The article below is completely neutral, not anti republican or democrat.

Charlie Reese, a retired reporter for the Orlando Sentinel has hit the nail directly on the head, defining clearly who it is that in the final analysis must assume responsibility for the judgments made that impact each one of us every day.
It's a short but good read…Worth the time…Worth remembering! Every citizen needs to read this and think about what this journalist has scripted in this message. read it and then really think about our current political debacle. Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years.

545 PEOPLE -- By Charlie Reese
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them. Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits? Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?


You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.
You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations.. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country. I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.


I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.
If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ, it's because they want them in IRAQ.

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do. Those 545 people and they alone, are responsible.


They, and they alone, have the power.
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.



Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees. We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess! Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper. What you do with this article now that you have read it...Is up to you.
Sales Tax
School Tax
Liquor Tax
Luxury Tax
Excise Taxes
Property Tax
Cigarette Tax
Medicare Tax
Inventory Tax
Real Estate Tax
Well Permit Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Inheritance Tax
Road Usage Tax
CDL license Tax
Dog License Tax
State Income Tax
Food License Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Gross Receipts Tax
Social Security Tax
Service Charge Tax
Fishing License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Building Permit Tax
IRS Interest Charges
Hunting License Tax
Marriage License Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Personal Property Tax
Accounts Receivable Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon)
Utility Taxes Vehicle License Registration Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, & our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What in the hell happened? Can you spell 'politicians? ‘I hope this goes around THE USA at least 100 times!!!

Yeah, but you said "just spread it if you agree."

The government don't care whether you agree to it or not!  If they decide you're gonna spread it, you're gonna spread it!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/12/help.gif

(The same applies to corporate monopolies -- unaccountable fiefdoms -- which the Right Wing is trying to get to replace elected governments.)

.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees. We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess! Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper. What you do with this article now that you have read it...Is up to you.
Sales Tax
School Tax
Liquor Tax
Luxury Tax
Excise Taxes
Property Tax
Cigarette Tax
Medicare Tax
Inventory Tax
Real Estate Tax
Well Permit Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Inheritance Tax
Road Usage Tax
CDL license Tax
Dog License Tax
State Income Tax
Food License Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Gross Receipts Tax
Social Security Tax
Service Charge Tax
Fishing License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Building Permit Tax
IRS Interest Charges
Hunting License Tax
Marriage License Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Personal Property Tax
Accounts Receivable Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon)
Utility Taxes Vehicle License Registration Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, & our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What in the hell happened? Can you spell 'politicians? ‘I hope this goes around THE USA at least 100 times!!!




Let's see, 100 years ago.  That would be 1910, when there was HARDLY ANY middle class, the work day was as long as the boss wanted it to be (in steel it was 12 hours, six days a week), there was no social security, no right to form a union, women couldn't vote, senators were appointed, not elected, child labor was common, and prosperity was confined to the very few.  The good old days!!!

Let's see, 100 years ago.  That would be 1910, when there was HARDLY ANY middle class, the work day was as long as the boss wanted it to be (in steel it was 12 hours, six days a week), there was no social security, no right to form a union, women couldn't vote, senators were appointed, not elected, child labor was common, and prosperity was confined to the very few.  The good old days!!!



Don't forget Jim Crow, robber barons (well, we still have those), unsafe work environments that contributed to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911 & other workplace disasters, companies still used scripts, married women could not hold property in their own name, etc. etc.



Cat

No Food and Drug act means that food could be legally sold with whatever they wanted in it, be a rusty nail or rancid meat.

People who tend to romanticize the past generally ignore the bad parts and glamorize the parts they liked.

I understand where the author is coming from, but if California teaches us anything...  referendum systems for budgets are even worse than having politicians craft them.

Ultimately, the biggest problem with any democracy is that the average person is either apathetic or just plain stupid.

Saver, if life was only as simple as your posts....but it's not.

No Food and Drug act means that food could be legally sold with whatever they wanted in it, be a rusty nail or rancid meat.

People who tend to romanticize the past generally ignore the bad parts and glamorize the parts they liked.



I was going to post that, too but the Food & Drug Act was passed in 1906-so it was in place 100 years ago.



Cat

I hate taxes.  Who doesn't?  But we have to pay for all this stuff we want...everything from potable water to Interstate highways.

Furthermore, if you don't tax estates, capital gains, and high salaries, families will amass fortunes of untold billions.  Isn't that good, though?  They create jobs after all.  In the Tom Friedman world, corporations create jobs wherever the workers can command the least pay and the fewest rights.  Hence Wal-Mart is to China what the Hudson's Bay Company was to the British Crown. 

Families such as the Kochs, the Waltons (not the TV Waltons), and the DuPonts set policy for our elected representatives to set for us.  Government of the people by the corporations for the corporations.  Governments used grant charters to corporations to allow investors to secure shares with limited liability.  The corporation had to demonstrate it was acting in the public interest in order to qualify its charter.

Granted, this did not happen all the time.  There were some state-private trusts in colonial times, such as the East India Company and the Hudson's Bay Company who got monopolies on exploitation of imperial territory.  The Tea Tax levied by the Crown via one such monopoly, The East India Company in cahoots with Parliament.
::)

Saver, if life was only as simple as your posts....but it's not.


True...True

Met a someone with better political understanding than I who pans this country at this point, he's planning to move to another country with a better outlook on life.
He's fed up with politicians unable to steer the country,(US), to a hopeful attitude and there's continued worse days ahead..people are becoming desparate and from the'pulse' of what entertains people..'we' make stars out of SNOOKIE and JACKASS 3D is the best movie of the week taking $50million.

And the beat goes on.

Who's gonna CHANGE the country again?

HAPPY ELECTION DAY 2010!

The criminal always returns to the scene.
::)

True...True

Met a someone with better political understanding than I who pans this country at this point, he's planning to move to another country with a better outlook on life.
He's fed up with politicians unable to steer the country,(US), to a hopeful attitude and there's continued worse days ahead..people are becoming desparate and from the'pulse' of what entertains people..'we' make stars out of SNOOKIE and JACKASS 3D is the best movie of the week taking $50million.

And the beat goes on.

Who's gonna CHANGE the country again?

HAPPY ELECTION DAY 2010!


What country is he planning on moving to?

http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2010/10/06/taxwide_custom.jpg

Source: Third Way, Thanks for Paying, Here's Your Receipt.

In the Empire of Foo: Social Security wouldn't have been created in the first place, Medicare and Medicaid could be rolled into one single-payer service, I'd have cut my losses in the middle east (or just exterminated everything within 1000 miles of the Middle East on 9/12/01, and the radiation levels would be low enough by now that the oil would be flowing :)  But since I'm cleaning up everyone else's mess, I'll take some of the savings and apply it to the national debt ahead of schedule, so we can stop digging ourselves in deeper every year.  Let's say $750/year for current SS benefits (yeah, you get to take a hit along with the rest of us investors), a 25% improvement in cutting out the middlemen in health care would cut medicare/medicaid to $750 combined without materially affecting benefits.  Cutting our losses in the Middle East brings the savings to $750 - so let's pay off the debt at $500/year instead of $300/year and that gives us $200/year in wiggle room.

On to the line items, I'd cut 5-10% off current military expenditures, and cut foreign aid by 100%.  (If our companies want access to the resources of foreign dictators, they can spend their own money bribing them.)  That'd free up $50 for a good 20-30% boost in highways, biotech research, education, military retirements, and Pell grants.  Breakeven, but instead of spending taxpayer dollars on a stuff we hope we never have to use, we spend the dollars on making smarter citizens who don't have to spend half their lives commuting to work.

Next few?  Simpify the tax code to the point that I could take half the IRS's budget and give it to NASA.  Abolish Head Start (shouldn't that be "Educating funding..."  If Public Housing is code for "welfare" (absent from this list), throw 'em a few more bones to make up for the elimination of whatever they currently draw from Social Security.  Breakeven here, but what a win for economic freedom and technological development.

Now we're down to the stuff that can be done for pennies, but would make for great principle.  Abolish the DEA.  Of their $3.14, send a buck to the national parks (even at their current level of underfunding, the annual pass is America's best road tripping bargain), another buck to Amtrak for high-speed rail (to spite the TSA for making air travel hell, and to make up for all the subsidies the highways got in the first paragraph), $0.64 to the Smithsonian because it's Just That Neat, and the remaining $0.50 to triple the salaries and benefits for Congress.  To make sure that the lobbyists who'd oppose Emperor Foo would have to pay at least four times the going rate to stop me. :)  Again, operating at breakeven, but what a win for liberty, recreation and transportation infrastructure.

We still have the original $200 left over.  Declare it a peace dividend, declare it a liberty dividend, declare it a tax cut, or - split it down the middle - there's a line item on the tax return.  Instead of "Do you want to allocate $3 to publicly-financed elections, this election will not change your total amount owed", there's a last line on your tax return:  "$200 of your tax return is currently allocated to funding the national surplus (accelerating payments on the national debt).  If you prefer to pay what you see as your fair share of the taxes, please specify which of the above line items to which you'd like to donate the $200.  If you'd prefer to simply claim your fair share of the surplus as your own, we can also just send you a check."

Your turn!

For my grandparents, parents, siblings, friends, and myself, I will say unequivocally as I approach the age when I can begin to draw on social security and everything begins to hurt in the morning,


THANK YOU FDR AND BLESS YOU FOR SOCIAL SECURITY!

For my grandparents, parents, siblings, friends, and myself, I will say unequivocally as I approach the age when I can begin to draw on social security and everything begins to hurt in the morning,


THANK YOU FDR AND BLESS YOU FOR SOCIAL SECURITY!


I think FDR was one of our better presidents, but Social Security is a ponzi scheme.

I think FDR was one of our better presidents, but Social Security is a ponzi scheme.


Without it, millions of elderly and disabled people would be homeless and hungry.  That would be a-okay with the super rich.  It was in 1930.  Not much has changed in the minds of the greedy and ruthless.
::)

I understand where the author is coming from, but if California teaches us anything...  referendum systems for budgets are even worse than having politicians craft them.

Ultimately, the biggest problem with any democracy is that the average person is either apathetic or just plain stupid.

Both our countries have a representative democracy - that is to say, we vote for people to represent us.  If the representation we get ain't good enough, we, the electorate, are obviously not trying hard enough to find the right representatives.

Politicians by and large are worthless sheeshs, and we deserve what we get because we can't be bothered to exercise our collective brains and vote for anything better.


... but Social Security is a ponzi scheme.

No, it isn't.  It would be a Ponzi scheme if people were being paid out of capital when they'd been told they were being paid interest and their capital was still there.

Without it, millions of elderly and disabled people would be homeless and hungry.


If you want a welfare programme, go for it.  All I'm asking is that we stop pretending it's a retirement programme.  It never was.

Would you contribute to a corporate pension that said, and I quote, "In 2015 we will begin paying more in benefits than we collect in premiums. Without changes, in 2037 the Peter Ponzi Pension Fund will be able to pay only about 78 cents for each dollar of scheduled benefits."

No?  Then why invest in this one?  That's the definition of a pyramid scheme.

Would you invest in a mutual fund that had, as part of its prospectus, a line like "The Fund's Net Asset Value is based on current policy.  The Board of Directors has made changes to the policy in the past and can do so at any time. The policy governing Net Asset Value may change because, by 2037, incoming cash from investors will be enough to pay only about 78 percent of Net Asset Value."

No?  Then why invest in this one?  That's a loophole bigger than the one Madoff used - essentially, "We'll pay you whatever we damn well feel like, whenever we damn well feel like it, and you'll take whatever we give you, even if we change our minds the day before you retire and decide to give you nothing!"

I wouldn't contribute to a pension plan with an escape clause like that, nor invest in a mutual fund with a prospectus like that, unless someone put a gun to my head.  Oh, wait...

If you want a welfare programme, go for it.  All I'm asking is that we stop pretending it's a retirement programme.  It never was.

Would you contribute to a corporate pension that said, and I quote, "In 2015 we will begin paying more in benefits than we collect in premiums. Without changes, in 2037 the Peter Ponzi Pension Fund will be able to pay only about 78 cents for each dollar of scheduled benefits."

No?  Then why invest in this one?  That's the definition of a pyramid scheme.

Would you invest in a mutual fund that had, as part of its prospectus, a line like "The Fund's Net Asset Value is based on current policy.  The Board of Directors has made changes to the policy in the past and can do so at any time. The policy governing Net Asset Value may change because, by 2037, incoming cash from investors will be enough to pay only about 78 percent of Net Asset Value."

No?  Then why invest in this one?  That's a loophole bigger than the one Madoff used - essentially, "We'll pay you whatever we damn well feel like, whenever we damn well feel like it, and you'll take whatever we give you, even if we change our minds the day before you retire and decide to give you nothing!"

I wouldn't contribute to a pension plan with an escape clause like that, nor invest in a mutual fund with a prospectus like that, unless someone put a gun to my head.  Oh, wait...


The guns don't come out until you put up enough of a fight!  I live in a state that mandates me to buy auto insurance from a private corporation.  You could argue the state doesn't require me to possess an automobile...and I can argue the state doesn't require you to have a job!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/13/icon_scratch.gif

Without it, millions of elderly and disabled people would be homeless and hungry.  That would be a-okay with the super rich.  It was in 1930.  Not much has changed in the minds of the greedy and ruthless.
::)


At the very least, we should do what Australia does.  If you're going to force people to save for retirement, then it should be a private sector thing, not a government run program.

No, it isn't.  It would be a Ponzi scheme if people were being paid out of capital when they'd been told they were being paid interest and their capital was still there.


SS is going bankrupt.  By the time I'm old, it won't exist.  This is why I'd like to save myself the trouble of paying SS taxes for a program I'll never benefit from.

The guns don't come out until you put up enough of a fight!  I live in a state that mandates me to buy auto insurance from a private corporation.  You could argue the state doesn't require me to possess an automobile...and I can argue the state doesn't require you to have a job!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/13/icon_scratch.gif


If it's any consolation, I think all insurance should be socialized.  Private insurance is a scam.

At the very least, we should do what Australia does.  If you're going to force people to save for retirement, then it should be a private sector thing, not a government run program.
Once you get into the concept of enforced savings, you might just as well tax people - sure, done privately the savings pot will have your name on it, but as ads are wont to tell us "investments can go down as well as up", and on occasion even go broke.




SS is going bankrupt.  By the time I'm old, it won't exist.  This is why I'd like to save myself the trouble of paying SS taxes for a program I'll never benefit from.

If all your countrymen were to share that attitude, it would be bankrupt tomorrow.  Only way it's going to work is if there's an increasing number of taxpayers to counter the increasing length of time people are living after they've finished working.  Or people work longer.  Or in the case of the US possibly (just, possibly) reducing the staggeringly humungous state expense that is the US military...

SS need not go broke.  Simply removing the cap on FICA would go a long way to solve the problem.

SS need not go broke.  Simply removing the cap on FICA would go a long way to solve the problem.


Gracias, Don Carlos!  Solutions are in plain sight. The plutocrats and their courtiers just don't want to apply them!
::)

BTW, karma.

Once you get into the concept of enforced savings, you might just as well tax people - sure, done privately the savings pot will have your name on it, but as ads are wont to tell us "investments can go down as well as up", and on occasion even go broke.


If all your countrymen were to share that attitude, it would be bankrupt tomorrow.  Only way it's going to work is if there's an increasing number of taxpayers to counter the increasing length of time people are living after they've finished working.  Or people work longer.  Or in the case of the US possibly (just, possibly) reducing the staggeringly humungous state expense that is the US military...


Karma.  "Personalized health savings accounts" are great for high income earners...and for capitalist parasites who sit around the country club waiting for their dividend checks.  Otherwise, you're screwed after your first heart surgery. 

It comes down to the ugly truth -- the ideal society for the Koch brothers and their Me Party minions is Victorian London.  A few super rich royals hand ever-ballooning wealth and property down through the generations, while most people live in squalor -- malnourished and plagued by tuberculosis!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/02/buck.gif

SS need not go broke.  Simply removing the cap on FICA would go a long way to solve the problem.


Then (people who agree with your position) should stop pretending it's "contribution" to some sort of "insurance" programme called FICA and just come out and say what they really want:  an additional 12.5% (6.2% from the employer, 6.2% from the employee) to every income tax bracket.  

It's not insurance, it's a tax.  (And it's not providing for your retirement, it's providing for a welfare check.)

Those aren't insurmountable political or ideological odds: Friedman himself argued for a guaranteed annual income, and he did so on the grounds that a GAI, or negative income tax, would provide for a minimum standard of living for all citizens while maximizing economic freedom.  

But you've gotta start by ditching the whole "insurance" and "retirement" angles.  Viewed as such, SS is a fraud.  

You know that whole "past performance is not a guarantee of future results" language you see in real prospectuses?  Guess what, that applies to US Treasuries, which are the "absolutely solid" "investments" that the so-called SS "trust fund" holds, too.  The Bearded One can make good on those interest payments by printing dollars until gold hits $5000/oz, but people who rely on Social Security will still be eating dog food.  You decry plutocrats, yet you trust those very same plutocrats in Washington to take care of you in your retirement, when you're not even going to be earning enough money to pay taxes to keep them afloat?

At least when I trade with the plutocrats in lower Manhattan, I can sell their financial instruments when I decide I don't want to buy whatever they're selling me.  (I screwed up in 2008, but those who called the crash correctly did just fine.  My screwups are my responsibility, not my fellow taxpayers'.  Sure, I'm grateful that the plutocrats in Manhattan and DC decided to bail us all out despite the fact that the moral thing to do would have been to let the planet burn.  Hey, we're a representative democracy: if we'd truly wanted the world to burn for our economic sins, we wouldn't have elected a Republicrat to appoint a Treasury Secretary from Goldman Sachs, only to follow up by electing a Demopublican to appoint another Treasury Secretary from Goldman Sachs.)

Oh, by the way, when the child tax credit and mortgage tax credit go away, just remember, you asked for it. :)

Then (people who agree with your position) should stop pretending it's "contribution" to some sort of "insurance" programme called FICA and just come out and say what they really want:  an additional 12.5% (6.2% from the employer, 6.2% from the employee) to every income tax bracket.  

It's not insurance, it's a tax.  (And it's not providing for your retirement, it's providing for a welfare check.)

Those aren't insurmountable political or ideological odds: Friedman himself argued for a guaranteed annual income, and he did so on the grounds that a GAI, or negative income tax, would provide for a minimum standard of living for all citizens while maximizing economic freedom.  

But you've gotta start by ditching the whole "insurance" and "retirement" angles.  Viewed as such, SS is a fraud.  

You know that whole "past performance is not a guarantee of future results" language you see in real prospectuses?  Guess what, that applies to US Treasuries, which are the "absolutely solid" "investments" that the so-called SS "trust fund" holds, too.  The Bearded One can make good on those interest payments by printing dollars until gold hits $5000/oz, but people who rely on Social Security will still be eating dog food.  You decry plutocrats, yet you trust those very same plutocrats in Washington to take care of you in your retirement, when you're not even going to be earning enough money to pay taxes to keep them afloat?

At least when I trade with the plutocrats in lower Manhattan, I can sell their financial instruments when I decide I don't want to buy whatever they're selling me.  (I screwed up in 2008, but those who called the crash correctly did just fine.  My screwups are my responsibility, not my fellow taxpayers'.  Sure, I'm grateful that the plutocrats in Manhattan and DC decided to bail us all out despite the fact that the moral thing to do would have been to let the planet burn.  Hey, we're a representative democracy: if we'd truly wanted the world to burn for our economic sins, we wouldn't have elected a Republicrat to appoint a Treasury Secretary from Goldman Sachs, only to follow up by electing a Demopublican to appoint another Treasury Secretary from Goldman Sachs.)

Oh, by the way, when the child tax credit and mortgage tax credit go away, just remember, you asked for it. :)


Of course its a tax.  It always has been.  A tax supposedly ear marked for one purpose.  So what?

Once you get into the concept of enforced savings, you might just as well tax people - sure, done privately the savings pot will have your name on it, but as ads are wont to tell us "investments can go down as well as up", and on occasion even go broke.

I see where you're coming from, but savings really should be a voluntary thing.

If all your countrymen were to share that attitude, it would be bankrupt tomorrow.  Only way it's going to work is if there's an increasing number of taxpayers to counter the increasing length of time people are living after they've finished working.  Or people work longer.  Or in the case of the US possibly (just, possibly) reducing the staggeringly humungous state expense that is the US military...


I'm all in favor of decreasing the military, but entitlement spending is much higher in our budget than military spending.  Seeing as how various countries in Europe are ailing from having growing entitlement debts, I think it's probably a good idea to move away from socialized pensions in general.

SS need not go broke.  Simply removing the cap on FICA would go a long way to solve the problem.


That would only increase what's owed in the long run.  The FICA cap is a good thing, and if it never existed, SS would already be broke.

I see where you're coming from, but savings really should be a voluntary thing.

I'm all in favor of decreasing the military, but entitlement spending is much higher in our budget than military spending.  Seeing as how various countries in Europe are ailing from having growing entitlement debts, I think it's probably a good idea to move away from socialized pensions in general.



Well then, it is time to reevaluate our military spending.

Well then, it is time to reevaluate our military spending.


No argument here, but we also need to reevaluate entitlement spending.

Of course its a tax.  It always has been.  A tax supposedly ear marked for one purpose.  So what?


Cool!  (Seriously.)  We may disagree on its utiility, we disagree on its rate, but at least we agree on what it is.  Most people who engage in this debate really do see it as a form of insurance, not as a tax... or at least, that's what they say when they scream that it's not a tax, but an "investment" or a "contribution" :)

We also agree - (and perhaps I'm assuming things here by your use of the word "supposedly", so if I'm misreading you here, call me on it) - that dollars are fungible, and that there is no meaningful way to earmark any tax specific dollar for any specific purpose.  

So - how about we abolish the whole thing, abolish the programs it supposedly funds that are supposedly-separate from the budget, and start debating on what should be the proper level of welfare payments, and whether current income taxes are adequate to pay for 'em?  We might still disagree on those levels and the associated rates, but those are legitimate things on which compromise could be reached.  (Maybe we don't fund the welfare state to as high a level as you'd want, and but we do pay for it by taxing the people somewhat more than I'd want.)

Off-balance-sheet accounting is a red flag to me - whether I'm investing my dollars by voluntarily purchasing shares of privately-held corporations or by voluntarily moving to (and subjecting myself to the taxation laws) of a nation-state.  

I said "supposedly" because as we know, congress keeps  raiding the SS trust fund and replaces the funds with treasury bonds, IOU's

You can't really have democracy without entitlements.  You can have  tyranny or anarchy (the latter quickly turns into the former depending on who has the most guns).  I don't think "entitlement" is a bad word at all.  If a person must fear for his security at all times, he is unlikely to engage in civic affairs, which are the backbone of democracy. 

I said "supposedly" because as we know, congress keeps  raiding the SS trust fund and replaces the funds with treasury bonds, IOU's


This is true, but because of that, why keep it around?

I know Al Gore talked about a lockbox for SS funds, but so far, no one has implemented policies that would accomplish that.  Unless that actually happens, SS remains a timebomb.

I said "supposedly" because as we know, congress keeps  raiding the SS trust fund and replaces the funds with treasury bonds, IOU's


Exactly the problem.  Dollars are fungible.  Definied-benefit plans - whether private or public - are inherently flawed because they're nothing more than promises that can be changed at the whim of (private-sector) an accountant's projection of a company's pension surplus, or (public-sector) Congress. 

Private-sector defined-benefit plan: Hey, the pension's more than fully-funded, all the "surplus" dollars can be returned to the shareholders!  If it ever becomes underfunded, we can tell the employees to contribute more, and if we go bankrupt, well, it's not our fault they got nothing.

Publicly-funded defined-benefit plan: Hey, why not spend all this surplus cash on more bombs for the red states, and more welfare benefits for the blue states!  If it ever becomes underfunded, we can just raise taxes, and if the economy implodes, well, at least we've still got the guns.

Defined-contribution plans do not suffer from this flaw, because it's harder (read: illegal) to make the dollars disappear.  Skilling, Lay, and Madoff, just to name a few, lost their careers and the bulk of their fortunes over it. 

The market risk of a 401(k) is no different than the risk associated with defined-benefit pension plans.  The only difference is that you actually know where you stand every day when the markets close.  Don't want the risk associated with stocks?  Buy a bond fund.  Don't trust bonds either?  Buy a money market fund.  Don't even trust the value of a dollar (because ignoring the Social Security ponzi scheme, there might be some other publicly-funded ponzi scheme that eventually requires the printing of trillions of dollars? :)  Then put some of that 401(k) into a precious metals fund.

@Macphisto: Yeah, it's ironic - both Democrats and Republicans mocked Al Gore for the "lock box" idea.  It was the only thing that could have stopped it from being a ponzi scheme.  Gore had lots of problems as a candidate, but that wasn't one of 'em.  The reason he was mocked, of course, was this post: everybody on both sides of the aisle knew it would be about as effective as campaign finance reform.  If there are terabucks to be spent, the government that holds the keys to the "lock box" will find a way to pass a law to unlock it.

@Macphisto: Yeah, it's ironic - both Democrats and Republicans mocked Al Gore for the "lock box" idea.  It was the only thing that could have stopped it from being a ponzi scheme.  Gore had lots of problems as a candidate, but that wasn't one of 'em.  The reason he was mocked, of course, was this post: everybody on both sides of the aisle knew it would be about as effective as campaign finance reform.  If there are terabucks to be spent, the government that holds the keys to the "lock box" will find a way to pass a law to unlock it.


Ronnie Reagan busted into SS to offset the deficits his tax cuts for the rich caused.  He also raised payroll taxes.  Neither measure made up the difference but what did Bedtime for Ronzo care?  The Republicans are all for wealth redistribution as long as it's reverse Robin Hood style!
::)