The article argues that recent executive overreach and politicization have severely undermined established norms of U.S. civil-military relations. To restore professional standards, the incoming Congress must actively exercise its oversight powers, moving beyond mere criticism to demanding transparency in defense policy and personnel decisions. Key reforms include enforcing meritocratic promotion processes, requiring documented justification for senior officer removals, and preventing the partisan use of the military. These actions are crucial for bolstering public trust and ensuring the military remains a nonpartisan instrument of civilian control.
Congress Uses Outdated Inflation Measures for Benefit Spending
English Summary
The article argues that federal benefit programs (like Social Security and SSI) use outdated inflation measures (CPI-W/CPI-U) that systematically overestimate the true cost of living by failing to account for the substitution effect. This creates a "double standard," as the tax code already uses the more accurate Chained CPI-U. The author notes that this methodological flaw leads to automatic benefit increases that cost taxpayers more than necessary, citing potential savings in the trillions of dollars. Policy-wise, the recommendation is that Congress mandate the use of Chained CPI-U for all benefit indexing to align benefit spending with the more accurate inflation measure used in the tax code, thereby ensuring greater fiscal sustainability.
中文摘要
本文論述聯邦福利計畫（如社會安全和SSI）所使用的通脹衡量指標（CPI-W/CPI-U）過時，它們未能計入替代效應，從而系統性地高估了真實生活成本。這形成了一種「雙重標準」，因為稅法本身已經採用了更為準確的鏈式CPI-U（Chained CPI-U）。作者指出，這種方法論上的缺陷導致福利自動增加的支出超出必要範圍，並援引了數兆美元的潛在節省額度。在政策層面，建議國會強制要求所有福利的指數化調整均採用鏈式CPI-U，以使福利支出與稅法中使用的更準確通脹指標保持一致，從而確保更高的財政永續性。
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