Meeting |
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Report |
Meeting |
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Report |
May 7, 2002 |
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| President Jim called the meeting to order. With
him at the head table were Benton Bragg, Sam Woodard, David Erdman, and Michael
Elder, who gave our invocation. From the floor. Buddy Chatfield welcomed
visiting Rotarians and other guests. Selena Rogers' Health and Happiness report
rose to high humor as it compared "real" women with Martha Stewart's version,
which is out of touch with the degree to which today's women rely on bakeries and frozen
food companies and generally lack interest in the "tips" for which the guru of
the home and kitchen is noted. Today's group song was not had. Instead Jeff Wise pulled a modest coup d'etat as he undertook (with apologies for having a bad cold and being under the influence of narco-nose-medicine) an unaccompanied solo rendition of "The Scotsman." Our guest speaker felt it unnecessary to warm up his audience with a few jokes, what with the H&H and the "song" we had today! Edgar Love III, with our speaker a fellow member of the local bar for many years, introduced U.S. Representative Mel Watt of our 12th Congressional District. We were reminded of his Charlotte birth and rearing through high school, his Phi Beta Kappa work at Chapel Hill, his law degree from Yale, and his practice until 1992 with a prominent Charlotte law firm. Less well-known may be his choice. to "retire" from several years' service in the N.C. Senate to spend more time with his two sons in formative years; both are now Yale graduates. He gained further political experience in leading campaigns for Harvey Gantt and others. Mel Watt ran for and won his seat in Congress from the new 12th District in 1992. He serves on the House Financial Services Committee and the Judiciary Committee, and is the ranking member of its Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law. One unusual way he has helped his political party has been to be the starting pitcher for the Democratic Baseball Team for four consecutive years in the annual Congressional Baseball Game. Congressman Watt gave us one of his customary "off-the-cuff" talks, bringing his interpretation of one particular happening in the national government and the economy since January 2001. In one year, he reported, the handsome projected surplus expected over the period 2002-2011 has turned into a substantial projected deficit. To be exact, the projected slide was from a projected surplus of $3.046 trillion (not counting a surplus expected in the Social Security Trust Fund) down to a projected deficit of $1.650 trillion. In his view, the major blame for the vanishing surplus falls on federal tax cuts promoted by the administration and voted in last year. As background for the shift, and for his own set of views, he went back ten years to when he joined Congress just as a new administration was coming into power—one from his own party. He went there not agreeing with the new president that deficits in government financing were insidious and damaging. He had found himself in agreement with the policy and practice of the federal government over the previous twenty years, through administrations of both parties, that no damage results from heavy government borrowing to finance needs and programs on the national level. However, he was persuaded to the contrary when he found, through study, what the vast expenditures on loan interest could mean, if they were able to be moved to social programs and the improvement of life for all Americans. Such costs for interest came to about $250-300 billion per year, a decade ago. Thus, when new taxes were proposed by the new administration as a step toward greater fiscal solvency, he agreed. His status, after 1993, as a believer in balancing the federal budget and paying down the national debt, would seem to have readied him for a return of the presidency to the Republican Party, traditionally fiscal conservatives. Watt kept emphasizing that he was attempting to be "non-partisan" in his review of recent changes. However, the stage was set for the shift from surpluses to deficits, he feels, when that party led Congress to enact the Bush administration's proposed tax cut program in 2001. In answer to a question from one of our fellow Rotarians later in Watt's presentation, the Congressman said he did not mean to imply that the Bush tax cut was totally responsible for the radical shift from surplus to deficit financing for the nation, in the course of only one year. The financial boom throughout much of the 1990s, he agreed, was fueled to a great extent by new technologies and tech companies, which could have been expected to peak out at some point, leading to our period of low markets. Likewise, he added, no one could have foreseen the horrors of September 11, 2001, and the economic fallout from them. Nevertheless, he asserted, the principal factor influencing the economic shift — over which the Congress and administration did have control—was the tax cut of 2001. His dismay was increased recently when the House of Representatives took action to make this cut (currently due to expire in a decade) permanent. Several changes in expectations have resulted from this major shift in projections from the plus to minus side. Social Security once more finds itself the necessary source of loans to support the costs of government, rather than being in the once highly vaunted "lock box" to help Baby Boomers when they age into being claimants. Rather than seeing the national debt being paid down, as both parties had heralded for the near future, Congress once again found it necessary to vote to raise the debt ceiling, so that funds could be borrowed. Long-term interest rates, which seemed ready to decline and thus benefit consumers and the private sector, are likely to remain relatively high, now that the government is back, competing as a mammoth borrower. A fourth sign of the negative effects of this shift is the administration's proposed cuts in many federal grant-in-aid programs. These cuts in program support have not yet been enacted, he pointed out. They would, he said, seriously impact states and localities—in fact, this is already occurring. The Congressman justified his bluntness as being needed to prepare his constituents for the possibility of these reductions, several examples of which he discussed. As aids to understanding the situation which was the main topic of his remarks, Mel Watt brought copies of several charts and graphs prepared by the U.S. Senate Budget Committee's Majority Staff this spring. Also available on our tables were copies of his "12th District Advisory Newsletter," also from this spring. In it was a page showing some 38 federal programs which benefit North Carolina directly, from "Adoption Assistance" to "Workforce Investment Act — Youth Activities." In between were highway monies, special education, and children's health insurance, among many others. Only nine stood to receive increases under the administration's proposed FY 2003 budget. Two would stay the same, while all the rest would be cut, some very substantially. * * * |
The Senior,
Senior, (Part 2) Recently the Reporter identified our senior members by years of service in Rotary; happily, there are 33 members with 40 or more years in Rotary — one with sixty! In this issue we take a look at our seniors with a ranking according to age. And, not surprisingly, there are 42 members (excluding honoraries) who have passed their 75th birthday — three quarters of a century — 30 of these past their 80th. As everyone knows, these Rotarians are still attending our meetings regularly with only a few exceptions. So let's let them know we honor them and respect them for their example. Perhaps we should add to the list of benefits from Rotary the prospect of living a long and happy life. Powell Majors Within I do not find wrinkles and used heart, but unspent youth. RALPH WALDO EMERSON * * * |
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