[P-40]

But the fact of the matter is that who's on the SCOTUS has almost as little direct effect on the daily life of the average person...

If you can say that, then you really have no understanding of how the decisions of the Supreme Court manifest themselves in about whatever you choose to do each day.

you don't actually pay into medicare

Yes, I do. And the payment my employer makes 'on my behalf' only gets made if I show up to work each day.

The government really is not as secretive as you make them out to be. In fact, it can be quite open. The problem is that so few people are interested enough to take a look at what goes on from time to time.

[discostu]

Read the rest of that sentence, I outline how SCOTUS has an effect on your life without being a DIRECT effect. There's a difference between manifestations and DIRECT effect.

No you don't. You yourself do not activly give money to medicare, your employer pays money on your behalf. If you directly pay it show me the check stubs.

I said nothing about secretive, I said large and many faceted. Every single year during the budget argument somebody in Congress complains that the budget is too large and they can't possibly read the whole thing. Everything the fed gov does has a budget line that appears somewhere in that budget, but they don't read it all, if the budget of the government is too large for them to read all of then the actions of the government are too large for them to know them all, and if they don't know what the government is doing then they can't know how the government works. And if the guys that are supposedly in charge don't know how the government works then you and I certainly don't have a clue.