credit: flickr.com/bbaunach
If, like the hero of Rafael Sabatini’s wonderful adventure novel Scaramouche, you were “born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad,” you no doubt guffawed as I did at the CBS News show 60 Minutes‘ reaction to the failure of the mis-named super-committee. Those twelve stout-hearted congressional heroes were assigned the task of cutting 1.2 trillion dollars out of a 44 trillion dollar deficit over the course of ten years — so minuscule a drop in so vast a bucket that it wouldn’t even have gone plink when it hit the bottom. And they couldn’t do it — couldn’t do even so little as that.
In the wake of such abject failure, 60 Minutes might have noted that President Obama — who has increased the debt more rapidly than any other president — showed precisely zero leadership during the committee negotiations. He demagogued the issue in public while leaving committee members without support or guidance behind the scenes. The news show might also have pointed out that committee Democrats rejected offers from Republicans that would have given them some of the increased tax revenue they so desperately crave.
But no, of course not. Instead 60 Minutes rushed into the fray with a profile of anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, whom “many” (translation: the Democrats at CBS News) blame for scuttling the process. Well, for uproarious predictability and silliness, it was good for a spit-take anyway. As for the truth of the matter, the mighty Krauthammer has it here.
And look, I like to have fun as much as the next fellow, but our journalism can’t be all frivolity and games, ever delighting us anew with fresh examples of clownish buffoonery. Along with the delightful hijinks, there are some serious questions that ought to be asked.
Pres. Reagan said —The government is like a babies alimentary canal, with a healthy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.
Those receiving entitlements are no different.
chief I am one of those receiving intitlements. and I paid into social security all of my life from the time I was 16 when I went into the Army untill I was 73 at which time I quit working. have any of you people who keep harping on intitlements ever thought about the deadbeats loafers dope heads and illegals on wellfare??? they didn’t pay a damned dime into the fund. what about the damned democrats under lyndon johnson who gutted the social security system and put it in the general fund to finance the Vietnam war? maybe you people should do some checking on things befor you start blaming our problems on those of us who are now drawing some of what we paid into all of our lives. oh yes lets not for get those illegals and other immigrants who come in and start drawing social security as soon as they get here even though they havent paid a damned dime into it,simply because they turned old enough to qualify for it,
I’m receiving entitlements too now. SS and Mericare. However, I see why these folks are complaining. Those who created both systems obviously never considered who would support this sytem when more people were old and using it than were young and contributing to it. (See Europe.)
Are you willing to STOP drawing on both funds after you’ve spent whatever you put into them? Have you considered that you might have LOTS more $$ if you’d invested all this $$ youself? Have you ever considered the inflationary effects of the Federal government on medicine, education, and other sundry items?
Even this doesn’t change your opinion (and changing anyone’s opinion is ALMOST impossible), maybe you will understand why others are objecting to it.
And, yes, there are tons of deadbeats on the dole. My daughter lives in the midst of folks like this – whole families receiving tax money since the 60′s when Lyndon Johnson started the whole mess. That doesn’t mean there aren’t problems with the entitlement systems…Almost everyone in the country feels entitled these days.
The current entitlement system is unsustainable. I’m not blaming you or anyone else but the fact remains – more has been promised than is possible to ever pay. I’ll have to see if I can find it but I recall reading that as late as 1970, the maximum SS tax people (not self employed) paid was 5% on the first $5000 of income, or $250 a year. I pay almost that much every single week. Even adjusting for inflation, those who paid into the system earlier didn’t pay very much compared to what we’re paying today.
I’m 54 years old and have many years to go before retirement. I also have two stepsons and four young grandchildren. Current projections are that in 20-30 years, my sons and grandchildren will have to pay over 80% of their income just to pay for the SS and Medicare programs. Clearly, that’s a burden no one should have to pay and that doesn’t even include all the other taxes.
SS was created in the 1930s as a supplemental old age pension. For many years, SS taxes were higher than expenditures so Congress (mostly Democrats) kept expanding the benefits programs. They also raided the extra funds to expand general fund spending – all to buy votes. This started around 1968 and continued until the last year or so when SS taxes were no longer sufficient to pay out the benefits.
So, what do we do? Will we enact means testing to deny SS and/or Medicare to people who saved for their own retirement? Do we raise the taxes on retirement income even more than what Clinton and the Democrats in Congress did in 1993? It seems we’ll have to do one or both of those options or face the inevitable collapse of programs we can no longer afford.
There is a truth that the whole population is going to have to face pretty soon – anything that can’t go on forever will eventually end. We’re facing that very soon now with entitlement spending and no amount of taxing “millionares and billionares” will raise enough revenue to pay for the obligations coming our way.
The reason people initially paid such low percentages was the expected period they’d pay as compared to the expected period they’d get paid out of those funds.
People started working and paying at 15 (if not earlier), retired (if they survived that long, many didn’t) at 65, and on average died 2 years later at 67.
So even if everyone were to survive to retirement, you’d be paying 50 years for 2 years of handouts.
So you could be receiving (on that payment of $250 a year) a government pension of $500 a month (in 1960s era dollars, that’s I think about $2500 today, a nice but not excessive income after taxes) and the government would still have some money left to administer the program for you.
As life expectancy got longer, and entry into the workforce delayed ever further by longer schooling trajectories, this equation got ever more out of whack.
We now work from our 25th to 65th year, so 40 years, and live on average to about 80, or 15 years after retirement.
Instead of paying 25 times longer than we receive, we’re now down to paying less than 3 times longer than we receive.
Premiums would have had to go up to 9 times their original level just to cover that.
The ever increasing coverage of people who never were in the workforce, and ever increasing scope of what’s paid from the income only make things worse.
p.s. I’ve been on social security (in the form of unemployment payments) for a total of 3 months out of the last 15 years, and had to pay most all of it back in back taxes over the income I had on paper earned over the previous year (the non-payment of which by my employer, and his ultimate bankruptcy, being the cause for my unemployment. Talk about injustice…
Thanks for your military service. I did my military service in the Carter Administration in fairly benign cirgumstances in Germany because of the success of those like you who served before me.
Social Security trust fund has always been looted by the government, and its ‘investments’ have always been every bit as good as the politician’s next promise.
SS was never sound. It was always a ponzi scheme, except with guns and courts to force you to pay them. You only have a problem with getting the money out once the guns and courts are arrayed against you getting your money back.
With a ponzie scheme, the first people in make money. The last people in lose their shirt. Now the contest is to see who gets to be the last people in.
The question isn’t necessarily “are you an adult or a child” but rather “are you a woman or a man.” This is the heart of our problem.
As sexist as this sounds at first blush, there actually is some truth in here. The concept of a global trading system is one in which each participate contributes the sum of his/her core competency, negating the need for each individual to become an expert at everything in order to have SOME of everything. The core competencies of men are: competetivness, inventiveness, leadership, and physical stamina; while the core competencies of women are: nurturing, empathy, and communication. While of course there are many exceptions to above, the averages prove this out. If you were to replace ALL US men in positions that require competition, leadership, inventiveness, etc with ALL of the women in the US, the results would be less than optimal. Likewise, replace all of the US women in positions where they can exercise their core competencies (like teaching, child rearing, etc), and you’d have a similar disaster on your hands. It is no secret that our country [and Europe] is governed by feminine sensibilities like never in history and we are sowing the seeds of a vast downward trajectory of competency as a result. The only thing that would save us by comparison is if the rest of the world did the same to balance out the inequities. Well, they aren’t. Especially in Muslim areas. We are going to get our silly Western female-ruled butts kicked by some serious muslim/Russian/Asian testosterone in the very near future. Count on it.
In the 1980s, Democrats persuaded Reagan to go along with tax increases by promising to cut spending. They lied – spending increased. During the Bush 41 administration, Democrats persuaded him to break his “read my lips – no new taxes” pledge with promises of spending cuts. They lied – spending increased.
Show me real spending cuts first. Not the political phony accounting cuts but real cuts. Then, when as much as possible has been cut, if there’s still a revenue shortfall, we can look at taxes.
Larry a democrat wouuld wrather climb a greased flag pole and stand on his head to tell a damned lie than stand on the ground and tell the truth,
Well, we have incontrovertible evidence our federal government is ruled by children. Crybabies, to be more accurate.
These crybabies also happen to have our credit cards, which they’ve repeatedly maxed out.
Taxpayers, as the only apparent adults in the mix, need to stand firm. No more credit and no more taxes. The government needs to join the world the rest of us have been living in for some time: We’ve cut overall spending, eliminated luxuries and non-necessities, scaled back, pared down, paid off debt, struggled to save. It’s time to get our house (and senate) in order.
exactly
Every additional penney given to them is really five pennies disguised as one and flushed down the toilet.
Don’t give them a cent.
I would WELCOME tax increases if there was so much as a particle of evidence that the government would use these funds responsibly and take real grown-up steps to ease the debt crisis. The key word here is “responsibly.” That’s the rub isn’t it? Most of our governing class is incapable of responsible behavior. Nearly all of them would see a fresh infusion of tax dollars as an excuse for an all-out spree of vote-buying. Every fresh taxpayer-funded bribe to a favored lobby would be piously defended as “spending on infrastructure”, or “stimulating local economies” or “justice for an historically disenfranchised group.” It would be like gorging yourself at the first-class buffet on an ocean liner as the ship sinks beneath your feet.
REALLY?? And WHO do you expect to PAY them? Unless the Government wants to create another Tax bracket, the ONLY people that seem to be paying taxes are the small businesses! HALF of all Americans pay NO taxes….the “Millionaires and Billionaires” are too busy paying Lobbyists and high priced CPA’s to get OUT of paying ANY, and what is left are the Small Businesses such as Family Farms, Mom and Pop Stores and such to pay the Bulk of the Burden. I AM a small business and I am ALREADY paying HALF my income between State and Fed..does not count the other countless taxes we have to pay, and I am SICK OF IT! I have worked hard all my life and when I FINALLY start to make it, it is being taken away. “Over 250K” is NOT a Millionaire and people need to understand that is exactly WHO is paying the tab!
You have my sympathies. You are also perfectly correct. Small business owners are carrying way more of their share of the tax burden not to mention the fact that our political and economic elites look down on them as some sort of unfashionable social element that should be neither seen and nor heard. They shoud just pay up.
When I said I would welcome new taxes it was with what I had thought the very large proviso that the money be spent “responsibly.” I thought that it went without saying that this condition cannot met by our current political class.
Ah, my friend, you have hit it on the exact center of the head!
I have been saying for years, “The politicians deal with taxation by taking out a big cannon to shoot Warren Buffet, but somehow, they always miss him by a mile, and hit me right square in the butt”!
Almost every thing that small business needs to do to compete has been outlawed or regulated to death. Add to that all the tax breaks that cities, counties, states, and even utilities give to very prosperous businesses to “lure” them into their district. Who do they think pays their bill instead? They certainly don’t. Me. That’s who.
Must be a nice gig, giving away other peoples’ money. Like Fannie and Freddie, where criminals like Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick got paid millions in bonuses for giving away more of it than we had! Obama likes giving stuff away better than he likes greasy chitlins. The fact that nearly half of every single dime he gives away puts us into debt deeper and deeper doesn’t overly worry him. He doesn’t have to pay it back! We do. Along with supporting him in high style until he dies.
When he steals the next election, which seems likely (have you seen the trial ballons floating around that voter ID is unAmerican? The Dept. of Justice has), what are you going to personally do about it? You better have a plan, because you’re going to need it.
Welcome to my nightmare.
Chambers you have just described the democratic party and obama to a T,
Amen. I’ve been saying this for years. The leftist perspective on government and society is that of the perpetual adolescent. The battle cry is pure 13-year-old:
“I could be happy if all the OTHER people would just change what they’re doing!!!”
One of my favorite smug moral high ground unwittingly ironic names is a group in Minnesota for many years now called “Women Against Military Madness.”
If you think about it, it’s like having a name like “Last Place Teams Against the World Series” since woman don’t participate in war out of spirituality but because they never have been able to, WW II Soviets excluded. And now, in the modern era when women CAN be in the front line trenches, they suddenly allow themselves to be docile and obey society’s inequality in this matter.
It’s like native Americans who like to pretend they never engaged in murder, war and slavery before the Europeans came and that the reason they didn’t have tech was because of their very high spirituality I.Q. which disdained such things.
The “Rainbow Coalition.” They should call it “Losers, Inc.”
Andrew, the article you recommend, On Tyranny and Liberty, is superb. If you haven’t read it, folks, do so.
Thought-provoking and disturbing, it should be part of every civics class curriculum.
I’m having trouble understanding the whole situation. Why do Republicans and Democrats have to defend their ideological turf while the country goes to hell?
It seems clear-cut to me. We’re up to our asses in debt. When you’re up to your ass in debt, you a) stop spending like there’s no tomorrow and b) try to get more money. Congress should not be arguing about whether to do a) or b). They should be doing BOTH. Raise some taxes on something AND cut spending on something.
It’s an emergency. It’s not the time for moral cowardice masquerading as ideological bravery. Everybody needs to man up and take whatever measures are necessary to solve the problem. Tax. Cut spending. Then, when the emergency is over, we can talk about lowering taxes and restoring “programs.”
I could be wrong, but I think reasonable people will accept new taxes and spending cuts if they’re assured that the funds thus gained will be used to decrease the debt and that the austerities won’t necessarily last forever. Trouble is, where are all the reasonable people?
Like I wrote above, they’ve promised spending cuts several times in the past and lied every single time. Only a fool would trust them ever again. Show me real spending cuts first and then we can discuss taxes.
Real spending cuts mean actually decreasing or eliminating budgets, not just promising reductions in the rate of growth. Make the cuts verifiable by accepted accounting standards, not by corrupt Washington standards. Any corporation that ran its accounting the way the government does would not only go bankrupt, the officers would go to jail.
IF they cut taxes, they would increase revenue.
Simply because the money would stay where it could generate more wealth– in the private sector.
Do you want 50% of the income of a village of peasants, or 1% of the income of a village of MILLIONAIRES? Here’s the trick— You’ll get the latter if you let the peasants keep and invest their own money.
That’s the kind of ideology-bound thinking that keeps us at a standstill. Is your plan going to generate 44 trillion dollars any time soon? Any time at all? I doubt it.
So, despite having lied many times in the past about cutting spending, you’re willing to trust them with higher taxes? That doesn’t sound very wise to me.
“Now the truth is that the situation is so dire that both entitlement and tax reform are sure to come either before our collapse or directly after it.”
Just look at Greece or, for that matter, any of the other social welfare states in Europe that are about to collapse. They are STILL doing nothing about their problems and they’re about to go broke. Even now, with all of their “austerity measures,” the Greeks are treating a symptom of the illness but not dealing with the illness itself, that of massive entitlements. Funny, but I’ve lived in America all my life, have reached middle age, and I can honestly say that the Federal or State governments have not done much for me. I always give my local town government a break because they actually DO stuff for me, like hire the cops, the firemen, the teachers, and run our public schools.
But what have the Feds done for me lately except almost tax me out of existence? Provide a military that is poorly run and mismanaged, a federal highway system that always seems to be falling apart around election time, and a post office that has been the butt of all jokes since it has been created. We have tons of law enforcement agencies that all seem to do the same thing and a bloated federal bureaucracy that would have made the creators of the British Rail System blush. And lets not even talk about all of the Federal agencies that have been created and done precious little over the past 30 years (such as the Department of Energy or the Department of Education). I’m not on Social Security, Medicaid, or Medicare and yet, even though I don’t think any of that will be around when I retire, me and my family are helping to pay for all of it. America, what a country. If you are poor or are middle class, you qualify for just about every federal program there is. If not, hard cheese and keep shelling out those bucks to fund all of this.
If demanding that we end all of this waste and corruption makes you baby, then pass me the apple sauce. There is a time when people have to say “enough,” and I think we’ve reached that point. Nothing in Washington will change unless there is a conservative Congress with a conservative president that is ready, willing, and able to not only reform the way things are done in Washington, but also willing to reduce the size of our government. If we are not willing to do all of that, then we’d better start learning Greek. And fast.
Speaking as one of the “poor”— or should we say lower income, as I make about $10 grand a year— it’s not looking so great from down here either.
I’m white, straight and male, so I don’t qualify for most social programs. The rest are eliminated by the fact that I don’t have any illegitimate children and I’m an American citizen. And the few left that I MIGHT qualify for…. well if I even inquire about them the government agents at the office look at me like they stepped in something and suddenly there’s a forest of hoops to jump through just to ask.
Yet at the same time I’m scratching to make ends meet. Behind on my bills, behind on my TAXES, the IRS hit me up two years in a row for more money than I could possibly get together… and I’m looking at getting hit up yet again. Medical insurance is a fantasy; I’m lucky to keep my AUTO insurance right now.
No, being below the 50% line doesn’t put you on easy street.
It’s really none of my buisness, but I calculate full time minimum wage to be about 15K a year and I have to wonder how you are below that being white straight and male. I thought we got all the good jobs and big money by oppressing the other folks.
What frustrates me the most is that when I discuss the deficit with liberal friends they are appalled that I want to cut taxes and spending. I’m insensitive and selfish because I don’t want to take care of the needy (since that’s what we need the federal government for). When I point out that I DO want to help the needy by giving to charities that use their resources efficiently instead of the government that doesn’t, the conversation ends because I’m just talking nonsense. When I try to keep the dialog going by asking for an example of ANYTHING the government does more efficiently than private enterprise the most common response I get is the U.S. Postal Service. And I’m the one who’s talking nonsense?
Phillip,
“A private Postal Service”
George Will
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will112711.php3
Living in San Francisco, I concluded long ago that debate with the left is futile. My advice to conservatives is to bypass those whose lives are driven by emotion-fueled belief in the “social justice” (for whom?) of wealth “redistribution”, and point out to critical thinkers that government is a monopoly, with no “B” or “C” competitors creating pressure to operate cost effectively or efficiently; waste that would devastate careers and businesses in the private sector brings few if any personal consequences in government.
The number of individuals who are liberal and work in an accountable profession is microscopic. They almost all live off the government teat, in one way or another. Of course they want more taxes. Did John Dillinger or Bonnie and Clyde want banks to stop taking deposits? Or hire better security? Thieves will always tell you that you should just give that stash up, it’s not worth your life. Until, that is, they want your life. Then they just take it.
So if you’re an adult, you should be in favor of the proven success of Keynesian based capitalism; but if you’re a child you’d be in favor of economic libertarianism, despite its failure in Mexico.
This is a childish essay. Face it, the author provides an either/or choice based entirely on metaphor. I have lately been cataloging the irrational reasoning from the writers of both sides of the political entertainment community and now I must say to the; ‘They started it’ and ‘They do it to’ I must add the ‘Hey, you now what you are’? Of course, then I would have to add the ‘I know you are, but what am I’?
:: ))
In the 60s at Hopkins I met people are the grandparents of the kids today. No diff really no diff at all.
Ozzy is a goon (can I say that) following the mode of thought he claims to criticize and offers no alternative. If you don’t show you don’t have it.
Ozzy did you go to Johns Hopkins? You would have fit perfectly and much beloved.
My ‘Greatest Fear’ is that the good ship ‘Save The Republic’ has already sailed. And that the eventual response to our National problems will not be cut OR tax. But the classic ‘Man On A White Horse’. One who arises from the turmoil to ‘Save Us From Ourselves’. If there truly is a merciful God we’d get an Ataturk, Pinochet or Franco. But if not we’ll more than likely get a Bonaparte or Hitler and spend decades choking on blood.
There’s a big difference between an “Entitlement” that I paid money for my whole 50+ year working life and welfare. And you will notice that no one in either party is talking about actually confronting the issues of paying people not to work. The local Social Security office actually rented space for Social Security disability signups in a building far far away from where the actual old folks go. Because we are using SSI to pay people not to burn down every big city in the country.
The greedy billionaires like the Koch brothers have not paid a cent in taxes since the disastrous Reagan tax cuts in the 1980′s. We need to raise taxes to 99% on all income over $1 millon per year and we could easily provide food, shelter,health care, and jobs for all.
We could also just default on the national debt since the same greedy billionaires own all of the savings bonds and T-bills. Who cares what happens to them?
Other than the lie in your first sentence and the stupidity of your suggestion, how much is Georgo Soros paying you to post this nonsense?
As true morons are really hard to find, I assume that your post is tongue-in-cheek.
If not, then the only conjecture left is that you are retarded in the truest sense of the word.
Pull your head out of your a$$ and smell the sh*t that impacts your nostrils.
Very rarely do I hear people mention the other consequence of the “mommy” state.
If the STATE pays to feed you, gives you schooling, health care, and a variety of safety nets to keep you out of trouble, what does the STATE get out of it? What is the consequence of you choosing to live under THEIR roof?
You will no longer own yourself. They will have a RIGHT to the product of your labor. You work for THEM, not yourself.
Kiss your freedom goodbye; you must not have wanted it anyway.
Yes, they seem stunned that arrests happen when they break the law, don’t they? Are we surprised at this? Every day, thousands of illegal aliens cross our borders and get away with it. These young people have heard about it on the news and in school. So why do they have to obey the law? They have heard that one of our presidents lied under oath (called perjury) and walked away unscathed. They have also read and heard that perhaps another president is not even a U.S. citizen (not going to debate this ….just saying they have heard it, okay?). So why would they not think they could do anything they want with no consequences? Perhaps a great majority of the same whiners always had mommy or daddy to take care of pesky misdemeanors. Our society behaves like a codependent and until it stops, the addicts will be enabled.
I honestly wish the government would let use decide this choice. Are you a kid, or an adult?
The fact that many people are elevated to adulthood simply by age is silly. If you can manage your own affairs, then you are an adult. If you cannot, you are a child. Being a child is okay – everyone has been there, after all – but children need someone to take care of them, because they are not able to make decisions for themselves. In other words, the OWS and other entitlement seekers should go back to being minors. If they work, the government (or a person to whom they willingly relinquish control) takes all of it and gives them an allowance after paying for food and shelter. Any major changes need the parent-figure’s approval. They can’t vote, they can’t really own property, can’t enter contracts, or otherwise make adult decisions. might see less people on the entitlement rolls if it meant giving up their normal freedoms.
The key point is that some people need adult supervision. Others ARE the adult supervision.