking about it for more than a year, I finally pulled the trigger. At 64-plus, I am now one of millions of baby boomers who is collecting Social Security. Had I waited another year and a half, my monthly check would have been more, but the math seemed to be in my favor now. 

As a result of working the numbers every-which-way, I created a formula that just might solve three Social Security problems simultaneously. Namely, maintaining support for current retirees, creating a blueprint for future beneficiaries, and a shoring-up of the system itself. I think it's a plan that Simpson-Bowles, the White House and Congress all can agree on in a matter of hours. First the assumptions; then, the idea:

Over the past decade, the Pentagon has engaged two major conflicts nearly half a world away with thousands of military personnel on multiple tours of duty. Military forces are coming home and operations will decline. But now the country's economic health dictates that going forward the Defense Department must operate on a much reduced budget and make these cuts faster than planned.

The chosen mechanism for trying to slim down, unfortunately, is a technique called "sequestration" which was thought to be so extreme that it would never be employed. But here we are. Sequestration mandates cuts without much consideration -- valuing pounds sliced from belly fat equally with those chopped from muscle and brain tissue.

The soft-drink industry has been taking it on the chin in the last couple of years—from getting tossed out of schools to New York City’s effort to limit the size of sodas sold at restaurants and theaters to 16 ounces. Other than cigarettes and guns, few products draw more concern from health experts than soft drinks (along with their fruit drinks, energy drinks, and sports drinks) for promoting obesity, diabetes, heart disease, tooth decay, and even gout.

Americans are drinking about four times as much sugar drinks of all kinds since I was growing up (and imbibing) in the 1950s. Those drinks now provide almost half of all the refined sugars that Americans consume. And, not surprisingly, teens and young adults consume half again more than the average person.

I couldn’t be much farther away from Washington today – 5,978 miles, to be exact – but the Hill is still very much on my mind. 

In Garoua, Cameroon, I’m seeing with my own eyes how the work of the U.S. and the U.N. to expand immunizations is saving children’s lives every day. In particular, the progress UNICEF has made here to prevent polio infections shows exactly what we’re capable of when we work hand-in-hand with the U.N. — and when the U.S. does not have to go it alone.



At 2 am on April 5, eight heavily armed Israeli soldiers burst into the home of Mohammad Khaleq, a 14-year-old New Orleans honors student on a family visit to Silwad in the West Bank. Jolting Mohammad and his family awake, the soldiers arrested the youth, tied his hands, and threw him roughly onto the floor of a jeep. Later, Mohammad reports, the soldiers beat him and pushed him down, damaging his orthodontic braces on a rock.




He was shackled, blindfolded, handcuffed and held for 12 hours in Ofra, an Israeli settlement, before being transported to a police station. Two hours of incommunicado interrogation later, the boy admitted to charges of throwing rocks at Israeli cars. He says he confessed after Israeli interrogators promised him that was the only way to see his father. Mohammad was eventually released after serving 14 days and paying a fine of about $800.


His case fits a pattern chillingly familiar to many Palestinian youngsters, and one that is increasingly condemned.




Thirty years ago, the National Association of Evangelicals adopted a policy statement condemning America’s overcrowded and non-rehabilitative prisons.  We recognized the need to punish offenders and incarcerate dangerous criminals but noted that “half of those in prison have been convicted of non-violent offenses.” For these offenders, we recommended biblically-based sanctions like restitution “as an alternative or supplement to incarceration.” We also opposed excessive incarceration due to its high expense and because it undermines rehabilitation.
 
Looking back three decades later, it is remarkable how true our statement remains, and how little policymakers have done to improve the situation in our prisons.

On my way to Washington this week, my flight, along with many others, was delayed. The 45 minute delay wasn’t due to bad weather, a mechanical problem, or poor scheduling by the airline. It was an unaccountable bureaucrat who decided to slow down the lives of Americans.

You may have seen the news this week concerning the 40 percent of flights that have been delayed throughout the country. This air traffic jam is a direct result of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) furloughing air traffic controllers in response to the sequester recently implemented out of Washington for federal spending. The sequester called for a 5 percent cut to the FAA. That’s it – 5 percent.

The president’s attempt to cut Social Security and veterans’ benefits through what is known as “chained CPI” breaks the promise he made to seniors when he was campaigning for the Presidency. His plan is inequitable and ignores the economic realities of the typical Social Security beneficiary. It is inaccurate even by its own lights, failing to deliver on its promise of a better gauge of the cost-of-living.
 
The chained CPI cut would start now and grow larger and larger over time. It would cut Social Security and veterans’ benefits by $146 billion over the next 10 years, taking thousands of dollars out of the pockets of seniors who have earned their benefits and veterans who have already sacrificed so much for all of us.

Sometimes, even in Congress, one can overplay one’s hand protecting turf. Consider the South Carolina delegation’s sharp objection to President Obama’s cut to a nuclear project sited at Savannah River designed to convert 34 tons of nuclear weapon-grade plutonium into civilian reactor fuel. President Obama, who has a reputation for spending too much on energy projects, wants to cut this one by $167 million and find a more cost effective way to dispose of the plutonium. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has decided to play hardball by placing a hold on the Energy Secretary nominee, Ernest Moniz, whose appointment just received near unanimous approval of the Senate Energy Committee.
 
To be sure, the president’s proposed cut hardly augurs well for the Mixed Oxide Fuels (MOX) program.