Our politicians consider our Social Security payments as an entitlement, making it sound as if it were a gift from the Government, which they can reduce or eliminate at will. Nothing could be further from reality. Our social security payments are the contractual repayments, by installments, of money we have advanced, interest free, over many years, in fact a working lifetime, to the Government. The Government has borrowed from this fund, repeatedly, interest free, over many decades, and has never repaid this debt. The Government’s debt to this fund is well over two trillion dollars.
Why this great urgency to plan unilateral changes now? The Government has already spent all of the surplus Old Age and Security Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance ( DI) taxes collected, and has evidently no intention to repay this debt. If the Government were to meet their legal obligation of repayment of their debt, the fund could meet its obligation until about 2042. And, if corporations were not rewarded for exporting the jobs of the American worker, more people would support the OASI and DI funds through their payroll deductions for these funds, and thus these funds would be viable beyond the 75 year horizon. Moreover, the wages of the American worker have been kept very low over the years, and even reduced in some cases, thus reducing the sum of money collected by the Government, again working against the viability of these funds.
Why is the American worker’s wage compared to workers of other countries, who do not have to live with high living expenses, as we do in the USA, including the highest medical expenses in the world? The American worker is made to feel guilty for demanding a living wage; why is this so? These unsociable giant American corporations are not satisfied with raping, and abusing foreign workers in other countries, they are now importing their inhuman practices to the USA, and if the American worker refuses to step back to the middle ages, they employ their Government patsies, whom they have bought before, to bring the American worker to his or her knees. Already State Governments are eliminating the rights of workers, in accordance with the wishes of their masters, the money donors to their political careers.
We, the people, were given no choice, we are taxed, by force, to pay into these funds specifically, and now they want to reduce our contractual entitlement, and change the contract unilaterally. Unlike Canada, who do provide Old Age Security payments to their citizens, without having taxed them expressly for it, we, here in the USA, bought our benefit payments with our tax dollars, specifically for that purpose. Now if the Canadian Government, for example, wished to change the Old Age Security formula, it would be understandable, because it really is a kind of a gift from their Government. Canada has a separate coordinated pension system, to which workers contribute with payroll deductions, and nobody messes with that, and neither must the US Government mess with our paid for OASI, and DI benefits. In fact, September 2011 the President proposed to cut Medicare by nearly 250 billion dollars, an attack on the most vulnerable, the aged, who supported the country all their lives.
How long will it be before we all realize that we are abused by our Government and their benefactors? Other nations took forty years or so to understand that they, the people, were had; how much longer do we need to get the message? Wakeup America! Most of us think, if we go and participate in elections every so often, we did our duty. Wrong! All we did is legitimize the frauds in office, at any level, to abuse us some more. Let us look at the recent bailouts of the financial institutions. The Government took our tax money (money from the victims) to bail out the crooks on Wall Street and anywhere else from where they operate. They did not bail out any of the homeowners, who made an honest mistake to buy a home they could not afford, simple because they were told, by the financial industry, that they could. Nobody went to jail, while the ordinary citizen lost his job, his home, including his or her self-esteem. The masses were blamed for their engineered economic disaster, which helped to transfer the assets of ordinary people to the crooks in the financial industry.
The homeowners affected, for the most part, are still in trouble, and have lost everything, simply because they were not too big to fail. The financial crooks are all doing well again, and pay themselves large salaries, and super large bonuses. Our Government has, in essence, rewarded these criminals with our tax money. As stated earlier nobody went to jail, because of this massive fraud. All of a sudden they feel that our retired citizens have it too good, and can well afford to have their contractual benefits slashed. After all, we have the world’s best Government money can buy, and did these crooks buy our Government, and stole our democracy in the process. To rescue and protect our democracy we must do more than just vote these characters into office, we must keep them honest, by watching every move they make, and set them straight, when the veer off course.
We are renown, around the world, as a people, who are dumb, fat, and happy. Well, we are not dumb, we may be a little overweight and we sure as hell should not be happy. What are we to do? For one, let your representative know that if he or she votes for taking away our right to receive our money back in retirement, they may as well resign now, because we will recall them, and surely not vote for them again.
"No taxation without representation" was the cry during the years between 1750 and 1760, and spawned ultimately the American Revolution. Well, we are at this stage again; we are taxed without representation. Our Government has sold out to special interest groups, who send their agents (read Lobbyists) to Washington to buy favors from our representatives sitting in Congress, Senate and the White House. If you are in doubt about that, just look at those who got bailed out recently, it was not people like you and me, that is for sure.
We can use the Social Media to educate our friends and neighbors, and to email or call our representatives, and let them know that we are mad, and we will not tolerate abuse anymore.
It’s OK to use these media for all the fun things we seem to enjoy, however, these tools are giving us also the power of serious communications. Our national elections are just around the corner, now is the time to turn the tables and put pressure on those who wish to represent us, while filling their pockets. Let them know where you stand. Once they are back again in the saddle, they can do a lot of more damage, by eliminating, or cutting down our legal rights. Do not let them do this to us, and our children! Use the Social Media (and email) to give a wakeup call to your relatives, friends, neighbors, and your representatives.
Facts on the Social Security Fund: (http://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/index.html) - A SUMMARY OF THE 2011 ANNUAL REPORTS
Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees
From Wikipedia: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Trust_Fund
“The trust funds run surpluses in that the amount paid in by current workers is more than the amount paid out to current beneficiaries. These surpluses are given to the U.S. Treasury (and thus become part of the general federal budget) in exchange for special U.S. government securities, which are deposited into the trust funds. If the trust funds begin running deficits, meaning more in benefits are paid out than contributions paid in, the Social Security Administration is empowered to redeem the securities and use those funds to cover the deficit.”
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Entitlement is a guarantee of access to benefits based on established rights or by legislation.
Entitlement - right granted by law or contract (especially a right to benefits); "entitlements make up the major part of the federal budget" (thefreedictinary.com)
Entitled - qualified for by right according to law; "we are all entitled to equal protection under the law"
