Do you believe our federal government is competent ? Do you think it's doing a good job of solving our problems ? Are we getting our money's worth ? Let's run through a checklist.
The government declared a war on poverty about 45 years ago. How'd that work out ? We may not have an exit strategy from Afghanistan yet, but you'd think we'd have one for the war on poverty after all these years. Nope.
What about the war on drugs ? We've put a lot of American citizens in prison on drug charges, giving us the highest incarceration rate in the world here in the land of the free, but drugs are still everywhere. If you want to find illegal drugs in America, you don't have to look very hard.
How about the problem of illegal immigration ? I bet you didn't know that the government fixed that problem back in 1986 with the Immigration Reform And Control Act. Listen to this excerpt from the signing statement from that Act, and tell me if it sounds at all familiar to any discussions of the issue we are having today:
In 1981 this administration asked the Congress to pass a comprehensive legislative package, including employer sanctions, other measures to increase enforcement of the immigration laws, and legalization. The act provides these three essential components. The employer sanctions program is the keystone and major element. It will remove the incentive for illegal immigration by eliminating the job opportunities which draw illegal aliens here. We have consistently supported a legalization program which is both generous to the alien and fair to the countless thousands of people throughout the world who seek legally to come to America. The legalization provisions in this act will go far to improve the lives of a class of individuals who now must hide in the shadows, without access to many of the benefits of a free and open society. Very soon many of these men and women will be able to step into the sunlight and, ultimately, if they choose, they may become Americans.
In 1986, we had approximately 2.7 million illegal immigrants. Now the estimate is around 13 million, and we're having the exact same discussions about illegal immigration that we had 23 years ago. Good job, government.
Maybe I'm being too harsh. Some of you might be thinking of all the super neato government programs that have been put in place to help us, like the Social Security ponzi scam, or Medicare, which is going broke. Plus, Social Security and Medicare comprise the lion's share of our unfunded liabilities, which, when added to our stated national debt of $11.7 trillion, make the real national debt around $56.4 trillion (note – the national debt figures are outdated as soon as they are printed because the debt is rising so fast. The real national debt might be over $58 trillion by now).
FYI – If you want to see the startling truth behind the U.S. economy, check out the U.S. Debt Clock. We are becoming a hollowed out shell of an economic power. It can't last. America, as it stands, is not sustainable (and our idiotic mainstream media wonders what all the protesting is about. "It must be racism," they say. Why do they call those media types "the elite" anyway ? They sound like a bunch of imbeciles to me).
Our government has done a bang up job of not eliminating poverty, drugs, and illegal immigration. It has also done a fine job of living beyond it's means and selling us down the river with massive debt that will destroy the hopes of future generations. It was also instrumental in creating the housing bubble that led to the current recession.
So, obviously, the correct path to follow now is to hand another 17% of our economy over to that same government to "fix" health care, right ? I mean, the government has such an excellent track record of solving economic problems (NOT). Much better than that miserable failure known as the free market (that made us the wealthiest country in the history of the world). After all, the free market has failed to rein in health care costs, right ? Wrong. The government has inserted itself into health care to such an extent that the free market isn't really functioning in health care. The government got into health care in a big way in 1965, and it's influence has grown ever since. This is also the same time period that health care costs have spiraled out of control.
I was listening to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) yesterday on television talking about how there isn't enough competition among private health care insurers, how some states are dominated by only a few insurance companies. What Schumer didn't bother to mention was that insurers are limited by law from competing on a national level, across state lines. So, we have the government restricting private health insurance choice on the one hand, and then complaining that there isn't enough choice on the other hand. I don't know how some of these politicians peddle this nonsense with a straight face. Schumer, of course, wasn't advocating to open up competition on a national level among diverse insurance companies. No, because that would make sense. We can't have that. Instead, Schumer was advocating for a public health insurance option, where the government competes directly against the private sector, as if that's even possible. It isn't. Schumer kept saying that government competing with private industry is fine, as long as there's "a level playing field." Schumer said that with a straight face too, somehow. The idea that there could ever be a level playing field between the federal government and the private sector is absurd on it's face, as is Chuck Schumer. A private industry trying to compete with the federal government in health care insurance would be like trying to play a football game against a government team, where the government got to pick the players on both teams, got to pick the referees, got to change the rules of the game after every play, and made your team pay the expenses of it's team. There's little doubt who would win the game with such a "level playing field."
I'd have much more respect for the politicians peddling the public health care option if they'd just tell the truth about it. It's not about "keeping the insurance companies honest" any more than Medicare was about "giving Seniors a choice" in 1965. It's about government control. Don't lie to me and tell me anything different.
{ 34 comments… read them below or add one }
It's difficult to take your post seriously when the free market has been responsible for making insurance and pharaceuticals cost prohibitive for millions of Americans. It's hard to comprehend your advocacy for more of the same free market in health care….when insured Americans are still going bankrupt at record numbers because of….umm….free market driven health care.
Keep preaching that Reagan sermon…..gub'mint is the problem…..despite the fact that Americans want the government to intervene in the busted clustermess known as free market health coverage.
Come on Rev, and admit that you just can't take the fact that what Schumer is pushing is nothing more or less than the first baby steps toward single payer insurance which will evolve into socialized medicine. Of course, anybody who doesn't lean so far left that he had trouble staying upright could see that.
Why is it that you can't talk about that "level playing field" the government talks about? I think the best example of that field and how level it is with government involved I have seen just came from King. That making of the rules, constantly changing them as the game progresses, to fit the needs of one of the players is exactly what Chunk was talking about.
I guess that continual left leaning squeal about free market is all you can come up with. You who believe in government controlled markets like what the Congress is proposing now and calling it a level playing field. We certainly are getting closer to what I have accused you of wanting for years.
Rev,
You have an excellent point except for one thing…..we don't have a free market health care system. We have a government limited health care system….which was one of the points of my post.
I never mentioned Reagan, but if you are for government run health care over private health care, yes, I have a problem with that. Government has screwed up pretty much everything it has ever touched. Why this should be different, I have no idea.
As I reread Rev's post I had to wonder if he is for government peddling pharmaceuticals which would involve contracting the production of them or doing it themselves. I think that anybody who read King's words with and care would see what the probable outcome of either of those scenarios would be. Calling what we have "free market" is a real stretch, as I see it. With the amount of "government" control we have in that area I think we can see what would happen.
More about that free market and the pharmaceutical companies would include the probably "dirty deal" our leader probably made with them when he met with that group of them in secret in the White House a few months ago. I wonder what took place in that meeting. Could it have been something at least as nasty as Cheney's heavily talked about meeting with energy producers in the White House? Probably!!!
The profit motive has resulted in miraculous improvements in American healthcare, Reverend. The American pharmaceutical industry in particular has produced a dizzying array of lifesaving and life improving products. It's expensive for us, but we have the finest healthcare in the world and our research and products are improving the lot of people, rich and poor, all over the globe. It's undeniable.
I find it quite humorous that those who advocated government-run health care fail to note that, even in countries where health care is run by the government, most people feel it necessary to get private insurance. 90% in France (http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/wn_20090718_3933.php ), 40% in the Netherlands ( http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/healthy-mixture-of-public-and-private-medicine-714512.html ), around 15% in the UK, and I can't find a number for Canada, but I know that it exists even there ( http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/30/canada-sees-boom-private-health-care-business/?test=latestnews ).
In the name of ensuring that everyone has equal access to health care, many countries have created an environment where the poor get one kind of treatment, but those who can pay for it (and pay dearly) get much better treatment. Meanwhile, in the US, we've got a president and Congress who are pushing for a system that they never plan to use, to provide substandard care for all, instead of just a few! I don't like other people deciding what's best for me, especially when what they say is best for me is an option they won't use for themselves.
Interesting portion at the of the Independent article provided by Tory Bug:
"Although the government has no direct control over the health budget, it publishes indicative figures for growth, set last year at 2.4 per cent, with specific amounts allocated to cut waiting lists and pay for expensive new drugs. Despite the strong performance of the economy, concern about rising costs has led the health minister, Borst Eilers, who is a doctor, to propose new restrictions on the cover provided by basic health insurance. Adult dental treatment, cosmetic surgery and alternative medicine are already excluded and physiotherapy is limited to nine treatments (except for chronic conditions such as arthritis).
This has provoked a heated debate in the Netherlands. Dr van Dyk said: "When dental care was insured by the sickness funds it cost 400m guilders a year. Since it was cut and cover provided by private insurers, that figure has risen to 800 million guilders. You can say the collective burden has gone down but the costs have gone up."
I find that interesting, too, jimmy james. I guess the Netherlands couldn't afford to pay for all the services they wanted to offer. Or maybe the doctors couldn't provide the services for what the government wanted to pay? Either way, that's a very good way of pointing out that, even in countries where universal health care exists, it's being pared way down, because the government can't afford it.
Tory,
Good point. Lots of people on Medicare purchase supplementary insurance too, like through Medicare Advantage plans, such as the one offered by AARP (which could explain their support for ObamaCare. A deal, perhaps ?)
As to the point of public procedures being cheaper than private procedures in the Netherlands, we have the same situation in the US. Medicare pays a lower rate for health procedures than private insurers do for the same procedure. The reason is because the government sets the price for Medicare. Ask any doctor why privately insured prices are higher, and they will tell you it's because of Medicare's artificially low prices. The doctors must charge everyone else artificially higher prices to offset the loss they take on Medicare patients. If they don't, the doctors won't be in business.
I was unaware that people supplement Medicare, honestly, but it makes sense that they do. Can't believe that, with all the research I've done on this health care issue, I didn't realize that.
Our government should be aware of the full extent of what idealism is going to get private citizen and the government into. I see a giant, hungry black hole now when I think of universal health care. Believe it or not, I was open to the idea before I began getting informed on the subject.
I'd like to see us reduce costs and get as close to universal health care as possible. I just don't agree with the way it's being done in the ObamaCare plan(s), and I don't want to see the government take over. That would be a giant black hole, as it is everywhere else it is tried.
Mr. King,
The war on poverty ended with LBJ's presidency. The war on drugs failed for many reasons, some as predictable as our experience with Prohibition. With the CIA using drug smuggling as a means of acquiring off the books money, and various presidents using interdiction money as a means of keeping compliant despots in power, the war on drugs has failed to keep addictive substances in check. Meanwhile, we keep jailing pot smokers, ressulting in those incarceration rates. The Immigration bill failed because conservatives blocked enforcement of employer sanctions, preferring protection for business and pressure to keep wages low. We've gone over the Social Security "ponzi scam" which became an unfunded liability when conservatives spent its continuing surplus to provide tax cuts for the rich. The housing bubble occurred because conservatives gutted the economy through their "free" trade policies. A nation which can no longer produce goods for trade is doomed to manipulating the economy to produce bubbles to provide the illusion of economic success. The limits to Medicare's success were all the results of conservatives ensuring that its coverage would be limited.
Perhaps you notice a common thread in all of this. It is the conservative faction (Democrats and Republicans) which has stymied, abused, and tried to render these programs ineffective. They have succeeded. When they can't kill a program, they water it down and then say, see how incompetent g0vernment is.
Jeez, frank. So many falsehoods in one short post. I should give you an award for deception.
frank says, "The war on poverty ended with LBJ's presidency."
Really ? When were LBJ's policies revoked ? Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Head Start…those are all gone now ? I must have missed the press release.
frank says, "The Immigration bill failed because conservatives blocked enforcement of employer sanctions"
Okay, now you're just trying to make me laugh, right ???? Yes, as everyone knows, it's conservatives who are FOR illegal immigration, lol. Where do you get this stuff ? From The Onion ?
what I'm thinking here is since the CIA did such a bang up job torturing and keeping America safe and all maybe we should put the CIA in charge of healthcare
King, the part of Frnnk's mistakes that gets me the most is his accusation concerning Bush spending the Social Security Trust Fund to give his people lower taxes. I think that if Frank would study the situation a bit more he would find that the practice of spending the SS surplus annually began in the 1950s. Democrats controlled Congress most of that period, at least the last 6 years and it was them that spent that surplus. They couldn't stand seeing all that cash sitting there and not being spent. They needed money to keep paying foreign friends to be our friends and there was, after all, a serious Cold War going on.
Yes, Frank. that spending of SS surplus began with the Democrats in control of Congress. I remember those days quite vividly since I was a 22 year old, left leaning Democrat and just couldn't understand them doing that because they didn't have the guts to raise taxes to buy our friends with. Of course, we the people are more to blame for the spending of nearly $3 trillion of Social Security surplus funds because we kept sending the same people back to DC to continue perpetrating that crime.
I know what all mean talking about a Ponzi scheme but wonder how much money would be in the Social Security fund today getting ready for the Baby Boomers to retire if it had been invested all those years. Why I think that even Obama would be amazed at the number that would be staring him in the face.
All the presidents since Eisenhower, when this policy was established, are guilty of taking part because none of them tried to stop it. Every time I see someone crying about the fact that there won't be any money left when they reach the age of retirement I wonder how many of them know how badly the Congress screwed us and abused FDR's well planned Ponzi scheme that never lived to fruition because of the greed of Congressmen and the stupidity of the voters in this nation. We crapped on ourselves and you people who won't get any money SHOULD be mad as hell and trying to rectify the wrong with some action instead of blaming the whole thing on the "scheme".
roy,
In frank's defense, I read the same bs on a liberal website about the SS Trust Fund being spent in 1982, when, as you pointed out, it began much, much earlier. frank's big mistake is that he believes liberal websites. He doesn't realize they are telling lie after lie in order to make any and all Republicans look bad on every issue, no matter what. That's how he ends up posting stuff like he just did, which contained barely an accurate word.
Conservatives fought tooth and nail against LBJ's war on poverty and have made sure that those programs remain underfunded. As to illegal immigration, when has there been any punishment for those who employ illegals? Hell, the meat packing industry has even sent recruiters to Mexico. I know a few people in the construction and roofing industries who could explain it better, but suffice it to say that neither Reagan, BushI or II, or Clinton did anything against employers. Can you really think that illegal immigration would be so high if there were no jobs here waiting for them?
Ok, on to SS again. Before the 1982 reform, SS was a pay as you go system (what you describe as a ponzi scheme), and the government tweaked witholding rates and the cap to ensure that revenues matched receipts as closely as possible. Whatever surpluses that were generated were relatively small. The 1982 reform changed SS into a system that created huge surpluses by doubling the witholding rate and raising the cap drastically. In fact, it still generates surpluses. This substantial tax increase occured at roughly the same time as the Reagan income tax cut that reduced the top rate by 60%. The SS witholding increase masked the true size of Reagan's deficit and more than negated any middle class benefit of Reagan's "tax reform". Believe it or not, none of this came from a liberal website. I lived through it and recognized it for what it was 27 years ago.
frank,
Stop it. Your killing me with all this crapola. Medicare has cost about 8 times more than Dems said it would, and you are complaining about conservatives underfunding it. What are we supposed to do, increase taxes by about $2 trillion per year to pay for all the future entitlement liabilities ? That's about how much they grow each year.
The immigration E-Verify program to have employers check the status of immigrants was brought about almost entirely by Republicans (with an assist from Clinton in 1997). It's run out of the Dept. of Homeland Security, created by Bush. The pro-immigration groups who oppose it all come from the left.
"Before the 1982 reform, SS was a pay as you go system"
ARRRRRRRGGGGHHHH ! Nothing but lies, but I'm tired of explaining it to you.
Okay frank, I've calmed down a little now. Let me try to explain the problem with SS one more time.
It was NOT, as you claim, a pay-as-you-go-system until 1982. It's still a pay-as-you-go system. SS still takes in more than it pays out. That's pay-as-you-go, but that won't last much longer without more tax increases and/or benefit reductions (to cover up the scam, as has been done about 18 times in the past). Soon, SS will go into the red, and that's when the gigantic scam will be uncovered for all to see, i.e., THERE IS NO SS TRUST FUND. There isn't one because the government spent all the excess SS funds that were not paid out to retirees. They wrote IOU's back to the Fund in the form of T-bonds, but who cares ? Those are not real assets. Because I know you won't believe me, here's the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to describe it:
"These (Trust Fund) balances are available to finance future benefit payments and other Trust Fund expenditures — but only in a bookkeeping sense… They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits. Instead, they are claims on the Treasury that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures. The existence of large Trust Fund balances, therefore, does not, by itself, have any impact on the Government's ability to pay benefits." (from FY 2000 Budget, Analytical Perspectives, p. 337).
That's how the politicians have robbed us blind with SS for decades.
Are we finally clear on this ? I certainly hope so.
Mr. King,
To me, pay-as-you-go means paying for a good or service at the time as you receive it. If, for example, you pay your child's tuition as it comes due, that is pay-as-you-go. Before 1982, SS paid benefits with revenues it was collecting at the same time. After 1982, a huge surplus was collected for paying future benefits. I'd call that paying it ahead, just like if you were to put money away for a child's future education. If you put that money in a bank, what you get in return is a claim against the bank's assets. The bank promises to return your money, plus agreed upon interest, whenever you draw upon that claim. The T-bills are just such a claim, except the bank is the US government. They will have to be repaid from general revenues just as any T-bill, or other claim against the government. As long as that occurs there is no robbery, just the government using the money as a bank does. Now, if the politicians try to draw more money from SS payees or recipients to repay that claim, that would be robbery, just as if a bank demanded you deposit more money before returning your child's education funds. Does this not agree with what you OMB quote says?
Darn. What's it going to take to get through to you ?
Here's where you started going wrong – " After 1982, a huge surplus was collected for paying future benefits"
Nope. No surplus ever existed. SS receipts either paid retirees or went into the general fund and were spent. You can't create a surplus and spend the money at the same time. That's impossible. You are still under the illusion that those T-bills are real assets. They aren't. They are just claims on future taxpayers.
Your comparison of SS to banks is completely invalid. When you give your money to the bank, they invest your money and earn a return. They don't just give it away. With SS there is no investment. The money is just spent. The "interest" earned on the T-bills is an illusion. The payback to SS comes from the taxpayers, who already payed for the original SS funds the first time. The fact that the second time the taxpayers have to pay for the same SS funds, only this time with interest (by redeeming the T-bills), only makes the scam even more egregious.
C'mon, frank. You seem like a smart enough guy. How can you not understand this ? It's elementary.
Mr.King,
I not only have a tendency to be argumentative, I have also been accused of being stubborn. When you give your money to a bank, what they do with it is irrelevant as long as they repay as agreed. That money is spent as the bank sees fit. Again, as a depositor, your only concern is that you are repaid as agreed.
I think the nub of our disagreement is twofold. First, I think you see SS and the Federal government as a single entity. To me, since they have separate revenue sources, and separate expenditures, they are separate entities, at least fiscally.
You also seem to think that since there is no pile of money to be physically transferred, there is no transaction. It seems to me that if that were true, then almost all of our financial transactions would be void. For example, I never saw nor had access to the money withheld from my paychecks for SS. Does that mean that no money went to SS? Does that mean my wage is less than my paycheck say it is?
The T-bills purchased with SS surpluses replaced funds lost to the Federal government through income tax cuts. They are as valid as the ones held by foreign governments, private investors, or anyone else, and should be repaid from the same source, the general revenues of the Federal government. In this way, the burden of repayment would roughly parallel the benefits of the income tax cuts. Those who benefitted more from the tax cuts would also repay more due to the graduated nature of income tax. Those who received less benefit would also repay less.
I won't be surprised if Congress tries to engineer another "reform" of SS in order to shift the burden of repayment back on those who have for the last 27 years been providing this hidden subsidy. I hope you will join in opposing such a move.
Add "wrong" to "argumentative" and "stubborn" and I think you've made some real progress, frank.
Amen, larry. I feel like I'm speaking a foreign language to frank.
Frank says, "The T-bills purchased with SS surpluses replaced funds lost to the Federal government through income tax cuts"
Wrong again. SS funds come from a payroll tax, not from income taxes. The SS payroll tax has never been cut. It has only been raised time and again to cover up the SS scam.
For about the 30th time – The government spends ALL excess SS funds (payroll taxes) not paid to retirees and creates T-bills with it. Until you understand this, there is no reason to have any further discussion. I will only be repeating myself ad nauseum.
But I agree with you about the stubborn part.
As usual, frank has calmly and systematically laid out the facts which King and sidekick larry refuse to acknowledge. That's to be expected.
Shorthand for Dummies…..Reagan ran up a deficit. With me so far? I won't go too fast.
Reagan ran up a deficit, which he partially cloaked by using SS surpluses. Still with me, or is that just too difficult to follow?
Every president followed Reagan's lead…..cloaked deficits by spending all the cash from the SS surpluses, replacing them with T-bills…..known only to conservatives as IOU's…..unless China is holding them, then they're not IOU's……I don't know what the hell they are, but they ain't IOU's if China or Japan is holding them. It's only if SS recipients are counting on them, then they're only worthless IOU's.
If one follows King's and larry's "logic", none of our creditors will ever be paid back……simply because those T-bill-IOU's are worthless…..except when conservatives say they're not.
Hope that helps to explain why it is that a calm, deliberate and systematic overview of facts or empirical date, like frank always seeks to do,……means absolutely nothing to conservatives. Facts DO NOT matter because, by definition, conservatives are right.
larry d.,
The phrase is "wrong, because….". Try again
Mr. King,
I didn't say that SS money comes from income tax. Half comes from employer, half comes from employee as a percentage of income. Income tax is an entirely different thing, going only to the federal government. Although the federal government administers SS, it is fiscally separate and distinct from the federal government. As a separate entity, it used it's surpluses to purchase T-bills. Those T-bills subsidized the federal government allowing the federal government to lessen its need for revenue from income tax, while Reagan cut the top income tax rate by 60%. All I am saying, is that SS is still solvent, and will stay so, as long as the federal government honors its financial committments. When the federal government stops (or is unable) to repay its debt, we'll have much bigger problems than the collapse of SS.
Rev,
LOL. You've become a relentless purveyor of partisan bullshit.
Reagan AND EVERY OTHER PRESIDENT BEFORE AND AFTER him has taken the SS surplus funds, put them in the general fund, and spent them.
"If one follows King's and larry's "logic", none of our creditors will ever be paid back……simply because those T-bill-IOU's are worthless…..except when conservatives say they're not."
I never said our creditors will never be paid back. Way to build that straw man. What I did say was that the SS T-bills are nothing but a claim against future taxpayers. The SS T-bills are not real assets, and that comes from the OMB as well as myself.
You literally can no longer comprehend plain english. I think you have some kind of mental problem brought on by excessive partisanship, and I'm not kidding.
frank,
You've almost come full circle to what I've been saying all along, though for some reason your won't admit I was right. You're still making a couple mistakes, though.
"Those T-bills subsidized the federal government allowing the federal government to lessen its need for revenue from income tax"
This is incorrect. The T-bills didn't subsidize the federal government. The stolen SS surplus funds (annual SS revenues above retiree payouts) subsidized the federal government. The T-bills were the IOU's written back to SS for the stolen money. Those T-bills are not real assets. They are claims against future taxpayers. Do you see the scam yet ???????????????????
"When the federal government stops (or is unable) to repay its debt, we'll have much bigger problems than the collapse of SS."
Those problems are already here. Since when does the federal government pay it's debts ? It's almost $12 trillion in debt, and it just keeps borrowing and borrowing, like the debt energizer bunny. And, of course, by saying "federal government pay it's debts," that just means future taxpayers will have to pay those debts. The path we're on ends in the complete destruction of the U.S. economy (and liberals keep clamoring for more and more spending. Go figure).
I don't know, King. When I count my credit card debt and mortgage as assets I feel a lot richer.
larry d.,
Here's a little lesson in logic. In your example, you are the debtor, just like the federal government. Those whom you are repaying are in the position of the Social Security system.
Mr. King,
As you know, we are in agreement about the unsustainability of deficit spending. But the government continues to pay enough on its debt to not default. The SS surplus was not stolen. It was placed in T-bills, the world's safest investment. The problem is not with SS, it is with the federal government. Unless the government defaults, or somehow classifies the T-bills differently from the T-bills the rest of the world holds, SS will remain solvent long past when the demogaphic anomaly known as the baby boom is history and relative balance between SS payees and recipients is once again the norm.
Larry,
I'm SO happy that someone gets it. I'm exhausted from trying to convince liberals that 1+1=2. They argue endlessly against that basic principle.
*$@@!!@*, frank, you are the death of logic.
"the government continues to pay enough on its debt to not default"
Whether the government defaults or not is dependent ON FOREIGN COUNTRIES. The ONLY reason we haven't defaulted yet is because those countries KEEP BUYING OUR DEBT, because it would hurt them as well as us if they didn't. That doesn't make is wise.
"The SS surplus was not stolen. It was placed in T-bills, the world's safest investment. "
I'm godd*mned speechless, frank. Especially when combined with your previous statement. T-bills are only safe because THE GOVERNMENT CAN STEAL THE MONEY FROM IT'S CITIZENS, no matter how dishonest the government's scam is. WTF.
Are you really that far gone into partisan hell ????
Mr. King,
Yes, we have a strange symbiosis with the foreign countries which hold our debt. They hold so much of our debt, and are so dependent on exports to the US, that we are locked in a sort of Mutual Assured Destruction fiscal relationship. It is bizarre, and certainly not wise. The loss of good paying jobs due to "free" trade, the attendant balance of payment losses, deficit spending due to tax cuts skewed to the rich and government overspending have all contributed to the poor health of the golden goose, the American consumer. If the golden goose is finally killed, our debt holders go down too.
Yes, it's all bookkeeping. No piles of money or bullion or anything else changing hands. But as someone who has worked in a bank surely you have to accept those transactions as legit. I would imagine whatever your job at the bank, you had more transactions on paper than with legal tender. All it means is that the federal government is obligated to repay SS. I would think that since the money will tend to stay in this country and tend to stimulate the economy, repayment to SS would be of less concern than repayment to foreign debt holders.
I've never really considered this a partisan issue. It seems to be one of those things that politicians don't want to address. However, my friend, if you can equate taxation with theft, I think you already know the way to partisan hell.
This is not a partisan issue, but I've noticed that those of a different partisan stripe than I often feel compelled to disagree with everything I say, no matter how illogical they have to become to do it. I don't understand that type of thinking, but that's the way it is, for some reason. Also, for some reason, Democrats cling to the incredible misperception that SS is a great program, when in actuality it is the biggest ripoff ever perpetrated by the federal government. The only good thing I can say about it is – the ripoff manner in which SS is run is not the way FDR originally designed it. That came a few years later.
No, the SS T-bill transactions are not legit. They are highway robbery. They are what sent Bernie Madoff to prison (though his scam was minisculse by comparison).
When you say "the federal government is obligated to repay SS," that only means TAXPAYERS are obligated to repay SS, after already paying those funds in payroll taxes the first time (thus the highway robbery). The taxpayers ARE the federal government in the financial sense.
I don't equate all taxation with theft (though a good bit of it is theft), but the government spending the SS excess revenues and then writing IOU's for future taxpayers to pay….there is no other word for that than theft (or scam, or ripoff, etc).
If you can't understand this after the numerous attempts I've made to explain it, so be it. I give up. I can only keep repeating the same thing over and over, and I'm tired of doing that. Stay stuck on stupid (no disrespect intended, but that's exactly what you're doing).