My brother forwarded me an article which reports of the coming crisis caused by our government’s unfunded social security and medicare liabilities.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), noting that the federal balance sheet does not reflect the government’s huge unfunded promises in our nation’s social-insurance programs, estimated last year that the unfunded obligations for Medicare and Social Security alone totaled almost $41 trillion. That sum, equivalent to $352,000 per U.S. household, is the present-value shortfall between the growing cost of entitlements and the dedicated revenues intended to pay for them over the next 75 years.
I’m glad to see stories from the media that recognize that there is a huge problem on the horizon. However, the solution the article presents is pretty much the same sort as one that most politicians who got us into this mess would offer:
These problems are not beyond our ability to master them. Social Security can be made sustainable and secure with some modest changes over time in retirement benefits, the retirement age, and the tax structure, as Republicans and Democrats did in the early 1980s.
HAHA! Modest changes?! Hmm… maybe the government can fix this huge problem that they have created?! Ya right! When are people going to realize that the government IS the problem and cannot be used as a solution. This problem will never be resolved as long as people think that even some socialism is acceptable. The very idea of Social Security (SS) and Medicare (MC) being allowed to exist needs to be wiped out as a feasible solution for society’s problems because it’s not. Politicians will continue to promise something for “nothing” in order to get elected and re-elected. History has time and time again proven that socialism is always a downwards spiral starting with something that seems very good and benign and ending in the destruction of freedom, tyranny and increased poverty. Nothing pisses me off more than someone who wants to force other people to do good!
I’ve thought about this a lot. I think that the federal government should get 100% out of providing a government social security pension to everybody along with a government provided health care and prescription drug benefit to seniors. This is nothing short of confiscating, by force, the money from one group of individuals and giving it to another. It’s legalized plunder. It’s stealing. It’s a violation of the worst kind on our property rights. It’s a crime and it needs to stop. The founding fathers revolted over much less.
Let me qualify my statement about government confiscation by saying that I do not think that the nature of taxes alone is plunder; only when they are taken from one group of individuals and used to directly benefit another is it theft. In other words, the redistribution of wealth or providing individual benefits at the expense of another is theft. The government doesn’t legally or morally hold this power. The fact that they do it is a form of tyranny.
Regarding pensions and healthcare for seniors, I don’t believe getting the government out of this business can happen with just one piece of legislation. First, we need to reform the influence that businesses have on politics otherwise change would never happen. I believe this could simply be solved by not allowing business to lobby at all. Period. The current reasoning that allows business to lobby government is that it has been claimed that its a matter of free speech. However, businesses are not individuals and do not have have individual rights. For example, a business could never invoke the 5th amendment to protect itself in court. Why are they afforded the human right of “free speech”? The idea that businesses, because of their huge $$money$$ advantage, have an overwhelming voice in government over individuals is inherently unfair anyway. Cut off lobbying by businesses – a simple solution.
After taking care of the corrupting influence of corporate money in government, we might have a chance at restoring our republic to the ideals our founding fathers established; namely, removing all social programs. When doing this, I don’t believe it would be right to yank the rug out from seniors who were promised something that unfortunately took theft to provide. Here is my proposal. If you are 50 and over, you can choose to continue to get the promised SS and MC benefits for the rest of your life and continue to pay into the system. Or you can choose to not get any benefits. If you choose to forego SS and MC, you get ALL the money back that the government has stolen from you over the course of your life relative to SS and MC. Whether this money comes in a lump check or over the next few years, is a matter of implementation.
Since we would be restoring our republic, and would be discontinuing SS and MC, those individuals under 50 would not be able to choose to receive stolen money in the form of MC and SS. However, just like those who chose to forego benefits, they would get all the money back that they had paid into SS and MC and would be responsible for their own healthcare and retirement as our founding fathers intended. We need to give sovereignty back to individuals and families.
This is a simple and workable plan. Doing this, along with removing all other social programs, would save the government tens of trillions of dollars even if initially it would seem to be costly. Most importantly, it restores freedom back to whom it belongs — individuals and families. It would also be very beneficial for our economy as people would be able to use their own money to make wise investment choices instead of letting government bureacracy waste it. In addition, it would be a boon to society in general by encouraging people to look for ways to give and receive charity instead of fostering the mentality that the government needs to take care of poor and old people. I’ll say it again, nothing pisses me off more than someone who wants to force other people to do good!
