The Entitlements are government programs where government takes property from one person to give it someone else. There is absolutely no clause in the Constitution that gives this power to Congress. The Achilles for all of the entitlements is Social Security, a mandatory program. Congress has no Constitutional authority that allowed it to create this program, and in a "free" country it defies reality for Congress to be able to require the participation in its mandated retirement scheme as a condition for gainful employment in America. WE don't live in the Soviet Union or even western Europe.
How do we get rid of the entitlements? Make participation in Social Security an individual personal choice for every American. WE must continue to pay the benefits to every person already enrolled in Social Security who chooses to stay enrolled. And if FICA taxes to do not cover the promised benefits, all shortfalls must be made up out of general revenues to the government.
Those who have already paid in, but choose to opt out, should receive zero coupon bonds with staggered maturities based on their payments into Social Security or the benefits they have already earned. Once an individual elects to opt out, they get to keep the employee part of the FICA tax that would ordinarily be paid to the government, while the employer's half of the tax payment continues to go to the Treasury to fund current and future beneficiaries.
My guess is that everybody under 35 will opt out, those up to 55 may choose to stay in or opt out as they see fit. Most over 55 will probably stay in Social Security, but over three or four decades, maybe less, most Americans will choose to opt out and Social Security is likely vanish from the face of the earth.
Unlike Social Security, government simply cannot pay promised Medicare benefits. It is not economically or politically possible. Default is inevitable. Without Social Security as a protector, Medicare can be phased out completely in less than five years. The same is true for every other entitlement program.
Cheap labor has always been available throughout the world. China and India could have had booms such as they have been enjoying in recent years at any time in the past. Capitalism is the engine of economic growth. Capital accumulation and growth require savings and especially benefit from compounding. Social Security began in 1935. Every dollar ever collected under Social Security has been spent immediately. There has never been any savings or trust fund. And more importantly there has never been any compounding. If Social Security had been managed like a real retirment annuity the compounded savings available to fund American jobs would be unimaginably large. Who shipped our American jobs to China and India? The Democratic Party with its mandated Ponzi scheme that funds consumption instead of savings, compounding, and capital for job growth that would have allowed American workers to be more productive with higher paying jobs than any other workers anywhere else in the world regardless of the low wage scales elsewhere.
It is the "entitlement" programs that are the source of America's economic malaise. The outsourcing of American jobs that has been occurring on a gradually expanding scale is the direct result of the loss of compounding that has not occurred because of Social Security. It is time for every Democratic politician to explain to their constituients why Social Security is a MANDATORY program in a free country and why the Democratic Party wants to continue a program that exports American jobs to China and India.
Ping.
Actually both the Dems and the “GOP Establishment” favor “BIG GOVERNMENT”. The only difference is to what degree of BG.
The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300 American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.Source.
yes, the democrat plantation is totalitarian.
WHOA! OUTSTANDING post and GRRRRREAT thread. You’ve really nailed this one, Vintage Freeper!
Hat tip to you Vintage Freeper.
WOW!
BUMP!!!