Fritz
11-06-2007, 09:15 PM
The politicians refuse to acknowledge the 800-pound gorilla in this election. Social Security and Medicare are bankrupt.
The reason for Social Security was never to give people money so they can retire and play 18 rounds of golf with their grandchildren’s money.
Social Security was established as a safety net for when you are no longer able to provide for yourself. It started off with two main parts.
1. Social Security Survivors Insurance was set up to provide for your dependants if you died. This is simple life insurance. Three guys in my college dorm were receiving Survivors payments.
2. Social Security Disability Insurance was set up to provide for you and your dependants if you were no longer able to work. I had a boss who had brain damage in a car crash. He could no longer work. A Physician had to certify him disabled.
3. Some IDIOT decided when Social Security started that it would be easier to “simply declare all people over the age of 65 disabled”. Social Security is paid to people who are too old to work. They are considered disabled. It would be too costly to have each person certified as no longer able to work. The foolish reason they chose 65 was because at the time it was the average life expectancy. Many people would never qualify under the age clause because they would be dead already. Those who did would die after a very few years. Most work was hard labor. Driving a mule drawn plow was hard work. Very few people could do it past the age of 65. Now the average life expectancy is 78. Today most work is sedentary. Most people are able to work long past 78-let alone 65. People collect Social Security for 13 years longer than they NEED it. This is bankrupting our grandchildren. If a coal miner has black lung disease at the age of 55, he is entitled to Social Security. If you want to retire at the age of 55 and play golf all day, you are free to do it-with YOUR savings. You should be ashamed to saddle your grandchildren with debt for your leisure just because you are 65. Can you imagine a 65-year-old man taking out a loan with his two year old grandson as cosigner? Should the kid be responsible to repay the loan when grandpa dies?
Alexis de Tocqueville said: “Democracy will last until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesses from the public purse”. We have figured out we can vote ourselves money from our grandchildren. The Federal debt is staggering. It is not only the official 9 trillion dollars. It is the promissory notes for entitlements. The unaccounted liabilities are very much greater. Some say more than 30 trillion dollars. We are bankrupt. We have bankrupted our grandchildren. You can’t force your grandchildren to pay for your retirement. They could not vote on it. Talk about taxation without representation! It is a house of cards. China holds enormous quantities of our debt. They use it to blackmail us. So do the Arabs. We are no longer free. We have sold our grandchildren into slavery. You think that working eight months of the year for the government is freedom? We endure a 35% federal tax rate, an 11 % state income tax rate, a 15 % FICA tax, 8% sales tax, property taxes and countless other fees. 69% and growing.
Almost all of the money we have paid into Social Security has been spent already. It was paid for SS Survivors and Disability payments. The money is gone. The lieyer politicians spent it. In 25 years there will only be two workers supporting each retired person. These workers can’t pay the staggering Social Security payments to retirees. They can’t pay the interest on the Federal debt. Who will pay the Social Security retirement checks if young workers can opt out of Social Security? It is a Ponzi scheme. It will collapse. This will be the end of the United States. Our government will collapse. For more see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme “As a political metaphor” ¾ of the way down.
Let us be practical. I am not opposed to life insurance. I am not opposed to disability insurance. I am opposed to a “retirement age” of 65. We can fix Social Security simply by raising the “retirement age” to 78. This may be phased-in over 20 or 30 years. Doing it abruptly would never be politically practical. Eliminating the age altogether would be better.
The reason for Social Security was never to give people money so they can retire and play 18 rounds of golf with their grandchildren’s money.
Social Security was established as a safety net for when you are no longer able to provide for yourself. It started off with two main parts.
1. Social Security Survivors Insurance was set up to provide for your dependants if you died. This is simple life insurance. Three guys in my college dorm were receiving Survivors payments.
2. Social Security Disability Insurance was set up to provide for you and your dependants if you were no longer able to work. I had a boss who had brain damage in a car crash. He could no longer work. A Physician had to certify him disabled.
3. Some IDIOT decided when Social Security started that it would be easier to “simply declare all people over the age of 65 disabled”. Social Security is paid to people who are too old to work. They are considered disabled. It would be too costly to have each person certified as no longer able to work. The foolish reason they chose 65 was because at the time it was the average life expectancy. Many people would never qualify under the age clause because they would be dead already. Those who did would die after a very few years. Most work was hard labor. Driving a mule drawn plow was hard work. Very few people could do it past the age of 65. Now the average life expectancy is 78. Today most work is sedentary. Most people are able to work long past 78-let alone 65. People collect Social Security for 13 years longer than they NEED it. This is bankrupting our grandchildren. If a coal miner has black lung disease at the age of 55, he is entitled to Social Security. If you want to retire at the age of 55 and play golf all day, you are free to do it-with YOUR savings. You should be ashamed to saddle your grandchildren with debt for your leisure just because you are 65. Can you imagine a 65-year-old man taking out a loan with his two year old grandson as cosigner? Should the kid be responsible to repay the loan when grandpa dies?
Alexis de Tocqueville said: “Democracy will last until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesses from the public purse”. We have figured out we can vote ourselves money from our grandchildren. The Federal debt is staggering. It is not only the official 9 trillion dollars. It is the promissory notes for entitlements. The unaccounted liabilities are very much greater. Some say more than 30 trillion dollars. We are bankrupt. We have bankrupted our grandchildren. You can’t force your grandchildren to pay for your retirement. They could not vote on it. Talk about taxation without representation! It is a house of cards. China holds enormous quantities of our debt. They use it to blackmail us. So do the Arabs. We are no longer free. We have sold our grandchildren into slavery. You think that working eight months of the year for the government is freedom? We endure a 35% federal tax rate, an 11 % state income tax rate, a 15 % FICA tax, 8% sales tax, property taxes and countless other fees. 69% and growing.
Almost all of the money we have paid into Social Security has been spent already. It was paid for SS Survivors and Disability payments. The money is gone. The lieyer politicians spent it. In 25 years there will only be two workers supporting each retired person. These workers can’t pay the staggering Social Security payments to retirees. They can’t pay the interest on the Federal debt. Who will pay the Social Security retirement checks if young workers can opt out of Social Security? It is a Ponzi scheme. It will collapse. This will be the end of the United States. Our government will collapse. For more see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme “As a political metaphor” ¾ of the way down.
Let us be practical. I am not opposed to life insurance. I am not opposed to disability insurance. I am opposed to a “retirement age” of 65. We can fix Social Security simply by raising the “retirement age” to 78. This may be phased-in over 20 or 30 years. Doing it abruptly would never be politically practical. Eliminating the age altogether would be better.