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Editorials
Saturday, April 1, 2000Putin’s call
to ratify nuclear
weapons pactVLADIMIR Putin remains an enigma to the West, but a somewhat more appealing one after his call for speedy ratification of the START II nuclear weapons reduction treaty. Adding to the significance of Putin's statement is the fact that it was his first major policy pronouncement since his election as president of Russia.The issue: Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged speedy ratification of the SALT II nuclear weapons reduction treaty.
The SALT II treaty, which was signed by the United States and Russia in 1993 and ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1996, has been stalled in the Russian parliament for years by hard-line conservatives and Communists. But opponents lost their dominance of parliament in elections last December, leaving Putin in a stronger position to win ratification.
START II calls for the United States and Russia to reduce their nuclear arsenals to 3,000 to 3,500 warheads each. Russia now has about 6,000 warheads. The president said he had ordered defense and foreign ministry officials to step up consultations with parliament in preparation for SALT II ratification.
Putin also urged parliament to approve even deeper cuts in nuclear weapons beyond those in the START II treaty, which will be interpreted in the West as a sign that he wants to improve relations after the volatile and unpredictable Boris Yeltsin. The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia last year was a major setback in relations with the Russians, who view the Serbs as ethnic brothers.
However, Putin made it clear that he does not intend to eliminate all of Russia's nuclear arsenal. His aim, he said, is to make the nuclear weapons complex safer and more effective "even though we don't plan to build it up."
Analysts say the arsenal is in such poor condition that only 600 to 800 warheads are usable, so reducing the number of warheads would be no real sacrifice. In addition, maintaining the arsenal is an enormous burden for the cash-strapped government -- costing as much as $3 billion a year.
Putin did not address the most sensitive nuclear arms issue between Moscow and Washington -- the U.S. desire to modify the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to permit development of a defense system against missile attack.
Quick approval of START II could give Russia leverage in the dispute over the ABM treaty. But Washington may have a better chance with Putin than it did with Yeltsin of convincing Moscow that its interest in developing a missile defense system is not based on hostility toward Russia.
It is rogue regimes such as North Korea and Iraq that pose the current threat of missile attack. North Korea's development of a missile with the range to strike Hawaii and Alaska can hardly be ignored by U.S. policymakers.
Social Security
and Medicare
are strongerTHE demise of the Social Security and Medicare programs may not occur as soon as previously predicted in the absence of remedial action. Thanks to the remarkable strength of the U.S. economy, both programs -- of vital concern to the elderly -- have had their life expectancy prolonged.
Medicare had been projected to run short of money in 2001, but that date has been pushed back to 2023. Social Security's projected insolvency date has been extended from 2029 to 2037.
Low unemployment and low inflation have helped both Social Security and Medicare by providing more workers to support the programs through payroll taxes and making possible lower cost-of-living increases in benefits. Medicare spending decreased -- for the first time -- by 1 percent in 1999, a result of low inflation, cuts ordered by Congress and a crackdown on fraud and billing errors.
However, the good news carries with it the danger of complacency. It will be more difficult for Congress to muster the will to make the long-term changes the programs will require to maintain their viability in the decades ahead.
Both Social Security and Medicare will be hard-pressed to accommodate the baby boom generation -- the 77 million people born between 1946 and 1964 -- when they reach retirement age. Moreover, there is no assurance that the economy will maintain its strength. A deep recession would change the financial picture considerably.
An advisory panel has recommended that the Social Security and Medicare trustees increase their estimates of life expectancy. This would have an adverse effect on the programs' finances because people who live longer cost retirement programs more.
Robert Reischauer, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, notes that, give or take a few years, the programs will still be in danger of collapse. The longer the nation waits to restructure them, Reischauer warns, "the more wrenching those adjustments will have to be."
For this reason, there is a danger that today's favorable trends could send the wrong message -- that Social Security and Medicare are healthy. They aren't.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
