After a week of absolute insanity I finally got an opportunity to rant about something that has been on my mind and the mind of many other Americans for quite some time now.
Did you miss me?
Ok, ok, you don't have to answer that.
I missed me and that's all that counts;)
Every week when I get my paycheck ? before most of it gets dolled out to bills - I take a moment to look down at what gets withheld for tithing to the Secular Church of the Almighty Gummint. Like most of you out there, it absolutely disgusts me. Looking at it kinda reminds me of how I feel when I look at all the ridiculous surcharges tacked onto my telephone bill every month. As I explained in an earlier post on 4/15 (National Bend Over and Grab Your Ankles Day), I am of the rational understanding that income tax is a necessity for our government to operate. Likewise, I feel that the money I?m forced by law to fork over every week is done so sacrificially in order to keep my country from falling into absolute chaos (not to say that it isn?t operating under controlled chaos to begin with). So typically speaking, I?m quite alright with making my painful contribution to the system. However, when filthy, lying politicians squander my hard earned cash on special interest pork, redistribute it through socialist entitlement programs and establish worthless beurocracies that do little more than generate entire landfills of red tape, that?s when my blood starts to boil. Worse yet, when those same filthy rat bastards wipe their asses with the US Constitution or sell this country a bag of goods that?s inherently defective under mandate that we need to participate by law, that?s when I start pissing fire.
When FDR established the Social Security program in 1935, the overwhelming majority thought it to be a brilliant move to ensure a safety net would be provided for American?s entering retirement. Coming away from the great depression, most folks became very receptive of economic recovery programs put in place by the government. Without haste, the federalist Democrats jumped at the opportunity to generate massive sums of imaginary assets which the government has summarily squandered away. In fact, the entire Social Security program has been nothing more than system of smoke and mirrors and is built entirely on issuance of IOUs. In order to generate more assets than payouts, the system originally set the age of benefit eligibility at 65. In 1935, the average life expectancy was only 63. At the time of its inception, this ensured that more money would be flowing into the system than flowing out. What?s more is that for decades, congressional politicians have deceived the public into believing that the system was some sort of ?lock box? or a ?trust fund? where the money you contribute into the system would be paid back upon retirement. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The fact is that after a lifetime of paying into this so called ?trust fund,? not one penny of that money has ever belonged exclusively to the contributor. The government retains ownership of the money and after your death, the rest of those ?trust funds? get spilled right back into the system. In short, the whole damned thing is based on yet another classic socialist model of wealth redistribution.
Not surprisingly though, for decades after this massive government rip-off was put into motion, nobody with half a brain bothered to stop and crunch numbers in order to foresee the projected shortfalls in the system. For one thing, the life expectancy of those becoming eligible had increased substantially and continues to rise as medical technology evolves. In the beginning, there used to be several workers paying into the system for every retiree drawing benefits from it. As the average life expectancy increases, more retirees become eligible to draw from the system and at the current rate, it won?t be long before there are more beneficiaries than there are payees. Nor did anyone foresee the drastic drop in the rate of population growth. Off the top of my head, two contributing factors come into play here. First, as a result of the feminist movement, more and more women are choosing to enter the career work force instead of committing to what was commonly known as the traditional family model consisting of a working father and a mother staying home to care for several children. Secondly, nobody foresaw the legalized murder of 30 million unborn children at the hands of the abortion industry. Just think; if it weren?t for abortion, the Social Security program might not be as much of a problem as it is today. Simply put, the system was inherently flawed from the start in that it would always require a consistent population growth which unfortunately is just too far removed from probability.
For the past 70 years or so Democrats have been using entitlement programs like Social Security to maintain their status quo in Washington by continuing to promise government handouts to the largest segment of the American voting population, namely the poor and the working class. Yet, despite the fact that Social Security is destined for bankruptcy, they continue to support the concept without offering reasonable solutions to fix it. So as to maintain the program, the only solution the Democrats ever come with is to raise taxes in order to keep it solvent. Yeh, that?ll work. Just continue steeling more and more from hard working Americans in order to keep a failed entitlement system afloat? right. In all fairness though, even the Republicans ? who traditionally stand for personal responsibility and less government oversight - have continually refused to overhaul or scrap the Social Security program altogether. They know the system can?t be stopped on a dime because so many Americans have been forced to buy into the system and in the end they have absolutely nothing else to fall back on. If the Republicans yank the carpet out from under those people, I guarantee they wouldn?t have a prayer of keeping their majority in Washington. It?s sort of a ?catch 22,? now isn?t it? Unfortunately, there?s just no easy way out. And another thing, why is it that the windbags on Capital Hill get to opt out of this failed socialist system, but we can?t? They just keep voting themselves raises and, in addition, have the comfort of retiring with a pension plan appropriately nicknamed ?The Golden Fleece? where after retirement, they get to continue receiving the same pay they got while in office until they die, not top mention the occasional increases from time to time due to cost of living adjustments. There?s something seriously wrong with that whole idea, but I digress.
The only reasonable way for us to crawl out from underneath this ridiculous mess - started 70 years ago by Congressional Democrats - is to turn ALL ownership of retirement savings over to the hard working individuals who fight to keep this country?s economy alive. While this can no way be accomplished overnight, President Bush has come up with some at least one very good idea to get the ball rolling in the right direction. By allowing workers the option to take a very small percentage of their Social Security contributions and put them into private investment accounts (either stocks or bonds) it would give them personal ownership of at least some of their retirement savings. However, it shouldn?t stop there. Congress first needs to stop raiding the Social Security system in order to pay for special interest pork. Next, they need to cut out the tremendous amount of wasteful spending in the budget including most of the other ridiculous entitlement programs still in effect so as to pay back all the funds they previously stole from the system. Finally, there needs to be incremental increases in personal retirement ownership. I?m not sure how it would work out in the math, but there needs to be an annual increase in the percentage of total Social Security contributions going into personal accounts so that individuals can eventually own all of their retirement savings and although I?m opposed to most government oversight, there should also be a certain amount of regulation in place which would limit the investment options on those private accounts in order to prevent substantial investment loss. However long it takes, there will eventually come a day when every penny of Social Security contributions will be privately owned. In the end, those who work their whole lives building up their retirement savings will finally be able to enjoy the fruits of their own labor and not have to depend or live off the sweat of others.
If you hadn?t noticed, I didn?t cite a single dollar amount or statistic or mention anything about the national debt or inflation or yadda, yadda, yadda? There?s already more than enough financial research and information available on this subject available out there to anyone brave enough to risk having their head explode. I would also say to let those numbers speak for themselves, but to rely on one accountant?s projections for the future of Social Security is pure folly. Let?s face it folks, this crap doesn?t really require an MBA or freakin? degree in rocket science in order to see what?s been going on here. It?s simple common sense! Our successful economic society was built on the principles of personal ownership. If you bust your ass for a living and strive to improve your personal economic status, then you deserve to reap the benefits of your own hard work. Without that incentive, you are simply left to rely on the hard work of others in order to survive which is inherently wrong to begin with.
