To make your straight talk meaningful, the 'whole fleets of 20-somethings' need to pay into Social Security...and they need to not be welfare leeches. Neither of those conditions exist today.
Posted on 03/13/2006 12:17:02 PM PST by cope85
Free Inside Every 'Guest Worker' Plan: A Ticking Social Security Time Bomb. Barbara Anderson
March 8, 2006 ‘Yessirree, ladies and gents, step right up. Get yer 'guest worker' elixir with secret ingredient that will fix what ails ya. Goes down smooth and easy and costs just pennies a day.” So say the snake oil senators trying to sell this poison.
Every “guest worker” program (read amnesty) plan being advanced in the Senate has in it provisions for acceptance into the Social Security program the millions of illegal aliens who have managed to sneak into the country and can “prove” with dubious documents that they have worked here for some length of time. Nobody knows just how many of these workers there are, as nobody is allowed to ask a person’s citizenship status when applying for welfare benefits, for instance. The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is applied by most government agencies. The Bear Stearns estimate is 25+ million. This is just for the workers and some family here, but there are many more waiting in Mexico for the word to come. These other family members are the recipients of the $20 BILLION dollars sent home, and out of our economy, to Mexico from the U.S. last year. If they choose not to come, they may still be eligible for benefits from the primary worker’s “right” to Social Security benefits. Thus, they may be eligible for Social Security benefits even if they have never lived in the U.S.
SSA is an Executive branch agency whose director is appointed by the President. Director Joann Barnhardt is so eager to give U.S. Social Security benefits to Mexicans that she signed the U.S.-Mexico Totalization Agreement in July 2004 and built an SSA building in Mexico: sort of a branch office, paid for by American taxpayers. Barnhardt is among our many civil servants who can’t keep accurate records. She told the Senate that her agency isn’t able to prevent fraudulent wage transfers for years prior to 2004. Her solution: give away benefits paid for by citizens of this country to people who don’t deserve them.
We are not entirely in the dark as to how this amnesty would affect Social Security. In 1986 we were sold the same elixir. We don’t hear the leading salesmen, Ted Kennedy, Orrin Hatch or John McCain, who are touting the 2006 rerun of amnesty, bragging about their 1986 votes. In 1986 we were promised that amnesty would be given to 300,000 illegal aliens, and that would be the final, final amnesty. The reality was that the final count was nearly 3 million. Well, we know how things just grow in the atmosphere of Washington, D.C. when you take your eyes off them. The “one-time” amnesty showed INS and SSA knowingly accepted massive numbers of fraudulent rent receipts, earning records and birth records. The country is now awash with fake I.D. and other documents produced by entrepreneurs who seized on the lax requirements of businesses and government for these documents.
When an illegal alien attains legal status, whether by marrying an American or by “guest worker” program, that person is issued a genuine SSN. It is used to earn future wages and Social Security credits, obtain public funded benefits, financial aid for education, and the list goes on. That new SSN enables the illegal alien to retroactively access wage credit for money in the Earnings Suspense File, even if they were using a bogus SSN or “borrowing” a valid SSN assigned to someone else! It’s the little bomb in each and every “guest worker” program.
Even with a speeded up program, one can imagine the literally millions of illegal aliens in line applying for a SSN, who will be given first priority at SSA offices, bogging down the system for legal American workers. Those already in the system can look forward to their benefits being handled in a much less efficient way, unless an enormous amount of new personnel is brought in to handle the hordes of new people being enrolled in the system. Even that remedy will ensure chaos because of the vastness of the task.
However, the same people who are saying we don’t have the means and personnel to track down those who are here illegally, are perfectly willing to accept the enormous task of trying to determine…….who are allowed benefits.
By law, if an illegal alien had bogus pay stubs or W-2s (making up numerous names and SSNs) from 1980-2000, and was given amnesty OR became legal, we would have to give them “credit” for those 20 years of illegal work. Considering the money at stake, both in past Social Security payroll deductions and future benefits, can anyone doubt that these illegal aliens will do all possible to lay claim to “wage credits” and FICA deductions for the SSN they’ve been fraudulently using? Does anyone suspect they might also try to take wage credit that doesn’t belong to them?
This little bomb is currently in every guest worker plan, no matter who is pushing it: McCain, Kennedy, Hatch, Craig, Domenici, Specter or any of the other senate panderers. If you see your senator in this lineup, you should be especially indignant, since these are the main pushers, but there are plenty of others poised to join them, if their constituents don’t make too much noise. Republicans pander to their contributors who love cheap labor, while Democrats are already counting the heads of those they think will be voting for them. Oh, did I mention that voting rights come along with this little package, once they are deemed legal.
How many years have we been hearing that Social Security is going broke? Younger people paying into the plan have all but given up any hope of ever seeing anything of what they have put into it. Older people have had a false sense of security about the safety of their benefits, it seems. With 25+ million (including beneficiaries) coming onto the rolls of Social Security, who can doubt that all benefits will be sharply curtailed.
The Senate is developing its immigration bill right now. There is a strong push for “guest worker” (amnesty) provisions to be added to, or replace, the commonsense bill passed by the House, which has no Social Security provisions in it. Every senator knows the pernicious effects such an amnesty will have on the country, mostly on low-wage earners and the middle class. It was known in 1986 when it was passed with the promise it was a one-time amnesty, but the same mindset that promoted and allowed amnesty in 1986 is rampant in the Senate today. Senators who will vote for this know what will happen, but are keeping quiet about it as they did in 1986. Are your senators among them?
Giving amnesty to several millions of illegal aliens, which automatically entitles them to future AND PAST Social Security would be like throwing anchors on a sinking ship. This ship is named the U.S. Social Security.
To make your straight talk meaningful, the 'whole fleets of 20-somethings' need to pay into Social Security...and they need to not be welfare leeches. Neither of those conditions exist today.
The population has NOT stabilized, it is blowing through the roof. Mostly from the illegals themselves and they are proving to be a BIG disappointment, they are, in massive numbers, not even compleating high school. They are becoming a entire sub-cluture of second class non-citizens. Even the anchor babies will be denounced as unworthy of true citizenship as they were an illegal chip in the game. They will contribute little to the SS system. They will ALSO over-populate and when the "illegals boom" goes to retire whatcha gonna do then? Import illegal Martians?
The entire concept of importing cheap slave labor to push into the SS scam is simply delaying the collapse to a point of absolutely no recovery. What you suggest is going to vaporize America into a Balkanized, divided culture, war continent.
With that to look forward to, a general deportation order resulting in caravans and trainloads of illegals headed south will be nearly picturesque.
With that boogie-man out of the way we can look at some realistic solutions to SS. But to extract a tooth by chewing dynamite is not something to suggest to the common sense purveyors of this posting site.
It is, it's just not being enforced. See my profile page for the specifics. - OB1
Unlike the millions of Mexicans that could bamboozle their way into SS system and drain the funds payed by legal US citizens, Americans retiring in foreign countries do not suck at the teet of those nation's government funded retirement systems. Besides, if a Mexican's aim was to retire to a place where the cost of living is lower as you state, they wouldn't retire to the US, they'd stay in Mexico! (Unless you're implying that by coming to the US and leeching off of SS their cost of living would be less since we would be funding their retirement.)
I'm retired and would rather live in a rooming house than spend my retirement years in Mexico,Costa Rica,or The Philippines.
All beautiful places but there's no place like home.
Nail on the head!
The two real reasons for not stopping the invasion are the bail out of SS and Mexico would have a revolution in less than a year, likely with Marxists taking over. Those are the two 600 lbs gorillas sitting in Washington that no one will talk about.
What is really needed is SS reform and reform in Mexico, but that isn't the easy route...
I will say this, it's telling President Fox informed the American people of the SSI totalization agreement a full week before the GWB administration did.
Very well said. I get tired of trying to explain to people that these immigrants will be the ones funding our Social Security checks. If not for them - the system would soon run out of money.
The illegal has to have the check stubs and prove that he is the one that was paid/deducted. The employer records have to confirm. The Social Security Administration has to confirm.
That's right and even then, as some well know, the SSA may not provide benefits.
The only way to rescue Socialist's Security is to return it to the program of which it was originally founded and not a societal fix-all.
Adding more who will expect increased benefits with increased promises only postpones the day of reckoning.
Completely false analogy.
Then let it! SS is just a giant ponzi scheme anyhow. Why simply delay the inevitable, at which point things would be even worse? What kind of logic is that? Fix it now, or end it. Stupid ideas about allowing millions of new immigrants to fund SS and pass the day of reckoning down to our children because politicians were too chicken-s**t in the past and in the present to reform it are absurd.
Depending on the illegal Immigrants to bail us out is about as responsible and as short term of a solution as attempting to bail out a sinking boat that has sustained a massive hole beneath the water-line. The first course of action must be to staunch that crippling leak! Then we must remove that stagnant water, not attempt to drink it.
Your post is wrong and crazy. The Muslims are not going to bail out the Europpoan social security system and the Mexicans and other 3rd worlders flooding the USA (legally and illegally) won't bail out our SS system. This is sheer fantasy.
The Muslims in Europe are net parasites on the the European social welfare systems and same for the 3rd world hordes that invade the USA. Sorry but they are invading hordes and these hordes formed a mob in Chicago a few days back with a huge demonstration against the House bill on immigration that would build a fence on the Mexico border. Plenty of Mexican flags were flown at that rally
It looks like we'll be having a lot of uneducated young adults with kids of their own. Must be time to expand our welfare programs.
Teen pregnancy rates high among Hispanics
March 13, 2006
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - There's no definitive reason Hispanic teenagers have the highest teen pregnancy rate in the state and in the nation, but some New Mexicans are coming up with theories.
[snip]
Disgusting and traitorous sell out
Nice site you have. Whose job is it to enforce this law? Any Congressional oversight? Feingold? The only recourse seems the ballot box.
No, the little bomb inside the Guest Worker/Social Security Totalization Agreement is that Mexican illegal aliens are allowed, under the terms of the agreement signed by Bush's SSA, is that:
1) A Mexican illegal alien is allowed to apply for, and receive benefits after having worked for only 6 quarters (18 months) while US citizens only become eligible after 40 quarters (10 years)
2) A Mexican illegal alien is allowed to apply for, and receive benefits for his Mexican national wife and Mexican national children, even if his wife and children have never stepped foot in the USA.
How many wives and children can a Mexican illegal alien have?
When the GAO reviewed the SSA visit to Mexico, they had a lot to say about the SSA's methodology and it wasn't complimentary.
In short, anyone who trusts Bush or the Republicans on anything to do with illegal immigration is an idiot.
A lack of transparency in SSA’s processes, and the limited nature of its review of Mexico’s program, cause us to question the extent to which SSA will be positioned to respond to potential program risks should a totalization agreement with Mexico take place. SSA officials told us that the process used to develop the proposed totalization agreement with Mexico was the same as for prior agreements with other countries. The process—which is not specified by law or outlined in written policies and procedures—is informal, and the steps SSA takes when entering into agreements are neither transparent nor well-documented.
Current law does not prescribe how SSA should select potential agreement countries. According to SSA, interest in a Mexican agreement dates back more than 20 years. SSA officials noted that increased business interaction between the two countries due to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was a factor in the renewed negotiations. In addition, because there is a totalization agreement with Canada, our other NAFTA partner, SSA believed that equity concerns required consideration of an agreement with Mexico. In February 2002, SSA sought clearance from the Department of State to begin such negotiations.
The law also does not specify which elements of other countries’ social security systems must be evaluated during totalization agreement negotiations. SSA officials met with Mexican officials to exchange narrative information on their respective programs. Senior SSA officials also visited Mexico for 2 days in August 2002. During their visit, these officials told us that they toured social security facilities, observed how Mexico’s automated social security systems functioned, and identified the type of data maintained on Mexican workers. SSA took no technical staff on this visit to assess system controls or data integrity processes. In effect, SSA only briefly observed the operations of the Mexican social security program. Moreover, SSA did not document its efforts or perform any additional analyses then, or at a later time, to assess the integrity of Mexico’s social security data and the controls over that data. In particular, SSA officials provided no evidence that they examined key elements of Mexico’ s program, such as its controls over the posting of earnings and its processes for obtaining key birth and death information for Mexican citizens. Nor did SSA evaluate how access to Mexican data and records is controlled and monitored to prevent unauthorized use or whether internal and external audit functions exist to evaluate operations.
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