Posted on 07/03/2011 4:03:53 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
One of my earliest memories of revulsion against war came from seeing a photograph from the First World War when I was a teenager. It was nothing gory. Just a picture of a military officer, in an impressive uniform, talking to a puzzled and forlorn-looking old peasant woman with a cloth wrapped around her head.
He said simply: “Don’t you understand, madam? The village is not there any more.”
To many such people of that era, the village was the only world they knew. And to say that it had been destroyed in the carnage of war was to say that there was no way for them to go back home, that their whole world was gone.
Recently that image came back, in a wholly different context, while seeing pictures of American seniors carrying signs that read “Hands off my Social Security” and “Hands off my Medicare.”
They want their Social Security and their Medicare to stay the way they are — and their anger is directed against those who want to change the financial arrangements that pay for these benefits.
Their anger should be directed instead against those politicians who were irresponsible enough to set up these costly programs without putting aside enough money to pay for the promises that were made — promises that now cannot be kept, regardless of which political party controls the government.
Someone needs to say to those who want Social Security and Medicare to continue on unchanged: “Don’t you understand? The money is not there any more.”
(Excerpt) Read more at newhampshire.com ...
I’ll repeat it on every SS thread — anyone under 50 who thinks they will see a dime of SS is nuts. It is just a tax that goes for nothing.
Medicare, OTOH, is a bigger mess because of the mandate to use it.
“But, but... I “paid in” to the “trust fund” all my life. “They” deceived me and I at least want my “contributions” back.”
I just thought I would get the obligatory nonsense defense of intergenerational theft out of the way early on this thread.
I’m also looking forward to the 57 ways that will be proposed for “fixing” the system, none of which would ever be adopted or would change the underlying moral problem. SS, Medicare, and a host of other unconstitutional programs need to go. Unfortunately, we lack the character as a people to save ourselves.
Bullsh!t!
A socialist driven government via politicians have screwed ALL Americans because of their lack of concern for the Constitution from the Wilson era on forward!
It was Roosevelt that took it to the hilt and and hammered a coffin nail hard into the Constitution.
It's the people voting that allow it to progress.
They were screwed when they voted for Obama....
SS should be only for those that paid into it or their stay at home spouse in the event of the primary accounts death.
It being raided for polidiots projects an pandering to peons an punks has fooooked it up.
Be diverse in you investments an savings for your retirement. Don’t depend on goobermint because they will screw you every chance they get IMO ....
“we lack the character as a people to save ourselves.”
- Speak for yourself. - My husband, almost 68, and I, almost 65, paid OUR MONEY into the SS system for many, many years. We still work; still pay income taxes.
Yes. We made CONTRIBUTIONS, not “contributions”. We’re willing to make any adjustments necessary NOW to get things corrected; willing to work, willing to forego Medicare paying all our medical bills, willing to back off on collecting from the system until later years - although husband is already the 67 they’ve made noises about changing filing dates to due to increased lifespans they haven’t dealt with.
Actually, YOUR granny & grandpa paid into the system. Then in an “intergenerational theft” not then understood fully, YOUR granny & grandpa “drew” out of the system while WE were having hunks of OUR money drawn out of our paychecks, by force, but not that we resented it - although it was OUR money that we worked hard to earn. Just as much as YOUR money is YOUR money now.
See, we were YOUNG once, too, believe it or not. We worked hard, made good money, and paid YOUR granny’s & grandpa’s Social Security.
Tweak the system, fix it, quit RESENTING us. Quit electing these Democrat Socialists who delight in forming as many welfare queen voting blocs to bribe for votes as they can. HOP TO IT and shut up!
***...politicians who were irresponsible enough to set up these costly programs without putting aside enough money to pay for the promises that were made — promises that now cannot be kept, regardless of which political party controls the government.***
But they DID! Here is what was said from the SSA web site in 1964.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssa/usa1964-2.html
Self-Supporting
“The program is designed so that contributions plus interest on the investments of the social security trust funds will be sufficient to meet all of the costs of benefits and administration, now and into the indefinite future—without any subsidy from the general funds of the Government. Both the Congress and the Executive Branch, regardless of political party in power, have scrupulously provided in advance for full financing of all liberalizations in the program.”
And here is where your hard earned money went. Read and weep!
http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/ProgData/fundFAQ.html#n4
Payable by the FULL FAITH AND CREDIT of the US Government. That is TAX money confiscated from the youth of America.
And then this little diddy from 1939..
THE OLD AGE PENSION CHECK
Roy Acuff & His Smoky Mountain Boys - 1939
When our old age pension check comes to our door,
We won’t have to dread the poor house anymore.
Though we’re old and thin and gray,
Good times will be back to stay,
When our old age pension check comes to our door.
When her old age pension check comes to her door,
Dear old grandma won’t be lonesome any more.
She’ll be waiting at the gate,
Every night she’ll have a date,
When her old age pension check comes to her door.
Grow a flowing long white beard and use a cane,
‘Cause you’re in your second childhood, don’t complain.
Life will just begin at sixty,
We’ll all feel very frisky,
When our old age pension check comes to our door.
Powder and paint will be abolished on that day,
And hoop skirts will then be brought back into play.
Painted cheeks will be the rage,
And old maids will tell their age,
When their old age pension check comes to their door.
All the drug stores will go bankrupt on that day,
For cosmetics, they will all be put away.
I’ll put a flapper on the shelf,
Get a grandma for myself,
When her old age pension check comes to her door.
There’s a man that turned this country upside-down
With his old age pension rumor going ‘round.
If you want in on the fun,
Send your dime to Washington,
And that old age pension man will be around.
Well said. I wonder if people would feel like it was wrong if we just “settled” for getting back all that we paid in, possibly adjusted for inflation. It would still be sort of a loss because we didn’t have the use of our money all that time and the ability to do something with it to make it grow. Still, I bet many would settle for just getting back what they put in.
You’re 65 years old and your screen name is “Twinkie”?
OK.
Medicare recently sent one of my M.D. clients 27 separate checks for 27 different patients in 27 different envelopes accompanied by 27 separate pieces of paper explaining their calculation. Each check was for amounts ranging from $.12 to $.19 and was an adjustment for payments previously made for patients seen between January and March 2010 - a year and one-half ago. Does anyone in DC know or care how much it costs for the government to process, generate and mail a check for $.12 and how much it costs for a doctor’s office to process, record and deposit a $.12 check? Everyone participating in this decision should be fired! Just one of a thousand ways in which the government is grossly inefficient.
I keep hearing that there is no money for the old folks who were forced into the S.S. program. So ask the Iraqis for a little money. They have vast amounts of oil and a few billion every month above the 12 billion being spent every month would more than make up for the S.S. deficit this year.
I’m sure the Palestinian Suthority could stand a cut in taxpayer funds too.
Authority that is.
Good post.
LOL... Haven’t you ever heard that a “Twinkie” will last forever.
Possums, not so much.
Hey Twinkie, good job on that post.
The real, catastrophic problem is that the Federal Government is spending about $1700 BILLION per year more than the revenooers collect, and Congress is talking about nibbling a few pennies off the edges here and there and claiming it's major progress.
- Speak for yourself. - My husband, almost 68, and I, almost 65, paid OUR MONEY into the SS system for many, many years. We still work; still pay income taxes.
if you have any morals, you won’t accept a penny more than you are confident that those who are funding your requirement will receive in their retirements. (Note that those who will be poor elders aren’t paying much in now. You’re living off the earnings of those who will be means tested out of it.
I suggest you promote reform, or your golden goose will DIE.
Fix: (at risk of being called a “Marxist”)
Mandate year to year break-even solvency. No borrowing, and no being borrowed from.
Achieve this by floating the retirement age, means testing, and SSI reform, in whatever combination proves politically palatable.
Option: surpluses that would lead to lowering the retirement age below a certain threshold could be rebated to the taxpayers, so baby-”busts” don’t unduly profit with early retirement when taxpayers don’t have the same hope.
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