I'm not sure what it'll be called, but I'm pretty sure Parker Brothers will get the production contract.
Posted on 04/11/2010 5:52:05 AM PDT by Kaslin
For all the zany goings-on up and down his pant leg during orations by President Obama, Chris Matthews’s political vision can still sometimes be acute.
Matthews is the liberal host of MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews.” A partisan Democrat, he has run for political office, worked for four different Democratic congressmen and written speeches for President Jimmy Carter. After his political stint, Matthews spent more than a decade as a reporter and liberal columnist before becoming a TV talking head.
Last week, talking to David Corn of Mother Jones (and no doubt several viewers from across the country), Matthews crystallized the political debate raging in America today:
The problem is that we don’t think in terms of what would the country be like if we didn’t have Medicare for our parents as they get very old — in their eighties, for example, when they’re still alive, and they need health care, a lot of it. And they don’t have any source of income. They’re not working every morning. They’re not making a paycheck. What would it be like in this country? Calcutta? Poor people all over the place? Old people lying in the streets? I mean, we don’t think about what it would be if we didn’t have health care, if we didn’t have Social Security for people at the age of 65, if we didn’t have unemployment compensation, if we didn’t have a progressive income tax. There’s a lot of things we don’t think about. And the right-wing just pounds and pounds away at this idealistic notion of a cowboy country, everybody self-reliant. I think the progressives, for all their power on the blogosphere, have not done a positive case for the advantages of some kind of a social state.
So let’s think in precisely the terms Matthews suggests. Before Medicare was instituted, were elderly folks “lying in the streets?” Were there “poor people all over the place?”
Simple answer? “No.”
Families, friends and neighbors took care of each other. Like today, the system wasn’t perfect; no one actually lived forever. But even today, with or without government programs, my and my wife’s parents will never be living on the street, unless that’s the best my wife and I can manage for ourselves.
Matthews fear-mongering works only as a smokescreen to opaquely touch up history, which in turn dissuades people from considering the fact that before Medicare and Social Security people did regularly live rich, full, long lives. Sure, before federal government programs folks had to be more self-reliant, or rely more on family, neighbors, churches and local communities — and no doubt needed and received more voluntary charity from medical caregivers.
But as Ed Morrissey put it plainly: “America existed before Medicare, and it wasn’t Calcutta West.”
Perhaps all this says more about Chris Matthews’ grasp on reality than it does about Social Security or Medicare. He leaves a lot from his picture. He leaves out fraternal organizations that proliferated before the disaster of the Great Depression — and the disaster of AMA influence on American policy. He leaves out the actual mechanisms people used to prepare for their illnesses, retirements, and (yes) deaths. (And no, they weren’t cowboy institutions.)
Bigger yet is the monster in the room, the elephantine monster he won’t recognize. Matthews waxes eloquent on Social Security and Medicare without any recognition of the dark cloud of bankruptcy for both programs. Just last week, this column addressed the stark fact that this year — not seven years down the road where our Social State politicians have kicked the can — Social Security hits the wall, with more benefits being paid out than taxes being paid in.
Social Security, up until the '80s reform, and then since, has had more money coming in than going out. This allowed Congress a source of revenue from which our so-called representatives could “borrow.” And spend. Since the '80s, to the tune of $2.5 trillion. But that’s just the tip of the insolvency. There is $15.8 trillion in unfunded liabilities, looming on the rapidly approching horizon.
Worse yet, Medicare is bankrupt, too. Michael Tanner, an analyst at the Cato Institute, says that Social Security’s insolvency “is dwarfed by Medicare’s looming budget shortfall of between $50 and $100 trillion, depending on which accounting measure is used.”
Matthews, like so many progressives, doesn’t seem to actually understand that we can’t tax ourselves to prosperity. Wealth can be forcibly redistributed, certainly, but such policies have an almost magical ability to decrease the amount of wealth in the overall economy, not increase it.
A corollary is that we cannot provide ourselves benefits that we cannot afford to pay for. And, no, sending the bills, plus interest, to future generations isn’t morally defensible. (Isn’t it odd how progressives talk about what we owe future generations only in terms of saving the environment, never in terms of saving them from our wanton government spending?)
Nor is this reasonably even possible any longer. We are the future generation! The bill collector is coming to the door for Social Security, and Medicare won’t be sustainable for much longer, either.
The wonders of a Ponzi scheme like Social Security are many-fold as long as more money rolls in the door than has to be paid out in benefits. But when the income isn’t there to pay for decades-old promises to the elderly, the program won’t look nearly as stellar.
Then we’ll remind Matthews and other Social State supporters that older folks, in their eighties, won’t be as able to go back to work to boost their income. Self-congratulations won’t cut much, then. Neither will dark fantasies about massive pain and suffering.
For the dark fantasies will have become reality, courtesy of our politicians’ own obstinate and unthinking support for a “social state” rather than a free republic.
People like me, who lived frugally and saved for retirement will be screwed when Social Security is means-tested.
The grasshoppers have taken over the government.
Oh, dude, I’ll be set when they means test. Unless I somehow manage to keep my house.
The Socialists always say how great the entitlement programs are. They neglect to mention they are absolutly bankrupted.
We are all screwed.....
.....I've been saving for retirement, but the amount isn't what it was and by the time I retire I'm guessing the government will have confiscated my money and forced me on a government retirement system.
.....I am one payment from owning the house free and clear. I have been avoiding luxuries to do this. When they means test, it will work against me.
.....We will all be on the Obamacare system, forced to accept high premiums with no care if they deem you aren't worthy of keeping alive.
.....At present, there is a good supply of Physicians in most areas. With Obamacare, it will devolve into a Physician shortage with all of us having to travel to the local "free clinic" and wait endlessly to see "Physician #8" who does not know you.
Calcutta, here we come...
Unfortunately, Chrissie's wit is too dim to comprehend that this is the future of the U.S.A. if he and his fellow "progressives" (a misnomer, of course--"decadents" would be a better word--"fools" an even better one) succeed with their agenda.
"I mean, we don’t think about what it would be if we didn’t won't have health care,...Social Security,...unemployment compensation..."
What we will have is Calcutta.
The U.S. economy will be destroyed. The states--starting with California--will be bankrupt. So will the federal government. And Americans will be living in a police state.
Fools like Matthews are more dangerous than the scoundrels whom they empower. At least it's possible to appeal to a scoundrel's self-interest.
Look at the reality ... without being taxed every which way to Sunday, people would be able to save hundreds of thousands of dollars over their lifetime (15% of $40K per year is $6k; times 30 years worked is $180K), and thus be able to put away enough to take care of themselves.
Cry me a river Matthews. People work, people save with 401k’s etc. Your beloved FDR started this mess.
Try to hang on to a pillow and a blanket or two. Just to take the edge off of lying in the streets.
And look on the bright side: Most of the old folks won't have been kept alive; so the streets might not be all that crowded.
If the ruling class wants to dig out of this mess then means testing will have to be part of that, along with opt-outs for the young and a sunset date. But the truth is they don't want to and the half of society that pays nothing doesn't want to either. Medicare and SS and now Obamacare will just keep grinding on until the financial system seizes up. By then, the huge Boomer demographic will have passed. The dollar will be scrapped and the debt denominated in it will be repudiated. I wonder what the new currency will be called?
Amen.
I worked my butt off, saved all my money, and bought some dirt. Then I worked weekends clearing land and getting a well and septic in. Drew my own plans and designed my house myself to save more money. It is a square box with nothing fancy to keep costs down.
I Poured my footings, laid every block,and stucco.
Had some help with a few trades, but most all work I did.
Construction is dead so I have taken a pisspoor job that pays me about 9 bucks an hour.That means I can no longer afford my 500 dollar a month HC.
I saved and worked my ass off instead of buying new toys, trucks. (I have a 12 year old truck with 215,000 miles on it.
Bottom line is I cannot afford HC and the evil gov.con will not give it to me because I actually did the right thing.
I should have drank, drugged, partied and bought junk with my FRN. Then I could get food stamps and welfare.
The fedgov.con is evil from the top down and needs to be defunded.
My biggest nightmare is inflation. I have a defined benefits pension which is fairly generous, but it could be wiped out by inflation. I feel I throughly earned it. I could have made more money working as a job shopper but liked the idea of deferred payments in retirement when I would be in a lower income bracket. I also paid off my mortgage and contributed the max to my 401k. I was one of seven kids and put myself through college and worked my entire life. I’ve had a job continuously since I was 14, or as Obama would say, I won life’s lottery and now have to give back to the losers (like my siblings who more or less quit working when they were in their fifties and never saved a nickel) who “deserve” my money more than me.
Matthews uses anything but logic to pimp socialism and it’s king Obama no sale.
We'll get a good laugh at Matthews and his ilk. We must remind each other (in the midst of all the misery) to see the humor.
The culture that created a society of caring people who cared for the elderly and those who are less fortunate has been destroyed by decades of erosion. The erosion came in the form of liberalism, TV, materialism, the sexual revolution, rock and roll, etc. There has been a wide scale dilution of and an abandonment of our Judeo-Christian heritage, beliefs, and traditions.
There is only one way our country can become great again and that is if there is an evangelical movement that results in true repentance and devotion to God and a realization that we utterly depend on Him.
I'm not sure what it'll be called, but I'm pretty sure Parker Brothers will get the production contract.
Well said!
But when Chrissie and his fellow "progressives" succeed in destroying the U.S.A. and the greatest economy the world has ever known, people like you and me will say, "To hell with this!" and, in stead of working hard and burning the midnight oil, will loll on the beaches and get on welfare.
I damn sure will!
And why not? I didn't work hard because I liked to. And if everybody else it getting a free ride--I'm going to get on the free-ride bandwagon myself
(Before you do, stash a few cans of krugerrands under the house, to get you to Tahiti when America becomes the hellhole that Matthews is too stupid to foresee.)
I agree, KM. It's very well said. But I can't take the credit. Chrissie Matthews said it himself. Unfortunately he's too dumb to grasp the meaning. ~S
We are similar. I'm about 14 years behind you, but I see bad times ahead for old people even if they had saved money and worked for a pension.
We are on a collision course with economic collapse. Nothing is safe and no amount of savings will be enough.
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