Today a friend sent the following to me, with the
request that I comment upon it. She said: "I like to
read both sides.....propaganda or true? I am very
much against Bush's proposals. All we need is more
debt by borrowing to initiate private accounts.....Please
see if this is historically true....Neither party is near
perfect, but the Bushies are scary...I am very depressed
about how they are doing conservation-wise....undoing
years of hard work by environmentalists, like me."
First the so-called "primer", followed by my comments.
A Primer on Social Security
"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself
into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket
and trying to lift himself up by the handle."
Winston Churchill
SOCIAL SECURITY:
Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the
Social Security (FICA) Program.
He promised:
1) That participation in the Program would be
completely voluntary,
2) That the participants would only have to pay
1% of the first $1,400 of their annual incomes
into the Program,
3) That the money the participants elected to
put into the Program would be deductible from
their income for tax purposes each year,
4) That the money the participants put into the
independent "Trust Fund" rather than into the
General operating fund, and therefore would
only be used to fund the Social Security
Retirement Program, an no other Government
program and,
5) That the annuity payments to the retirees
would never be taxed as income. Since many of
us have paid into FICA for years and are now
receiving a Social Security check every month --
and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85%
of the money we paid to the Federal government
to "put away," you may be interested in the
following:
Q: Which Political Party took Social Security
from the independent "Trust" fund and put it into
the General fund so that Congress could spend it?
A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the Democratically-
controlled House and Senate.
Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax
deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?
A: The Democratic Party.
Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social
Security annuities?
A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the
"tie-breaking" deciding vote as President of the
Senate, while he was Vice President of the U.S.
Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving
annuity payments to immigrants? MY FAVORITE :
A: That's right! Jimmy Carter and the Democratic
Party. Immigrants moved into this country, and at
age 65, began to receive SSI Social Security
payments! The Democratic Party gave these
payments to them, even though they never paid
a dime into it! Then, after doing all this thieving
and violation of the original contract (FICA), the
Democrats turn around and tell you that the
Republicans want to take your Social Security
away! And the worst part about it is, uninformed
citizens believe it! If enough people receive this,
maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and
maybe good changes will evolve.
------------------------------
Linda, I can't reply to all the screed from Bill F, so I'll just
make a few obvious points. Taking them in the order of his
5-point list above, my reply:
1-3. Whatever was then, today is now. The Righties have hated
FDR and SS since 1937. Geo Bu$h has been saying that SS
is "broke" since 1978, when he ran for congress (and lost) in
Midland. This trite, pat "issue" is a mantra with these foaming-
at-the-mouth "individualists", who could care less about the
less fortunate and who don't want to deal with the current SS
program, which is an INSURANCE program covering the
children of deceased SS insurees, spouses, and those who
are actually retired.
We live in a nation of laws, which get changed from time to
time, so FDR could only have promised what he would do or
not do, not what the future would bring. Thus numbers 1, 2,
and 3 are bogus, as all the Rightie rosebuds well know.
4. Re # 4, technically this is what the government is doing today.
The SS money that comes in can only be invested in US treasury
bonds, which is being done. The problem is that the government
then turns around and borrows the money back. The rat GWB
now doesn't want to REPAY the several hundred billion dollars
(and headed for a trillion) he's borrowed for his illegal war. So he
lies and tells us all that the fund will be "broke" in 2018, which is
not 2042 or 2052, which the experts say might be a "trouble point"
(as opposed to broke) if no adjustments are made between now
and then. If somehow the economy grows faster than expected,
even the above dates could be too soon. But all these possibilities
must be weighed in light of greater longevity for older Americans.
With hindsight, and not very much hindsight at that, it would
have been a great idea to truly lock up the SS funds, and to
have invested them in a balanced set of funds -- one tied to,
say, the Fortune 500, another to investment-grade bonds, and
the third to US government bonds. By now the SS general fund
would just about own the planet, as the market itself has gone
from a couple of hundred in 1937 to some 11,000+ and back to
the 10,000 range. The PROBLEM, of course, is that the market
is terrifically overvalued at the moment, so to start this policy
today would likely be catastrophic. Odds are that we'll see the
DOW at 6,000 long before we'll see 12,000.
5. This one is simply misleading, more weasel-words frothing
from their mouths. SS benefits are considered part of income,
like other retirement benefits, pension plans, etc. SS benefits
are not tax-free bond interest payments. I don't even know if
there is such a thing as tax-free annuities. I never heard of a
SS annuity; I'll have to check to see where this idea or phrase
comes from. I can say for sure that all the griping about
being taxed on the benefits is coming from folks with plenty
of money rolling in every month, who are too stingy in their
old age to want to pay more taxes. I can also say for sure
that if all someone receives is his/her SS check, there will be
little or no income taxes paid.
Most of the rest of # 5, blaming the Dems, is typical of these
hypocrites. As if illegal immigrants are not here mainly
because big-business (corporate farms, meat packers in
the Midwest, chicken packers in the South, Wal-Mart [may
their souls rot in hell], etc.) wants them here for the CHEAP
labor and willingness to not join unions. These Righties have
no sense of justice or mercy. On this point alone they so
totally discredit themselves as to not be worthy of forwarding
a post from one of them.
Imagine, Dems and Puglies alike drug us into the Cold War,
the Vietnam War, and the death and destruction of 60 years
of covert CIA actions. They both cooperated in wasting more
trillions than we can count. We killed 3,000,000 in Vietnam
alone, and now well over a million in Iraq since 1991. Throw
in another CIA operation in Indonesia in 1966, and there go
another million-plus human beings. I've seen numbers in the
20,000,000+ range since World War II -- deaths caused by
the US by commission or omission (ignored famines, plagues,
Rwanda in 1993, etc.) And these Cold War cretins will tell
you that it was all done in the name of freedom and democracy
and that all is well. Murder one of their loved ones -- even by
a negligent car wreck or medical mistake -- and see how they
feel about the sanctity of human life.
Assuming that Carter and the Dems did change the rules to
enable new immigrants to get SS, what else was there to do?,
other than to keep these people out in the first place. That's
another debate, and I'm inclined to agree we should curb or
end the flow of illegals, but millions came as the mother or
brother of some legal resident here, and the question becomes
"what's the best way to take care of these people in poverty,
who we let in in the first place?" To not cover them with SS
and Medicare would pretty much guarantee a tremendous
burden on the local hospitals, emergency rooms, tax payers,
etc. We'd have [more of] them on street corners, etc. And
guess what? The amount of SS they get is a pittance compared
to what the fully paid-in SS beneficiary gets. So we added a
supplemental program (SSI) to help folks in dire poverty, which
leaves them in dire poverty but able to buy cat food for their
dinner instead of just beans and peanut butter. Ask anyone on
Bill's "list" to live for even a month on the SSI benefits of one
of these unfortunates and see how they scream. Any who'd
like to lose some weight would benefit from the new diet.
THE ULTIMATE NON-SEQUITER. Assuming the original
author of this disgusting piece of Rightie propaganda is correct
on all points -- it was the DEMOCRATS who committed every
sin and the PUGLIES are purer than new-fallen snow, GUESS
WHAT: Today it is the Puglies who are trying to get rid of
Social Security. No citizen is "misinformed" by coming to this
conclusion. And any citizen with a shred of discernment and
intelligence knows that once GWB gets his smirking face in the
SS tent the rest of the right-wing program of destruction is sure
to follow if they have their way. These Rightie dunces should
think about their own mother, father, brothers, sisters, neighbors,
and friends who depend on SS. And they should consider that
a lot of us, myself included, planned SS and Medicare as key
elements of our overall retirement.
Which perhaps brings me to a single point of agreement with a
handful of principled conservatives (not these screed peddlers):
Discussion of how to best handle a national insurance program
that includes retirement and emergencies before retirement,
including workman's comp, is a worthwhile use of our time.
There is no way to do this without introducing health insurance
issues. And no doubt the disgraceful dumping of pension funds
and plans onto the taxpayers' shoulders by the likes of United
Airlines would come up. Imagine, we let corporations fail to
fund their legal obligations, and then let them walk away without
even a slap on the wrist. Rather than put UAL's 165 vice
presidents in jail, we warn them to be careful they're not hurt
by their golden parachutes hitting them when the roof falls in.
Similarly, we'd have to look into why SS is not good enough for
the US government's employees, as well as millions of others
who've been allowed to opt out. Typically our police and fire
departments, and city and state officials. Perhaps we'd decide
that one plan should be good enough for everyone, including
the rats in congress and the big rat himself, and that any monies
we have to spend in retirement beyond this master SS plan would
be savings and investment programs, as opposed to boondoggle
plans like congresswo/men and city/state legislators have put in
place for themselves and their friends.
Linda, "bottom line" is that the US is a rich country, and there is
plenty of money for a decent retirement program and national
health program -- IF WE END the insane military spending, tax
cuts for the wealthy, and corporate welfare (paying people to
grow or not grow certain crops, spending public money on
airports to support the airlines, and a thousand other such
benefits we pay to corporations -- many of which don't pay
taxes, are based in the Bahamas, and play by no rules at all,
other than caveat emptor and screw-you-first.)