The Irresponsible Generation…

The current administration is a reflection of the worst traits of what I call the irresponsible generation. We had the greatest generation that sacrificed everything to make a better life for their kids and future generations of Americans only to see its spoils flushed down the national toilet. The lessons learned by the greatest generation have been lost on the irresponsible generation.

Discipline and fiscal responsibility have been completely abandoned for this me, now; live like there is no tomorrow administration that is made up of people that believe in living for today, and that credit is the only way to get your stuff in life. We have seen the results and they are grim.

We are mired in a debt to other nations that have for most of our history been our enemies. Without the “investment” of these recent enemies we might have a run on the bank. We might have to suffer the pain of actually paying a bill or two on time. Without our enemies we might have to make the hard decisions to cut back on spending rather than continue the irresponsible policies. Imagine how hard it might be if we asked people to save 20% before purchasing a home? The hardship. What if we asked the people running the government to end programs that are no longer necessary? The hardship. What if we ran our government according to the constitution? Outrageous! Instead we rely on our enemies to fund our irresponsible behavior but we must ask; what does our enemy expect in return? Who cares as long as the irresponsible regime can keep up the rosy façade of a system that is fundamentally bankrupt?

The first hint that a candidate might address the Social Security shortfall or the Medicare entitlement they are targeted as mean spirited and anti senior. The fact is that most of the elderly already on Social Security and those close to retirement have nothing to fear except the irresponsible generations answer to do nothing. The future generations are being bankrupted by the current irresponsible generation because they are ignoring practical solutions so the entire system doesn’t go bankrupt. The same goes for every government program. We have to reform them before the entire system goes bankrupt and still the irresponsible generation wants to do nothing.

We have two wars going on in faraway lands with the irresponsible generation in charge of the outcomes of these wars. The irresponsible thing to do is ignore them and this administration is doing a great job at just that. The irresponsible generation has been spoiled and has been brought up being saved by their elders. The problem is they are now the elders. It would be nice if they realized that but that would mean taking responsibility.

The responsibility for fixing all of this will be left to the next generation if we survive as a nation. The next generation will have no one to look to for guidance because they will have been left no choice but to be responsible. They will be the generation that ends up cleaning up the mess at their own expense. I hope the irresponsible generation remembers this when the next generation stops paying their bills…

That is a sorry legacy to be part of…

Social Security; Unconstitutional but Fixable...

Social Security is simply a promise made by the federal government to take money from my paycheck (and the rest of the current workforce) and pass it on to people that have reached retirement age and put it into their account. There is no “lockbox” or “account” with money in it. The money that is needed to be paid to current retirees is directly transferred, and any current “surplus” is used to pay for other federal services and falsely offsets the federal debt. The surplus is running out because the federal government has spent every penny of what have should have gone into a “lockbox” or individual “account” on other “services” or handouts.

The original idea of Social Security was to “insure” that poor elderly folks had at least a small stipend so they could survive and not starve when they were no longer able to work. Over the years, self interested politicians have promoted the perception that Social Security is a pension fund. Unfortunately what this perception has accomplished is an “I paid in, I should get my money back in retirement” expectation. That is not sustainable. With the addition of COLA (cost of living adjustments), and the increased life expectancy compared to when the program began, most retirees today get much more in return than what they put into the system. The percentage of wages taken today is much higher than the current retirees put in, but it is still unsustainable and immoral. It is immoral because the retirees today are taking the money from their children’s paycheck whether they need it or not. Many of the current retirees are selfishly bankrupting the future of their grandkids. If the Social Security checks stopped for individuals after the amount put in was exhausted, I would rescind the charge. But try to touch Social Security today and the argument that ensues is the I “deserve” or are “entitled” to get these freebies because I paid in and was “promised” these “benefits.” As a politician Social Security is the third rail, for thinking people it is a problem that needs to be addressed even if the elderly scream and threaten to vote against the people that need to fix the program. The alternative is, well, coming fast; a generational revolt.

So what’s the solution? First, end COLA’s. Second, limit payouts to $750.00 a month per retiree starting with people that are currently 50 years of age and under (that includes me). Third, money collected needs to be put into individual accounts and taken out of the general fund. Individuals should be able to select where the money goes in conservative mutual funds. Finally, cap Social Security deductions from paychecks to 3%, end compulsory employer contributions, and allow individuals to opt out of the system if they have private retirement funds set up.

The result? People will change their saving habits or face limited retirement opportunities. More people will save for retirement through the 401-K plans (No matter what liberals say, it is safer than a bankrupt, unsustainable ponsey scheme the government is currently running). Politicians will have to find another way to balance the budget. Employers will have their burden of paying into Social Security eliminated, freeing up resources to be used elsewhere. If people fail to prepare for retirement they can apply for welfare because currently that is what Social Security has become.

The truth about Social Security is that the current retirees are getting a free ride and we all know nothing is free. It is being paid for by the grandchildren they claim to love. If we really want to fix Social Security we have to face facts. The constitution gives no authority to the federal government to administer a “retirement program.” It is an individual responsibility to prepare for retirement. Having a “safety net” and not a “hammock” should be the path we take.

I think these are the things that will get us there. All due respect to my elders and the constitution…

Socializing Your 401-K…

As if the healthcare takeover isn’t enough for this administration, they have plans for everything from Cap & Trade (stop energy production) to Eminent Domain takeovers in our state (stop energy production), to the takeover of your 401-K account. That’s right, the hard earned money you have accumulated through sacrifice and hard work is the next target for this group. How else do you think they are going to fend off bankruptcy? The idea was floated back in 2008 but it is again under assault.

As you watch this administration bully through healthcare, they will use the same techniques to bully representatives to socialize your 401-K. What does “socializing” your 401-K mean? It means taking your private account that is in your name in a private fund and putting it in the Social Security “trust” fund. The key word is trust. There is no “Trust Fund” and you can’t trust the government to do the right thing with your money.

There are trillions of dollars in the market that is made up of your 401-K savings. Are you willing to give that money to the federal government? If you don’t vote for the right people in 2010 you may not have a choice.

As Governor I will fight for our constitutional rights and fight to limit the federal ability to socialize your 401-K. Is there any other candidate talking about this issue? Why not? Because too many polticians and state level legislators have given up the fight against our federal government. I believe the fight has only just begun…

$250 to Social Security Recipients…

The congress is about to approve $250 for 50,000,000 ($1.25 Billion) for seniors because inflation is flat and does not justify any increase in benefits this year. Why the increase then? The honest answer is politics and politicians fishing for votes. Any congressional representative voting against this will have a very angry constituency. The reason benefits were tied to cost of living figures is to keep up with inflation. Makes sense. So when prices are flat and come down some things get cheaper. That is where we are at now, prices are dropping and the cost to live is cheaper. This is the problem with every program that has a politician at the helm; they never control or reduce costs, they always increase them no matter what the circumstances are. They are in the business of buying votes.

In the market buying a house is cheaper, gas prices are down, sales are everywhere in the retail sector, but with out of control federal and state spending the value of the dollar, increases in Medicare and Medicaid, along with the addition of government taking over everyone’s healthcare, taxes are going to have to go up. How do you think seniors are going to feel when social security remains flat and taxes go up?

There are people that will need the $250 but many seniors use social security as a supplement to their retirement. People that are in the workforce have seen wage freezes, reductions in pay, mandatory unpaid furloughs, and layoffs. Why would the people currently under wage freezes be forced to pay for social security increases? Things are flat for them too.

The fundamental problem with all government social programs is the divisive nature that pit one generation or group against each other. Being dependent on government for retirement is a really risky place to be. The next generation needs to find better ways that rely on their own wealth creation.

Healthcare will be the same problem. The risk seniors need to consider is a $250 increase in social security is one thing, life and death situations another. Government will want to provide the care that seniors demand but eventually the money will run out and the younger generations are going to resent having to pay because their families will not have the same standard of living we have grown up with.

We can’t allow for the takeover of healthcare because it is so clear to see that it will be another divisive program pitting generations against each other. We don’t need programs; we need real solutions without government completely taking over…

We can end Social Security!

If the new “healthcare’ bill the president is pushing goes through we will no longer need Social Security. I kept wondering where Obama was getting his “savings” from in a plan that is sure to boost the cost of getting medical care. Now I get it; in the plan there are provisions that ration healthcare for the elderly and encourage counseling that will push people to choose death over therapeutic care.

So if you are age 60 or above you are going to be asked to consider death as a way to reduce the cost of healthcare. You will be asked to choose death and in the beginning you may have a choice but after a couple of years all choices will not be yours, they will be made by some faceless bureaucrat in Washington DC. You will be told you are too old and too costly to spend “healthcare” dollars on.

This is great news for the younglings in our country because the elderly population that has been experiencing a surge in age due to the best medical care in the world will no longer be approved for these life saving procedures so our grandparents will start dying younger. Isn’t this great! Our government is going to start killing our elderly population off so we are going to have to pay so many less elderly their Social Security checks!

I know that any day now we are going to hear from Obama or the “death Czar” of healthcare reform that they are going to end the Social Security tax because we will no longer need it because we will be killing people starting at 60. This should be good news for all of us since we can now forget about saving for retirement and can spend ourselves into oblivion. I know, even more than we are now!

So the bad news is the government “healthcare” program is going to kill you but the good news is we don’t have to save for retirement, and I’m sure any day now we will be hearing about the end to the Social Security tax. I am holding my breath, how about you? We all must do our part…

And we want more of this from the government?

“The cost of benefits to seniors soared to a record $27,289 per senior in 2007” according to a USA Today analysis.

“Economist Dean Baker calls it "granny bashing" to focus on the cost of senior benefits. The elderly paid a designated tax for Social Security and Medicare taxes during their decades of working to support these programs when they retired, says Baker, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic Policy and Research.”

I have news for Dean, and I guess he would know this, if you add up all of the benefits paid into Social Security and Medicare for the current senior recipients, their total contribution is less than the $27,000 they are getting paid per year now. That is not “granny bashing”, that is a fact we must come to terms with.

It shows the inherent problem with the system; no sustaining mechanism to keep it from going broke without saddling the upcoming generations with exorbitant taxes, which they will eventually refuse to pay. Continuing on the current path will turn generations against each other at some point. It is not about people getting something back from Social Security and Medicare, it is how much?

We need to create real accounts for Social Security and Medicare for starters. Get the slimy politicians hands out of our “cookie jar” and put it in our own “personal accounts”. Accounts we can’t touch until we are 62. Give people the choice to invest like we do with current 401K and IRA accounts. Heck, I would be happy at this point if they just got simple interest. Anything is better than the “IOU” ponsy scheme we currently have.

Anyone younger than 50 should know that in retirement, the benefit received from Social Security will not exceed $1000 dollars a month, so start saving. The $1000.00 will be there only to supplement people’s retirement (like it was intended) not to be the only source of retirement.

The current seniors have been sold a bill of goods by our politicians and we must not penalize them for this injustice. What we need to do going forward though is to communicate to everyone, this system is broken and we are going to fix it. It is the moral thing to do. No one should have to retire on what the government decides is an acceptable amount of income. It will never be enough. When people know what to expect they can plan for it. Then each generation will not be bitter about handing over their hard earned money to people that didn’t save for their own retirement. Just a thought…

Socialism is an abject failure…

As the riots continue in the suburbs of France, the effects of socialism are on display for all to learn from; again. I am baffled by our liberal and elite politicians continued efforts to take us down a path of socialized; healthcare, retirement, education, energy, etc… There is this “utopia” that these so called educated folks see that can only be obtained by creating this socialistic model that drives to create; fairness, sameness, mediocrity, and collectivism.

But the evidence and history lessons are clear on all attempts to implement socialism in any aspect of life, and history tells us socialism always ends in failure. It is so plain to see in my eyes, that anytime you try to go against human “instinct” you will fail. Humans are competitive by nature, it is a survival instinct. We know the strong survive and in order to be strong you can only count on yourself to create strength. No one else will do that for you because we know through instinct, that if someone is stronger, they pose a threat. So as the elites try to move forward the idea of socialism, they are actually creating strength for themselves. Good for them, bad for us. We know that so we push back when we realize what they are trying to do. This is the stuff college class material is made of, but in the real world we know it is true.

Socialism is sold as being fair to all but in reality it is the most unfair system of all. What is fair about some people doing the work and everyone shares their labor? Who decides who will work and who gets to sit on their butts to collect the fruits of the labor? Why do I have to pay for your housing and health when you are completely capable of providing it for yourself?

Socialism has to be forced on the people; therefore there is always resentment toward the people applying the force. For socialism to work, someone is always taken advantage of by the collective group. We see it in our Social Security system. The young people of this country are being forced to give the elderly a large percentage of their pay so the elderly can drive around in their campers coast to coast while the young go to work every day to pay for this luxury. The elderly think they have paid their way but most elderly have long taken what they have put into the system and would be surprised at the numbers. Social Security has created an us and them, young vs. old, have vs. have not’s.

Instead of having people put money into their own retirement accounts, SS puts the money in a big pool (socialism always is a big “pool”) where the only criteria to get it is age. So if you are a millionaire and have all the money you would ever need, you still get SS. It cultivates a, “it’s my money I paid into it” mentality (which is exactly why socialism doesn’t work), which causes resentment and anger amongst the young and old, but that is always the result of socialist programs. There is always resentment and anger. And that anger always ends up dividing the people and results in a resentment of the government running the program.

So as France deals with the riots we need to take another lesson from them and remind our politicians that market based programs are always the best. We do not need people standing around unemployed and expecting benefits they have not earned. It leads to anger, resentment, and violence. The only way to provide a good life for our citizens is to give them the ability to create their own. Just a thought…

Social Security “fixes” are our responsibility not Hillary or Obama’s…

Obama’s suggestion of a tax hike to shore up Social Security is a typical democratic and moderate republican answer to the SS short fall. Raising the retirement age is what Hillary is suggesting as a way to shore up the system. All of the political answers to “saving” Social Security have two things in common; you will retire with less money, and you will not be able to retire when you want.

Having the politicians control your retirement benefits means they control when you retire and the amount of money you have available to retire with. Most people know today that they must save for themselves if they expect to retire in any sort of comfort but I ask; why let the government decide any aspect of your retirement?

If you put the same amount in your own account that SS takes from your paycheck, you could retire both comfortably and on your schedule. Why do we assume that SS is better left in Hillary’s or Obama’s, or George Bush’s hands? Why can’t we say it is our retirement and we will handle it ourselves? The short answer you hear from politicians is most people will not save unless forced to do so. I say, shame on us. But if that is truly the case, then have the government take out a percentage of pay but put it in our personal account that they can’t touch.

A small percentage should be shifted to help the truly disabled and handicapped but also put in their names, not to be touched by our politicians. Why is it that politicians have access to our SS money if it is truly a retirement savings account for us as individuals? If that was truly their intent, there would be no reason for them to touch our money. But we know better, it is about power over you. If they control your money, they control your vote; period.

If I were truly convinced I would receive the benefits promised through SS, I would retire at 55 and use my personal retirement to bridge the gap to 65 and start collecting SS then. But I know better. I will need every penny I save to supplement the money that has been confiscated from me to supplement my SS, and to let me retire when I want, not when the government decides I can.

We have allowed too much control of our lives to be shifted from us to our politicians and government. I just don’t get how we just merrily accept these premises as fact. We have the power to change things and we should. We need to shift the premise of the argument from how to “save” SS, to how do we get the politicians hands off our money. Would we allow them access to our checking or savings account to do with it what they would like? I would think the answer is no but I’m not sure anymore.

Let’s start taking back the things we should be controlling like our retirement and healthcare choices. I promise you, most of us could handle it without Hillary, Obama, or George Bush’s help. Just a thought…