I don’t think there are very many members of Congress old enough to receive monthly payments from the Social Security Administration who need that money to help pay their bills. One national news outlet presented a major story this week regarding the insolvency of the Social Security Administration by 2034. Simply put, there is not enough money coming in to cover what is going out, the way it is presently set up.

Maybe Congress members’ disconnect from average Americans has something to do with this. They are hired to be good stewards of the money we the people give them each year (about $3.5 trillion). Their horrendous deficit spending and its dangerous implications certainly belie that notion.

Notwithstanding, there can be no argument that keeping the Social Security Administration solvent should take precedence over earmarks and pork barrel expenditures which serve only to garner votes. Any good steward of other people’s money knows that.

Among the nearly 7,200 earmarks that cost $15 billion that Congress has in the $1.7 trillion deficit spending bill include: $1 million for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; $5 million for the Hip-Hop Museum and the Irish Heritage Center in Maine; $3 million for the New York Historical Society and American L.G.B.T.Q. Museum Partnership Project; $45 billion for Ukraine aid; $335 million to prepare for an influenza pandemic; and a federal building named for Nancy Pelosi.

All of this money, even if it is deficit spending, could instead be used to help shore up Social Security.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we the people had a say in these expenditures? Wouldn’t it be nice if our federal government didn’t overstep its bounds with our money?

— Peter A. Gazitano, Jr., Rome