No doubt several billion dollars a year can be traced to illegals using stolen Social Security numbers, but "greatest savior"? Please.
Posted on 09/17/2007 6:03:22 AM PDT by John Galt 72
Liberal Social Security Reform: Evil Is As Evil Does
By Matt Carrothers
September 17, 2007
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) penned an opinion column in the September 13 Wall Street Journal outlining his new plan to eventually save Social Security by creating new programs to help Americans save money for their retirement. The lies and hypocrisy throughout Emanuel’s column are richer than Grandma’s chocolate cake.
Emanuel begins with the easily refuted but oft-repeated lie that “American families are working harder than they used to and making less.” According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, however, hourly compensation in both the non-farm and manufacturing categories has increased every year since 1997. Further, in every year since 1998 the percentage increase in compensation has exceeded the increase in hours worked in both sectors.
Undaunted by the government’s own facts (likely dismissed by liberals as the “Bush Labor Statistics”), Emanuel then argues that “An estimated 75 million working Americans lack access to an employer-sponsored savings plan.” Yet another farcical saw from the leftist elite. In reality, every American has access to a retirement savings plan. Anyone can contact a broker and set up an IRA. Emanuel’s lament that some Americans lack access to specifically employer-based retirement plans exposes his socialist belief that some organization, be it a government agency or employer, is responsible for providing cradle-to-the-grave benefits to U.S. citizens.
Emanuel calls his plan to save Social Security “Universal Savings Accounts.” Employees would contribute at least one percent of their paychecks to an investment account similar to the Thrift Saving Plan federal employees already enjoy. Additionally, the poor would receive a taxpayer-funded match to their contributions called a Saver’s Credit since, as Emanuel writes, “low-income workers have the hardest time saving for retirement.”
Low-income workers lack savings accounts and live in relative destitution not because they have few financial resources, but because they are ignorant and make incredibly stupid lifestyle decisions.
An August 27 Heritage Foundation study found that 97 percent of poor households own a color television, and over half own two or more color televisions. Sixty-two percent of the poor receive cable or satellite television services. Eighty percent of the poor live in air conditioned homes. Rates of illiteracy, unemployment and out-of-wedlock childbirths are always highest among the poor.
The Emanuel plan was clearly designed not to impede the impending Social Security bankruptcy, but to let liberals keep their holy Social Security program – in reality, a back-door income tax – with no changes. In return, Americans would have the option to invest in a retirement program designed by Capitol Hill politicians and bureaucrats. No thanks – I’ll take Manhattan.
There are two key reasons liberals from both political parties want to extend the life of the Social Security sham. First, the payroll tax dollars paid by employers and employees do not go to a retirement account with your name on it. Payroll taxes go to the Treasury’s general fund, available for spending on any bridge or rain forest Congress desires. Second, monthly Social Security checks maintain citizen dependence on government by reducing the amount of money controlled by individuals.
Still, Emanuel seemingly does not understand why some Americans cannot save money for retirement. He writes, “Over the past 30 years, we have offered a blizzard of tax initiatives to encourage individuals to save for their retirement. Last year, we spent $125 billion in tax subsidies to encourage retirement savings. Yet the national savings rate has plummeted.”
Are Rahm Emanuel and his ideological cohorts so intellectually dense that they honestly believe taking money from taxpayers will increase the national savings rate?
It is important to understand that liberals are not necessarily as ignorant of basic economic principles as Emanuel’s column indicates. Surely anyone knows that if he has more money in his pocket he has greater liberty and an increased ability to save for the future. No, the liberal elites are not ignorant – they are purely sinister. Only a person motivated by liberalism would rather rob Americans of their wages through taxation and wonder aloud why the savings rate is so low than admit his true intentions: replacement of our free market economy and representative republic with a socialist regime.
Writer Ann Coulter once posed the following question in a column: “Are liberals evil or just stupid?” Many conservatives struggle with the answer to that question. Conservatism is based on the principles of logic and reasoned analysis. Conservatives maintain an optimistic belief that most other people are similarly motivated by the truth, and can be convinced of the truth with a logical, reasoned argument. If we present the facts of policy issues to our liberal friends and politicians they will realize their untenable positions and agree with us.
That belief is both naïve and dangerous.
Political elites who advocate an ideology that aggressively suppresses the inherent desire of the individual to utilize his gifts for maximum economic benefit are evil by their very nature.
© 2007 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.
Let’s end the biggest Ponzi scheme in human history once and for all.
I think this idea that Americans are not saving is a shell game or illusion that comes from not counting the high growth opportunities wer are favoring. As usual, the libs are just making up issues as they go along. Unfortunately, we have some real problems to address,
The greatest savior of the Social Security System so far has been the open borders which have brought an influx of dollars to accounts (stolen social security numbers) being credited dollars by illegal aliens that were already being used by someone else and only one person can receive benefits from that account. This has produced huge surplusses to the accounts that have double or even triple users. It is an unintended consequence of the phony border security of the Bush administration.
No doubt several billion dollars a year can be traced to illegals using stolen Social Security numbers, but "greatest savior"? Please.
Geez, 180 billion is not chump change.
these liberal revolutionaries keep raising taxes and then blame the system for people being in debt, not having enough for education, and on and on and on, ad nauseum.
if you add up consumer debt, it would probably be suspiciously close to the income tax rate.
(and they say they love the “little guy”. what a bunch of arrogant, self-serving totalitarians.)
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