My second modest proposal to reform Social Security is called Budget Bucks. We could pay all government expenses, including Social Security, in a new form of currency called Budget Bucks.
Budget bucks are not legal tender, but you can trade them in at the post office for real money. They will give you real money at an exchange rate equal to the number of tax dollars the Treasury collects (it still taxes you in real dollars — sorry) divided by the number of bucks the government spends.
For example, if it spends two budget bucks for every dollar of taxes it collects, each budget buck would equal 50 cents at the post office.
The budget would balance in real money every minute of every day. You can think of this as the reducing Xerox machine plan.
A side benefit of the plan — every interest group who gets money from the government would begin to lobby aggressively against the spending going to every other interest group. It’s the only way I have figured out how to turn the lobby groups into forces for good.
JR
PS: I ran this piece yesterday for my friends at RealMoney. It is excerpted from a longer piece I wrote for Barrons so long ago they hadn’t invented electricity yet so I can’t give you a link to it.
