Posted on 04/02/2005 5:12:36 AM PST by HankReardon
An end to America many of us enjoy and love seams near. The trends are frightening.
Immigration poses a huge threat. Using current rates of birth and immigration (legal and illegal), our Census Bureau calculates all races in the United States will become minorities within 45 years. Coalitions of third-world immigrants may then dominate. Such occurences, some watch-dog organizations contend, will likely lead to conflict among the cultures and open revolt.
An estimated 12 million foreigners are here illegally. Many receive services without paying taxes. Their presence is causing hospital closings because of required, unpaid treatment, the reoccurence of communicable diseases, additional school levies for multilingual instruction, higher costs of incarceration, above normal crime rates, increased gang activity, pockets of squalor in housing, welfare provisions for them ahead of citizens, and lower pay for residents competing for jobs. Besides, the government permits the hiring of illegal aliens without penalty, making a mockery of "the rule of law."
Despite polls showing the public's desire for curtailing immigration, President Bush vowed to continue former President Clinton's desire for a multicultural society. But Bush is pushing far ahead. His latest agreement invites more illegal immigration by providing Social Security benefits to any mexican who worked here, either legally or illegally. Never mind that they are largely uneducated and that Mexico's leader wants them here.
If congress approves, our cost may exceed more than $550 billion. Are our interests being neglected?
Congress shares responsiblity. Legislative action taking trillions of dollars from the Trust Fund occurred mostly during Bush's tenure.
Yet, the politicians give themselves hefty pay and retirement benefits while earmarking $23 billion for pork projects such as ski resorts, a gay and lesbian center, and animal waste management. Don't expect a presidential veto, however.
Our national debt, money owed mainly to Asian countries, is also unprecedently large under Bush. Exacerbating concerns of economists about bankruptcy and our nation's loss of respect worldwide, an unpopular war and other costly involvements abroad, the dollar's precipitous decline internationally, a balance of trade no longer favoring the Untied States, the budget sharply curtailing services for citizens, and a deteriorating infrastructure which studies find will require trillions of dollars to restore.
Can current demographic and economic trends be reversed? That might occur if voters aggressively inform the politicians of desires and replace those (political party aside) who would continue to fritter our country away.
Dr. so and so (Founding President of local community college)
Please add the words partial and voluntary when mentioning the privatization of SS. The democrats have purposefully been omitting these words trying to frighten the Greatest Generation. Their key word seems to be "dismantle".
Well, it's clear that he teaches college - probably a history professor because he doesn't seem to know squat about it.
SS existed pretty much as a Trust Fund until LBJ's Great Society initiative that included the War on Poverty. The Ware on Poverty opened the federal checkbook wider than it had been and allowed people who had never paid into SS to collect money from it. It also allowed the Federal government to co-mingle funds earmarked for SS with general revenues.
Since then, politicians from every party have protected this dirty little secret that they have ALL been involved in robbing SS and writing worthless IOU's. Now that the chickens have come home to roost (payments due, baby boomers retiring), folks are starting to ask where the money is and why a "trust fund" has had several tax increases to avoid going broke? By definition, a "trust fund" should only go broke as the result of mismanagement
So now, Congress, in their usual gutless manner, is blaming taxpayers for the failing economic health of SS. After all, in their world, we wanted the War on Pverty and we wanted them to fund every stupid, pointless, waste of tax dollars on social services for the "poor" and chronically stupid.
But, nothing could be further from the truth. LBJ was just a kindergarten socialist compared to today's crop of college level, Clintonista socialists. Bush inherited the economic mess Clinton left behind (including a failing SS system, something Clinton actually did try to address) but, given the template of the MSM to blame Bush for everything that is wrong with society today, it suits their needs to ignore the truth and blame Bush for SS's woes. And, those woes began in the 60s, when Bush was still in high school.
But, given the communist agenda of today's embedded "educator" class, facts are never allowed to get in the way of pushing their cause.
There is NO trust fund and has not been since LBJ and the democrats passed a law allowing Social Security funds to be included in the general funds of the treasury.
He did this to pay for the war in Vietnam so he and the democrats could say it was costing nothing.
What the President wants to do is let workers keep some of their own money out of the hands of the government. Politicians believe they have a right to our money and to have their power enhanced by controlling it. That, I believe, is why they are fighting him so hard on this. Imagine, the people get to keep some of their own money and do not have to send it to us. Their heads will explode (I hope).
The SS Trust Fund has been 'raided' every year since it's inception. The govt. each year took the money and spent it, leaving non-negotiable Treasury bods as IOUs.
bonds, not bodies.
How about a Lock Box?/sarcasm
Are you really that ignorant of the Presidents power to appoint activist judges?
Reagan appointed 3 SCOTUS justices. 2 out of the 3 have been complete disasters. I am saying that GWB has no power to attack a specific ballot initiative. He can file a friend of the court brief through his justice dept. He can take sides. But he can't overthrow it.
President Participates in Class-Action Lawsuit Reform Conversation February 9, 2005
Some in our country think that Social Security is a trust fund -- in other words, there's a pile of money being accumulated. That's just simply not true. The money -- payroll taxes going into the Social Security are spent. They're spent on benefits and they're spent on government programs. There is no trust. We're on the ultimate pay-as-you-go system -- what goes in comes out.
I report, you decide. /faux Fox
Well actually you could say 1. O'Connor was a fulfillment of a campaign promise to put a woman on the court.
Kennedy's seat should be held by Robert Bork, but Chappaquidick Fats and the democrat controlled Senate borked Bork.
QA From the SSA web site:
"Is there really a Social Security trust fund?
"Yes. Presently, Social Security collects more in taxes than it pays in benefits. The excess is borrowed by the U.S. Treasury, which in turn issues special-issue Treasury bonds to Social Security. These bonds totaled $1.5 trillion at the beginning of 2004, and Social Security receives more than $80 billion annually in interest from them. However, Social Security is still basically a "pay-as-you-go" system as the $1.5 trillion is a small percent of benefit obligations."
muir_redwoods wrote:
"What there is, is a pile of government IOU's called treasury notes obligating the government to pay itself back at a future date. Obviously a failure to repay cannot be pursued legally because no entity can sue itself."
Very true that there is no "lockbox" or similar entity to raid. The beef with President Bush would be that he has allowed debt to accumulate that would prevent the government from repaying its treasury bonds. This might not be prosecutable, but wouldn't it be a huge blow to the American position in the global financial markets? The government has issued treasury bonds to many citizens and to foreign financial institutions. What would be the financial results (especially globally) of the U.S. government refusing to honor these bonds issued to the Social Security Administration? Wouldn't it be a rather high-profile alarm alerting other countries to stop financing U.S. debt?
$7,776,939,047,670.14
Now, where did I put that check book......
Ah, well. A trillion here, a trillion there and pretty soon you're talkin' about some real money! ;)
Well, since the Social Security Administration is part of the "U.S. government," I don't think the situation will ever be allowed come to that. Congress will either raise taxes, borrow money, or cut Social Security benefits (or, most likely, some combination of the foregoing) so that the issue of one part of the government "refusing to honor" it obligations to another part of the government never comes up.
Go to the Statistical Abstract of the U.S. at:
http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/04statab/fedgov.pdf
Scroll down to Table No. 461. Federal Budget—Receipts, Outlays, and Debt: 1960 to 2004
Look at the column headed "Federal Government Account". That column represents a cumulative total of the money borrowed from the trust funds - mostly from Social Security - and the interest that is promised on the borrowing.
You can scroll to Table No. 468. Federal Trust Fund Receipts, Outlays, and Balances: 2001 to 2003, and see the breakdown between the various trust funds. If you really want to track the SS trust fund you can go back to previous issues of the Statistical Abstract.
Previous issues (back to 1995) can be found at:
http://www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstract-04.html
You want to look at Section 9.
If there was a wholesale default on treasury bonds and other obligation instruments it would be a huge blow to the US economy but if the government defaulted on notes it owes to itself there would be far less of an impact. I leave it to philosphers to explain the concept of an entity bearing a debt to itself.
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