Cut Social Security.

Vic Biorseth, Saturday, March 10, 2012
http://www.Thinking-Catholic-Strategic-Center.com

No matter what else we do, no matter what other programs we cut or reduce, no matter what we do to increase revenue, no matter what frugalities we adopt, America is not going to get out of the current financial and budgetary pickle she’s in if we do not look at, recognize and properly address the elephant in the room. Social Security – the purely Socialist boondoggle of FDR from 1935 – is the largest single budgetary item in America, the largest single budgetary item in the entire world, and it is growing exponentially.

If we do not cut Social Security, then Social Security will eventually cut us.

Now, in Cut HHS, a previous entry in the Shut Down Bureaucracy page, which contained a whole slew of sub-bureaucracies, such as FDA, CDC, CMS, etc., etc., etc., we said to cut them all, and you might wonder

• But how are we to know what to eat?
• How are we to handle diseases?
• How are old folks to pay for health care?
• etc.

Bureaucracy always complexifies; bureaucracy itself, left alone, becomes more complex. Give a petty bureaucrat a little authority and he will spend an entire career working to increase and expand that authority and create little sub-bureaucracies beneath him. His work produces nothing beneficial to the economy. He is a drag on the economy.

In 1995, Social Security was spun of from HHS into its own new super-bureaucracy, to begin its own bureaucratic super-growth. It’s like cancerous cell division.

Language to cut Social Security invariably invokes the wrath of the Democrats, the SLIMC, retired voters and near retirement-age voters. Even when the candidate promises to not cut the Social Security payments to those already retired, that promise is glossed over, not reported or falsely reported by the Democrats and the SLIMC. Nevertheless, national survival itself demands that we address the need to cut Social Security.

How to Cut Social Security. Currently, three workers pay into Social Security enough per month to pay one month’s benefits to one retiree. That ratio is changing radically as time goes on. Eventually, one worker will be paying one benefit; then, after a short time, one worker will be paying, in his payroll taxes, enough to pay more than one retiree. Obviously, this cannot go on. It was a stupid and/or destructive Marxist idea to begin with.

1. Pass the Fair Tax, using the Fast-Track Fair Tax recommendation to get it done legislatively, before the required Constitutional Amendment to abolish the income tax is completed. The Fair Tax will more than fund all government needs, including Social Security. For the first time, Social Security will actually be fully funded into the future, and without raising anyone’s taxes. No one will have any taxes. Income tax and payroll tax will be gone, and Social Security will be fully funded.
2. Pick a date – any date – in the future, on which Social Security is to be cut.
3. On and after that date:
1. Everyone who is already receiving Social Security benefits will continue receiving them, for life.
2. Everyone who is not yet receiving Social Security benefits, but has paid into Social Security from their payroll taxes, will receive a lump sum payment from the government consisting of what they paid in plus what their various employers paid in over all years of employment. This may mean a one time, one year deficit to the budget. In the long run, it will be well worth it.
3. Everyone just entering the labor force or not in the labor force will not need to apply for or receive a Social Security card or a Social Security number. For them, there is no such thing as Social Security.
4. The military will have to go back to issuing military service numbers, as they did back in the olden days when I served, instead of Social Security numbers.

Of course, employers will benefit from having lost all the complexities of tax rules, W4s, W2s, 1099s, unemployment compensation, Social Security, tax tables, tax accountants, tax lawyers and all payroll complexities brought on by pure government bureaucracy. An employee works; an employer writes a check. Very simple; nothing to it. No one ever files an income tax return again, for there is no income tax. Your gross pay is your net pay.

Note that unemployment is included in the Social Security bureaucracy. When FDR invented Social Security, it included all the benefits normally associated with private retirement plans, which would include unemployment, retirement, disability and a lump sum payment upon death. Since then it has morphed into many things, as bureaucracies always tend to do. Elsewhere in this site we recommended shutting down unemployment compensation just on the basis of the fact that tax payers should not be paying people to not work. If we stop paying people to not work, that should be a major inducement to get them to go to work.

Astute and frugal citizens should purchase their own retirement insurance, which might include unemployment, disability, retirement and a death benefit. It is not the responsibility of the federal government to do that for you. You will reap what you sow.

Before you get all exercised over the loss of unemployment, disability, etc., consider the raise you get from no income or payroll taxes – your gross pay equals your net pay – and consider the monthly pre-bate payment you will now receive from your government. Consider also how much cheaper medical practice, medicine and drugs will become when the dust settles and health insurance, with Medicare in the lead, is no longer regulating, strangling and driving the medical industry into complexity and bankruptcy.

Passing of the Fair Tax would provide the economic boom needed to multiply employers and employees in America. Industries would seek to move their operations here from elsewhere just for the tax advantage of paying no taxes whatsoever. That means lots of employment.

The first state to work out and implement a state version of the Fair Tax would experience a migration into their state of companies, employers, employees and even retirees, all coming there for the tax advantage.

The first locality, be it a city, township, county or whatever, to implement a local version of the Fair Tax would experience the same thing. Employers, employees, retirees and new business start-ups would all want to locate there.

Imagine a spot to which you could move that had no property tax, no income tax, no death or inheritance tax, and, in fact, no tax of any kind whatsoever other than a sales tax. Would you not want to move there?

Regarding “Safety Nets” and Charity. Once upon a time, like back when I wrote the Rule of Subsidiarity page, I believed and wrote that the federal government should be the last place, never the first, to go for aid when in need. But after listening to wiser counsel, including Rush Limbaugh, and after some research into what the Founders and the Framers said about it, and after some thought, I have settled on the logical conclusion that the federal government should not provide any such safety net at all.

As evidences from the Founders and Framers, I offer these quotes:

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents...." -James Madison

“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.” -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816

“Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.” -Thomas Jefferson

“With respect to the two words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.” - James Madison, in a letter to James Robertson

The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government. - James Madison: from a speech in the House of Representatives, January 10, 1794

The record pretty well shows that the federal government is not supposed to be in the business of charity, or of insurance, or of any of the myriad of extra-constitutional things our federal government has taken upon itself to do since the founding and the framing. It has actually attempted a re-definition of charity in the process. Taking from the tax payer and paying to the needy is not charity. You only perform an act of charity when it comes willingly out of your own pocket, and no one else’s pocket. This sly re-definition is a trick to move a society into Socialism, which is to say, national doom. Always done with the best of intentions, of course; or, perhaps, under the appearance of the best of intentions.

In our history, we have had here and there various state, county or township entities such as the “poor house” or the “work house” established and maintained for those unfortunates with nowhere else to go. But even the county poor house or work house was the absolute last resort, after family, Church and private charities could not provide sufficient relief.

When families were typically large and strong, the family provided the best social safety net for all members of the family. The larger the family, the stronger the safety net. Families grew up around one or more family businesses, from farms or ranches to restaurants, bakeries, or whatever. All family members were not necessarily well off, but they were all members. Family members loved the family land, or other family business(es), and knew how it worked, and how to make it prosper, working together. The second largest social support group was the Church. Once upon a time, the Church was the central social focal point of the entire neighborhood. Church was where families met other families that didn’t live right next door, and formed wider bonds and relationships, and whole networks of people of similar value systems.

But, over time, just as the advance of Contraception slowly destroyed the large family, the advance of Secularism slowly destroyed the neighborhood Church, at least as far as being the central social focal point of the entire neighborhood, larger community, and thus of American life itself.

Creeping Marxist ideology has infected American education, American religion, American thought, American life, American politics, American values, all to the detriment of the original American idea itself. We have been becoming something else, something un-American, and we are just beginning to wake up to that fact in large enough numbers to do something about it. We need to reverse the trend. Stopping it is not enough; we need to turn around and go the other way.

In the opening paragraph of this article, we said that Social Security – the purely Socialist boondoggle of FDR from 1935 – is the largest single budgetary item in America, the largest single budgetary item in the entire world, and it is growing exponentially. All by itself, it is larger than defense, or anything else. Before Comrade Obama (peace be upon him) took office, it was 37% of the whole damned budget. We don’t know what percentage it is now, because we haven’t had a single annual budget passed by Congress since he took office. But if you bet that the percentage went radically up, you would win the bet.

Comrade Obama (peace be upon him) is a Marxist revolutionary who is also an astute and skilled politician, which is to say that he is never quite what he appears to be. He is working to destroy Constitutional America, and his main target is the unique American Judao-Christian religion. Our religion is what forms our national Ethos, our value system and our motivation for our behavior. It is how we tell right from wrong. Comrade Obama (peace be upon him) seeks to change all that so as to make us all dependent upon government for – everything. Dependent; no longer independent. Since religion is the source of morality, and morality is at the root of our values, which form strong families, strong Churches and a strong sense of charity, he attacks our religion, relentlessly.

He doesn’t want us to be able to take care of ourselves and our families, and he doesn’t want us to be willing to take care of ourselves and our families. He seeks to destroy all support systems and drive us, seemingly willingly, into the great collective. To that end, he must destroy Christianity. He seeks to destroy the Judao-Christian religion.

If you want evidence of this, we have his own words and actions to examine.

April 2008 – Obama speaks disrespectfully of Christians, saying they “cling to guns or religion” and have an “antipathy to people who aren't like them.” 1

February 2009 – Obama announces plans to revoke conscience protection for health workers who refuse to participate in medical activities that go against their beliefs, and fully implements the plan in February 2011. 2

April 2009 – When speaking at Georgetown University, Obama orders that a monogram symbolizing Jesus' name be covered when he is making his speech. 3

May 2009 – Obama declines to host services for the National Prayer Day (a day established by federal law) at the White House. 4

April 2009 – In a deliberate act of disrespect, Obama nominated three pro-abortion ambassadors to the Vatican; of course, the pro-life Vatican rejected all three. 5

October 19, 2010 – Obama begins deliberately omitting the phrase about “the Creator” when quoting the Declaration of Independence – an omission he has made on no less than seven occasions. 6

November 2010 – Obama misquotes the National Motto, saying it is “E pluribus unum” rather than “In God We Trust” as established by federal law. 7

January 2011 – After a federal law was passed to transfer a WWI Memorial in the Mojave Desert to private ownership, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that the cross in the memorial could continue to stand, but the Obama administration refused to allow the land to be transferred as required by law, and refused to allow the cross to be re-erected as ordered by the Court. 8

February 2011 – Although he filled posts in the State Department, for more than two years Obama did not fill the post of religious freedom ambassador, an official that works against religious persecution across the world; he filled it only after heavy pressure from the public and from Congress. 9

April 2011 – For the first time in American history, Obama urges passage of a non-discrimination law that does not contain hiring protections for religious groups, forcing religious organizations to hire according to federal mandates without regard to the dictates of their own faith, thus eliminating conscience protection in hiring. 10

August 2011 – The Obama administration releases its new health care rules that override religious conscience protections for medical workers in the areas of abortion and contraception. 11

November 2011 – Obama opposes inclusion of President Franklin Roosevelt’s famous D-Day Prayer in the WWII Memorial. 12

November 2011 – Unlike previous presidents, Obama studiously avoids any religious references in his Thanksgiving speech. 13

December 2011 – The Obama administration denigrates other countries' religious beliefs as an obstacle to radical homosexual rights. 14

January 2012 – The Obama administration argues that the First Amendment provides no protection for churches and synagogues in hiring their pastors and rabbis. 15

February 2012 – The Obama administration forgives student loans in exchange for public service, but announces it will no longer forgive student loans if the public service is related to religion. 16

June 2011 – The Department of Veterans Affairs forbids references to God and Jesus during burial ceremonies at Houston National Cemetery. 17

August 2011 – The Air Force stops teaching the Just War theory to officers in California because the course is taught by chaplains and is based on a philosophy introduced by St. Augustine in the third century AD – a theory long taught by civilized nations across the world (except America). 18

September 2011 – Air Force Chief of Staff prohibits commanders from notifying airmen of programs and services available to them from chaplains. 19

September 2011 – The Army issues guidelines for Walter Reed Medical Center stipulating that “No religious items (i.e. Bibles, reading materials and/or facts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit.” 20

November 2011 – The Air Force Academy rescinds support for Operation Christmas Child, a program to send holiday gifts to impoverished children across the world, because the program is run by a Christian charity. 21

November 2011 – The Air Force Academy pays $80,000 to add a Stonehenge-like worship center for pagans, druids, witches and Wiccans. 22

February 2012 – The U. S. Military Academy at West Point disinvites three star Army general and decorated war hero Lieutenant General William G. (“Jerry”) Boykin (retired) from speaking at an event because he is an outspoken Christian. 23

February 2012 – The Air Force removes “God” from the patch of Rapid Capabilities Office (the word on the patch was in Latin: Dei). 24

February 2012 – The Army orders Catholic chaplains not to read a letter to parishioners that their archbishop asked them to read. 25

January 2009 – Obama lifts restrictions on U.S. government funding for groups that provide abortion services or counseling abroad, forcing taxpayers to fund pro-abortion groups that either promote or perform abortions in other nations. 26

January 2009 – President Obama’s nominee for deputy secretary of state asserts that American taxpayers are required to pay for abortions and that limits on abortion funding are unconstitutional. 27

March 2009 – The Obama administration shut out pro-life groups from attending a White House-sponsored health care summit. 28

March 2009 – Obama orders taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research. 29

March 2009 – Obama gave $50 million for the UNFPA, the UN population agency that promotes abortion and works closely with Chinese population control officials who use forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations. 30

May 2009 – The White House budget eliminates all funding for abstinence-only education and replaces it with “comprehensive” sexual education, repeatedly proven to increase teen pregnancies and abortions. 31 He continues the deletion in subsequent budgets. 32 May 2009 – Obama officials assemble a terrorism dictionary calling pro-life advocates violent and charging that they use racism in their “criminal” activities. 33 July 2009 – The Obama administration illegally extends federal benefits to same-sex partners of Foreign Service and Executive Branch employees, in direction violation of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. 34

September 16, 2009 – The Obama administration appoints as EEOC Commissioner Chai Feldblum, who asserts that society should “not tolerate” any “private beliefs,” including religious beliefs, if they may negatively affect homosexual “equality.” 35

July 2010 – The Obama administration uses federal funds in violation of federal law to get Kenya to change its constitution to include abortion. 36

August 2010 – The Obama administration Cuts funding for 176 abstinence education programs. 37

September 2010 – The Obama administration tells researchers to ignore a judge’s decision striking down federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. 38

February 2011 – Obama directs the Justice Department to stop defending the federal Defense of Marriage Act. 39

March 2011 – The Obama administration refuses to investigate videos showing Planned Parenthood helping alleged sex traffickers get abortions for victimized underage girls. 40

July 2011 – Obama allows homosexuals to serve openly in the military, reversing a policy originally instituted by George Washington in March 1778. 41

September 2011 – The Pentagon directs that military chaplains may perform same-sex marriages at military facilities in violation of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. 42

October 2011 – The Obama administration eliminates federal grants to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for their extensive programs that aid victims of human trafficking because the Catholic Church is anti-abortion. 43

May 2009 – While Obama does not host any National Day of Prayer event at the White House, he does host White House Iftar dinners in honor of Ramadan. 44

April 2010 – Christian leader Franklin Graham is disinvited from the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer Event because of complaints from the Muslim community. 45

April 2010 – The Obama administration requires rewriting of government documents and a change in administration vocabulary to remove terms that are deemed offensive to Muslims, including jihad, jihadists, terrorists, radical Islamic, etc. 46

August 2010 – Obama speaks with great praise of Islam and condescendingly of Christianity. 47

August 2010 – Obama went to great lengths to speak out on multiple occasions on behalf of building an Islamic mosque at Ground Zero, while at the same time he was silent about a Christian church being denied permission to rebuild at that location. 48

2010 – While every White House traditionally issues hundreds of official proclamations and statements on numerous occasions, this White House avoids traditional Biblical holidays and events but regularly recognizes major Muslim holidays, as evidenced by its 2010 statements on Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr, Hajj, and Eid-ul-Adha. 49

October 2011 – Obama’s Muslim advisers block Middle Eastern Christians’ access to the White House. 50

February 2012 – The Obama administration makes effulgent apologies for Korans being burned by the U. S. military, 51 but when Bibles were burned by the military, numerous reasons were offered why it was the right thing to do. 52

While his words and deeds reveal his hatred for our religion and our Constitution, and his affinity for both Marxism and Islam, it is important to note the relationship of Marxism and Islam to America.

Marxism, as exemplified by Marx’s seminal work, the Communist Manifesto, is clearly and specifically antithetical to the American Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution, as we have shown on multiple pages on this site.

Islam, as exemplified by Mohammed’s seminal work, the Koran, is clearly and specifically antithetical to the American Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution, as we have shown on multiple pages on this site.

There is no getting around it. You cannot be a good Marxist and honestly take an oath of office to protect and defend the American Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. You cannot be a good Moslem and honestly take an oath of office to protect and defend the American Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. If you are a Marxist, or if you are a Moslem, you already are an enemy of the American Constitution. No Marxist can bless and protect the Constitution; the Manifesto seeks revolution, not the continuation of our government. No Moslem can bless and protect the Constitution; the Koran forbids it; the Koran insists on making war until the entire world is subject to Islam, including our government and all our citizens.

It may seem like I’m getting pretty far afield with all of this Obama business. But, we need to cut Social Security, and he happens to be President, and he’s the one who finally brought all of this to a head with his destructive economic policies. He is our first solidly anti-American President. Billary Clinton’s Marxism was subordinated by his American political astuteness, which was in turn subordinated by his hedonistic party-animal character. Hillary Clinton’s Marxism is subdued, but not subordinated, by her political astuteness. Obama is another kind of animal. He is purely anti-American. He intends to bring about revolution, one way or another.

None of these bureaucratic programs, including Social Security, are going to be cut while he’s in office, and if he is re-elected in November, Constitutional America is doomed anyway. Kiss it all goodbye. We have to work toward and believe that we will throw him out of office and start anew, with a newly constructed House and Senate, and we can begin repairing the damage. It can be done.

The path back to normalcy requires reconciliation at the individual level. Reconciliation with God, and with your Church or Synagogue. Get back there; reintroduce yourself. Then, reconcile with family. You owe it to yourself, your family members and your nation to reconcile. Do whatever it takes. The responsibility is yours.

As for Comrade Obama (peace be upon him) we need to sweep him into the dustbin of history this November, and then we need to re-dedicate this house. We need to come back to our Judao-Christian Ethos and become a decent people again. Decent people make decent nations. We can leave the Obamas to wallow in their own ethos, which is the ethos of BMDFP and Marxists. That is the ethos of the SLIMC, and it is the ethos of upper academia.

But it is not the American ethos. We know, or need to re-learn, how to take care of ourselves. And after we take America back, we need to cut Social Security, if we are ever to return to fiscal and economic sanity.

Do not reply to this automatic email.

Respond to this article at the link below :
Cut Social Security.

This article and comments may be found on the web site at the link below:
http://www.Thinking-Catholic-Strategic-Center.com

Visit Vic Biorseth on FaceBook at the link below:
Vic on FaceBook