Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Revisiting The Myth

Social Security is not an "entitlement" program.  Over the course of their working lives people have had millions of dollars taken out of their paychecks and put into a program as insurance for when they got older or became infirm.  Using the word entitlement implies that nobody contributed anything and that they are sponging off the government, which isn't true.  Why is it that the people who have money are so determined to see the teachers, mechanics and bank tellers who served them over the years spend the end of their lives in poverty?  If I hadn't been willing to give up my own life, my mom would be on the street, lonely and forgotten through no fault of her own.  Which is where I will be if this stupidity continues.

I'm 52 and don't have time to make up hundreds of thousands of dollars so I can retire.  By the time mom is gone we will be so deep into this depression that I, along with a good majority of other innocent people, will not be able to survive in the economic conditions of the future.  So much for that Masters and owning my own business.

Social Security is NOT the problem. It isn't even out of money, no matter what the people who don't need to worry about their retirement babble.
We are staring at unfunded liabilities for Medicare and Social Security in the tens of trillions of dollars. Where's that money going to come from? We have to either raise taxes or cut benefits. There are no other options.
Yes, there are. For too long the elite have used the bounty of this country for themselves and it is long past time to share the wealth. We are rapidly becoming a third world country, run by people who have no concept of what it is to struggle to survive. As the economic downturn continues and small businesses start to fall by the wayside along with corporations who gave obscene amounts of money to the people at the top while taking everything from the people on the bottom, the pain will be felt by everyone who isn't at the top.

Food, gas and medicine are out of the price range of a growing section of society. They can't cut back any more as there is nothing left to cut. The poor can't walk to the grocery store because grocery stores aren't located in the poor sections of town. The poor can't take public transportation because it is being slashed in a futile effort to balance budgets that will continue to run a deficit as more people become unemployed and can't contribute to the tax base. The poor can't afford the highly overpriced medicines or the preventative doctor visits to keep them healthy. The poor, as a group, can't do anything to change their situation because they have nothing to change it with. Their children will continue to swell the ranks of the poor because education in their areas has been virtually eliminated and besides they have to scrounge for food. The poor can't get abortions, birth control is nonexistent and the fundamentalists want to keep it that way. That way they can complain about the poor being irresponsible and having too many babies. And prison is not a replacement for a healthy and happy childhood.

The Republican party and the fools who support them are determined to return this country to the days of indentured servitude. They trot out trite statements such as pull yourself up by your bootstraps when not only do the people not have straps, they don't even have boots. If you are born poor or lower middle class the odds are that you will stay that way. The outer fringes of society will be your world and unless the elite who are really the ones enjoying the benefits of entitlement, get off their high horses and walk among the commoners we will end up having a caste system that is more entrenched than India's.

Or a revolution.

BBB

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