According to a New York Times/CBS News poll, Americans want less federal spending instead of paying higher taxes to reduce the deficit. However, about two thirds of Americans would prefer higher payroll taxes for Medicare and Social Security rather than seeing any cutbacks in benefits. In other words, Americans rightfully oppose higher taxes to solve the federal government’s unconscionable spending polices, but they also want to perpetuate the greatest Ponzi schemes in human history, Social Security and Medicare.
The pollsters should have asked the American people if they believe in being financially independent instead of relying of two Ponzi schemes, which are illegal if done by private individuals or investment firms. If the people overwhelmingly prefer Social Security and Medicare to their own retirement income and savings to live on and pay their medical bills in their senior years, then the welfare state will be with us until it collapses under its own weight.
So while Bernie Madoff is effectively serving a life sentence for perpetrating the largest private Ponzi scheme in history, the federal government’s two Ponzi schemes are about a $100 trillion “underfunded,” which means they can never payoff future beneficiaries without substantially cutting benefits and/or raising taxes through the roof. In short, the occupant of the Oval Office—whether a Republican or Democrat–and the Congress have been in effect 536 Bernie Madoffs. (You can subtract Rep. Ron Paul from this ignominious group because he has called for ending Social Security and Medicare.)
The American people, however, share the blame for the predicament we are in—the $14 trillion national debt, the $1.5 trillion annual budget deficit, the approximate $1 trillion military-industrial complex, and the tens of trillions of unfunded liabilities. The people have voted for “conservatives”—candidate who promised to perpetuate the federal government’s Ponzi schemes and other welfare-warfare spending.
Few candidates for president or the Congress have campaigned to phase out Social Security and Medicare. The minuscule number of candidates who have run on such a platform have been pummeled unmercifully for being a “nut,” an “extremist,” etc., by their opponents and the media.
However, who is standing up for honesty and independence? Certainly not the advocates of Social Security and Medicare—unequivocal Ponzi schemes—but the proponents of financial integrity. This is the great issue facing the American people.
We need an immediate plan to phase out Social Security and Medicare so current and soon-to-be beneficiaries receive all or most of their benefits, while younger Americans can plan to fund their retirement portfolio to be financially independent in their senior years. Anything less in the debates in Washington will just hasten the day of reckoning as the clock keeps ticking on the unsustainable welfare state. In short, do not sell your gold and silver.
FilmCriticOne
February 13, 2011 at 12:17 am
This is news to you?
AMericans don’t want to pay for what they get? And this is a surprise why? Is this not human nature?
What is surprising is, you don’t grasp this is how everyone is, all over the world. It is how you are.
And no, people do not want higher FICA taxes, I don’t know which delusional rock you have been hiding under, nor do I know how they worded the question, but no, people do not want higher FICA taxes. They never did.
In fact, FICA taxes (which Reagan raised twice) are for millions of people, the highest federal taxes they pay. You are right, it’s a Ponzi scheme.
It’s a ponzi scheme that if workers and business have to pay it (and they do — through the nose) then everyone should pay it. Capital gains should pay it. Estates should pay it. It’s a scam.
If you want a tax system that is fair — and no one wants that — then the scam aspect of the tax should be shared by all.
Bill Bradley, the former Senator and basketball player, had a tax system that was fair, natually he called in the Fairtax. And because it was honest and fair, no one wanted to touch it with a ten foot pole. The unearned income crowd hated it. Workers hated it. Estates hated it. Everyone either hated or ignored it, that’s why I knew it was a reasonable fair tax system.
Today, we have the “Fairtax” absurdity, which some people love. That should tell you it’s absurd. But the fine print shows the absurdity even more clearly — a trillion dollar hidden tax, on city and state governments! Yes, the state government of California would owe 16-18 billion a year to the federal government. And every city in CA would likewise owe massive taxes.
Naturally this entire lunatic part of their plan – the trillion dollar hidden tax on city and state governments, is explain in less word that this paragraph!
Naturally, it has 50 sponsors and Huckabee loves it.
So — taxes are the playground of liars and sneaks, precisely because people don’t want honesty about them.
This should not be news.