Posted on 08/30/2009 4:04:48 AM PDT by Kaslin
This has been the "Summer of the Senior" in America.
While the health care debate has raged, senior citizens have been front and center at town hall events, challenging their representatives to explain how Obamacare will affect Medicare and pressing them to shoot straight about whether a "public option" will result in health care rationing or "comparative effectiveness" policies (what Sarah Palin has termed "death panels").
In the midst of the turmoil, America's seniors learned this week that, for the first time ever, they will not be receiving a cost-of-living adjustment to their monthly Social Security benefit. The reason for this is that the Social Security Administration bases its cost of living adjustments on inflation, and inflation has been negative this year. Nevertheless, many senior citizens are becoming anxious on news of a cut in their benefits. That anxiety is only a pale foreshadowing of what is yet to come.
According to the latest projections, Social Security will begin paying out more money than it collects in 2016 and will become totally insolvent in 2037. Medicare is estimated to go belly up in 2017?two years earlier than previously projected.
The bottom line: America's two largest entitlement programs?programs upon which millions of seniors rely for food, shelter, and medical care?are severely broken, and something's got to give. Without true reform or drastic action that will likely involve some combination of tax hikes and benefit cuts, America's seniors and rising seniors (the first of America's 77 million baby boomers turned 62 in 2008) are facing a grim retirement scenario.
Most people agree that government has an obligation to provide some sort of social safety net for America's elderly citizens. And most will also agree that something ought to be done to save these programs in one form or another. People differ sharply, however, over how to skin the cat.
One thing is sure, however: The U.S. Government's track record in managing Social Security and Medicare does not inspire confidence. Our elected officials have squandered our retirement benefits by raiding funds that should have been set aside and saved for their intended purpose, and these same representatives have failed to implement responsible reforms in anticipation of the coming fiscal crisis. One can only wonder how Congress and the President have the audacity to suggest that the government now take on the responsibility of managing health care for the entire population when they can't even manage programs designed to care for those over 65.
The American people must decide what role they want the government to play in their lives. Have we come to the point that we now want to be a cradle to grave nanny state? If so, let's not kid ourselves. Government "entitlements" come at a high price. You don't get something for nothing. More entitlements mean higher taxes, bigger government, and less freedom. If individuals refuse to exercise the responsibility and discipline necessary to provide for retirement security and adequate health care coverage, rest assured, government bureaucrats will be more than happy to step in and do it for them. But we need to be prepared to forfeit a significant chunk of our money and our liberty to Uncle Sam.
On the other hand, if we decide (as we used to believe) that competition and free market mechanisms are the most effective ways of allocating resources and meeting people's needs, then now is the time to explore alternatives to the federal dole.
In spite of the fact that our payroll taxes earn an average return of only about 2% compared to the average return of 5.5% on a well-diversified investment portfolio, efforts to incorporate an option for personally-directed retirement savings accounts have gone nowhere due to an overblown fear of stock market volatility. That's true even when we take into account present market conditions. Believe it or not, even during the 20-year period that encompassed the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression, investment returns still beat out Social Security, averaging 3% after inflation. Nevertheless, our government would have the American people believe that they are incapable of coping with the risks associated with investing for themselves. They would have us believe that we're all better off just trusting the government to manage our futures for us.
Well, the government has taken that trust?just as it has taken our hard-earned tax dollars?and driven it into the ground, along with our future and the future of our grandchildren.
Instead of blindly following America's Pied Piper into a maelstrom of insolvency, mismanagement, and corruption, the time has come for us to take a chance on ourselves again. Ask anyone who has ever saved up to buy a car or a home or to fund their child's education?without taking out a loan?and they will tell you that taking ownership over one's own life and future yields returns that are far more valuable than any entitlement check from the government.
This Administration and its allies in Congress have made clear the direction they want to take the American economy and way of life, and they are pushing full-steam ahead to see that their big-government visions are realized. If the American people don't wake up?and soon?the opportunity to reclaim the future of this nation may pass us by for good.
In the midst of the turmoil, America’s seniors learned this week that, for the first time ever, they will not be receiving a cost-of-living adjustment to their monthly Social Security benefit.
But ALWAYS over the decades it has been Republicans and greedy conservatives who “don’t care about you and who want to take your benifits”. So much for caring and compassionate Zerohopeychangey.
...and they are the ones who will be killing Senior Citizens. Once that demo understands what is really going on, there will be hades to pay.
Just like when GWB was demonized for trying to enhance SSI.
The sad part of that?
GWB wanted to take 4% of the contribution and allow you to invest in the same 7 403(b) mutual funds Teddy Kennedy had in his "TSP".
Where as Bill Clinton's proposal was almost identical, he wanted 5% but to put it in an Index which Greenspan nixed, yet the Dem's eviscerated GWB.
The problem is, this should have all been done ten years ago.
We all know it is to broke to fix, actuarially we cannot grow our way out of this. Just give us a President and a House and Senate that will tell us the truth and that they need drastic cuts and will be a shell of their former programs.
It is the lying and the Shell Game of Obama Care to create another one to hide the problems of the other that really pisses us off royally. We are adults, we can take the truth, honestly....
Bush's plan for investing a percentage of the employee's SS funds in a stock of his (the employees) choice was an excellent plan. The problem was Bush didn't market the idea correctly to get it passed. Had he pointed out what Johnson had done, why it was done, and that the reason the democrats refused to support the idea and pass legislation was because it would preclude the ability of the politicians to use those funds. Otherwise stated, there would be no access to our retirement funds.
Now what the rumor is that they are lusting after 401K plans and the like to try and get their hands on those funds to manage for us.
Save a few, DAMN FEW, It's time to vote almost every one of the present crop of buffoons out! This compromising and deal making is destroying this country.
So why are food prices shooting up?
“If individuals refuse to exercise the responsibility and discipline necessary to provide for retirement security and adequate health care coverage, rest assured, government bureaucrats will be more than happy to step in and do it for them. But we need to be prepared to forfeit a significant chunk of our money and our liberty to Uncle Sam.”
Most responsible Americans willingly assume this responsibility. The liberal establishment would drag the majority down to provide cradle to grave “entitlements” to the “victims” who refuse to stand on their own feet.
Yes, Social Security is a socialist concept, but why after 40 years should someone who has (willingly or not) “paid” into the system expect to receive anything less than what those yearly Social Security statements promised? Oh I forgot - a government promise is no longer worth the paper it’s printed on.
Obama wants to cut $200 billion from Medicare but says benefits to seniors won’t be cut. Is it any wonder no one believes this guy anymore?
This is one of the strategies our trustworthy government will use in an attempt to slow down runaway deficits - at the expense of those who have “played by the rules.” Understate inflation to limit social security and military pensions, and destroy the dollar through actual inflation (the stealth defacto tax hike). All the while we give billions and trillions away to those who have not earned a dime.
Posted here about a week ago was a blogger that noted a Dem Women Congress-Critter saying something about comingling State Pension Funds in the Black w/ SSI, in other words taking those funds as well.
You make a good point about comingling with the general funds.
That is another 300 billion or so in cuts needed to balance the annual budgets.
No matter house to slice it, it looks like it is too late and a $H!+ storm is coming, what form it will take is the question.
They need to get to their Republican hdqtrs and get to work. I am encouraging every retired person I know to get to our local office and volunteer. I also advise them to question how the absentee ballots are received/counted and how voters are identified on election day.
It may not be ACORN but our retired seniors could be their own small army and do a lot to stop the voter fraud in their community.
The price of Frito Lay tostitos and other such has come down. They didn’t lower the price but increased the weight per bag by 20%. The unit price declined
Social Security is not called the “lethal third rail” of politics (touch it and you die) for nothing. Seniors already reeling from the revelations that Obamacare will relegate them to cuts in medical care and eventually death panels will now see no COLA in their Social Security checks for the next two years. They will be mad as heck and blame Obama and Congress. I imagine that future town hall meetings, for any members of Congress with the spine to hold them, will now see masses of angry seniors demanding increases in the Social Security checks.
I have to actually say that for the first time in my life I fear for my country. We have a president who I believe would at the drop of a hat for any reason declare Martial Law. And then ......... that "$H!+ storm" you referred to would happen. It is said, but I haven't verified this, that Obama's buddy, Bill Ayers, said 25 million would have to be killed before their form of government could prevail! Think about that little jewel of a statement and the group with whom Obama surrounds himself!
Congress has the power to review of the policies and people Obama surrounds himself with but it will not be done by any over-site committee as long as the Democrats control everything. The only question is will they ever do it? I believe you know what the answer is to that ........ the dirty little cowards will do as they always have done: Nothing but screw the country! Ergo, no remedy with congress.
What appears to one alternative is that for someone with standing to bring suit on the questionable constitutional policy issues in the Federal Court system. This is still a nation of laws irrespective of what some people may think and legal countermeasures can be taken.
Inflation is more than just food prices. Houses and computers are much cheaper, but how many seniors are buying these?
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