So I had about 325 miles to drive home Friday night, plenty of time to do a little pondering. Here’s what I have come up with… we better get ready for the battle of our lives, for our country. Before you liberals get your panties all in a wad, follow along for a few minutes, and I’ll tell how I have come up with this.
With days to go before Obama got elected in 2008, he made one of the few honest public statements he has ever made when he said he was going to fundamentally change this country. The libs didn’t listen. He also said he wanted a civilian security force as well trained and funded as our military. Again the libs didn’t listen. He won the election and began his mission. He appointed a ton of czars and advisers, making the obvious effort to circumvent the balance of power by ruling through regulation instead of governing by legislation. The libs didn’t notice. Congress didn’t seem to notice either, even though the Executive Branch began gaining weight and tipping the scales.
He nationalized two of the three car companies, then focused on the banks. Then he forced Obamacare upon us, who really knows what’s buried in that bill. The stimulus was next, and continues since our government is still running without a budget. He captured control of the energy industry after an unintentional drilling disaster which he turned, somehow, into a criminal act.
He arbitrarily decided to take us to war in Libya without any approval from anyone (more on that later) in direct contradiction to the Constitution. Nobody called him on that effectively, he basically said “we went ’cause I said so…” He put troops on the ground in North Africa without approval, nobody noticed. His gun control mission started a long time ago, and again he doesn’t answer for Fast & Furious, executive privilege? He passes a message to Putin about how much more “flexibility” he will have after the election. Again he capitalizes on yet another tragedy to push his disarming of America agenda (the Brit’s tried this here too, a couple hundred years ago), he knows an unarmed America cannot resist tyranny.
I don’t need to dive into Obama’s history very far to understand that even if he was born in the USA (I have my doubts), he was not raised as an American, he has made that clear. Neither was his wife, or Jarrett for that matter. So obviously, they don’t put any credence into our traditions and principles. And I know I have left out a lot of “accomplishments” by Obama and company, I have been just hitting the highlights.
And the key to this puzzle might be in Benghazi. Not just the way it ended, with the deaths of four Americans, but with the entire mission there. And what did he threaten 30 survivor/witnesses, and their families and friends with, to assure their anonymity and silence. I can’t think of any other “secrets” so well protected (other than Obama’s ultimate plan). For example, the Bin Laden mission, details leaked from day one; the computer attack on Iran and many other things that would have been kept from the public eye. Yet the entire situation in Benghazi is still a mystery. There lies the keys I believe, and the only reason I can think of for such successful secrecy is the possibility that probable cause exists for arrest on the charge of treason, at the highest level and downward. Has the White House turned into a cover for a Continuing Criminal Enterprise?
I have not applied conjecture or opinion into this conclusion, just looking at facts, indisputable facts. At the facts indicate to me we have a government in place that is directly and intentionally taking us away from the principles our country was formed upon; I understand a little more about how our forefathers felt leading up to the revolution.
SkippingDog
I don’t need your links to make an observation,
I just listen to the outrage of THE PEOPLE expressing their outrages and
not faking it one bit relating the spending sprees and lately the finding of spending waste on idiotic things and events where a tag of millions is tape on it,
this doesn’t lie and don’t need journalist shoulder to support their truth
@Richard Wheeler: I could be in agreement with that Richard, especially if the tax code was junked in its entirety and replaced with a flat tax of maybe 12% for every income earner regardless of income. Make $15K? Pay 12% Make $15 M? Pay 12% Nobody exempt and no exemptions.
@SkippingDog:
I always find it interesting how people who talk tough like Retire5 always tend to single out programs benefit the most vulnerable Americans as targets for the budget scalpel. The beneficiaries, of course, have no power, no lobbyists working on their behalf. Of course Retire goes the step further of routinely demonizing those same people, calling them lazy, parasites, etc. You can take the bully out of the play ground…
To your point regarding defense spending and the defense industry, I found this recent article very illuminating: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2013/01/28/130128crat_atlarge_lepore
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2013/01/28/130128crat_atlarge_lepore#ixzz2MciuP7Cj
@ilovebeeswarzone:
@ilovebeeswarzone:
People are easily outraged by things about which they, like yourself, chose to remain ignorant. That outrage is nothing more than sound and fury.
“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
@Tom:
Thanks and an excellent example of the challenges we were warned about. These are many of the same people who attempted to paint Eisenhower as some kind of communist sympathizer. It is appalling.
SkippingDog
oh yes, very uplifting I could swear you are talking about the one who lives in the WHITE HOUSE,
IT IS THE REAL PICTURE YOU ARTISTICLY HAVE CREATED
OR COPIED? where did I READ THIS ONE BEFORE?
BYE
@ilovebeeswarzone:
Would it be too much to hope that you once actually read Shakespeare? I suppose so.
@SkippingDog:
Not withstanding the fact that the Peamble is nothing more than the label on the can, and not the contects of the can, let’s take it one at a time, shall we?
A more perfect union: simply means that the authors of the Constitution wanted to try to create a nation that was as perfect, not totally perfect, as humanily possible.
establish Justice: i.e. the courts, as outlined in the Constitution.
insure domestic Tranqulity: i.e creating order via legislation, as outline in the Constitution.
provide for the common defense: as outlined in Article 1, Section 8. Please take note of the word “provide” as in required by Constitutional dictate.
promote the general welfare: here is where the left goes wrong. It says clearly “promote”, not “provide” as it does for the common defense. Also, general simply means ALL. As in each person equally. Not one person benefitting more than another. Yet, no where in the Constitution does it outline how this is to be acheieved, and it certainly does’t provide for the taking of one person’s wealth to give to another.
Of course, just as the courts, and the government itself, is a direct loss to our overall economy. Government, and the courts, do not produce revenue, they drain revenue. Shall we also reduce the number of courts that the U.S. government funds?
Now, to Social Security and Medicare. Two programs that I firmly believe are unconstitutional. But in the case of those two programs, people actually pay into them for their entire working lives, unlike much of Medicaid, and other social welfare programs, where the recipient pays nothing into the program. Social Security could be managed much as the Galveston County employees retirement fund does (they opted out of Social Security). If you die before you collect, the money invested in it goes to your heirs, not to the government.
Medicare could have been kept to a minimum, but in the Congress’ infinate wisdom, they passed a law that states once you hit 65 Medicare becomes your primary health insurer. Many people negotiate with companies to provide them with health insurance once they have achieved so many years with that company and retire. Think what it would save if a person 65 was allowed to use their negotiated benefits as their primary health insurance carrier, and Medicare the secondary carrier. That is a law that needs to be repealed.
SkippingDog
who warn you about here?
Scott I join Conservatives J.G.,Aqua and others in support of a Fair Tax not a Flat Tax. I’d eliminate the IRS ASAP.
@Tom:
The beneficiaries have no power? Really? When was it determined that social welfare recipients would no longer be allowed to vote. Vote they do, and they vote for the guy who promises them the most free stuff.
Obama is constantly talking about how the “rich” should pay their fair share. But what about the recipients of social welfare programs? What is their fair share? What is their responsibility toward those who are footing their bills and providing them for their very existance? Tell me, what responsibility do the recipients of social welfare have?
SkippingDog
so you mean to say , SHAKESPEARE IS WARNING YOU OF DANGERS AHEAD?
now tell me, do you see shadows coming to you at night?
or do you hear voices often?
@ilovebeeswarzone:
Shakespeare warned all of us about ignorant people who rant about things they don’t know about, just like the people who are outraged about outrages, or whatever kind of point you were attempting to make above.
@Richard Wheeler: I totally agree with that Richard, and there’s a few other alphabet agencies that could go too; education (a state and local concern), energy (again, state and local for regulation, private enterprise for exploration & production), TSA (have they successfully done anything except suck up money and abuse their power?) and I am sure there are others. The UN should be sent packing, we can lease that building to paying customers, foreign aid should be re-examined and slashed in a lot of cases. I betch’a we could save enough to nearly balance the budget, although unemployment in the DC area would necessarily spike (which wouldn’t hurt my feelings a bit).
SkippingDog
yes I think you have the virus,
it’s call the SHAKESPEARE VIRAL SPIDER,
WE MUST REMOVE IT AT ONCE,
DO YOU KNOW A PSYCHIATRIST?
HE MUST DRILL A TINY HOLE ON YOUR CORTEXT, AND WITH
A SPECIAL TOOL , SUCKED OUT THE GREY MATTER,
AND CLEAN THE VIRUS OUT WITH A STRONG LIQUID,
AND RE-INTRODUCE THE GREY MATTER IN QUICLY, AND CLOSE THE HOLE WITH A PIECE
OF SKIN REMOVED FROM YOUR THUMB, JUST THE END OF THE THUMB WHICH HE HAS TAKEN OF THE NAIL PREVIOUSLY,
THE HEALING RECOVERY IS FAST COMING.
BYE
@retire05:
If you’re going to criticize Obama’s stance, at least understand it. One argument for a progressive tax system is that those who benefit the most from what is provided by American tax dollars – infrastructure, government, regulation, legal system, defense, etc. – have a civic duty to pay more back into the system. This, of course, on a case by case basis, isn’t going to be a perfectly “fair” recipe. There is no perfectly fair tax system on a case by case basis. Many other proposed tax polices are in practice regressive. There is a basic subsistence level for working Americans, so every dollar taken out of a person’s paycheck at the poverty level hurts a lot more to a struggling American family than it does to the heirs of Sam Walton. In fact, fifty dollars a week can be existential for families at the poverty level, whereas a thousand times that amount simply isn’t for millionaires and billionaires. We can talk about “fair’ in a vacuum or fair in practice, in experience, in reality.
@another vet:
Thank you, AV, for your addition of Jefferson’s words in your #179. People today could learn alot from his words of wisdom, if only they would take the time to actually read them and apply understanding to them.
@Smorgasbord, I just wanted to clarify something you said in your comment #102
It was never in it’s own account, untouched, from the original conception by FDR. You can read the read the original FDR bill text from 1935 here, where the SS Trust Fund was referred to as an “old-age fund” or as a “reserve account”, then amended to create the formal OASI in 1939 with amendments.
Hence, it’s original design… and quite clever on FDR’s part… was that any of the funds collected, and not used, were to be “invested” in treasuries and then transferred to the general revenue for other use via a “reserve account” (or the updated OASI). In short, it was always created to be a Congressional piggy bank since, in those days, fewer were drawing from the “old-age fund” than contributing. Apparently they had no foresight in those days that population growth would not be a continually perpetuating event that supported Ponzi scheme collections by the feds.
Or to put it in more cursory form, there never was an “account” that was out of reach by Congress from day one of it’s creation.
@retire05:
The courts serve as the handmaidens of business, since the vast majority of legal cases are business disputes. I have no idea how you would attach a specific value to that activity. Perhaps it would be best compared to the costs of a mediation case. The courts enforce business contracts, protect property, and prevent the use of violence to resolve disputes. How much is that worth in a civilized society?
If Social Security were in fact unconstitutional, it would have been determined so in one of the numerous cases challenging it before the Supreme Court. It was designed to be social insurance to ward off the possibility of impoverishment when the elderly can no longer work. Perhaps we should institute means testing, with Social Security being phased out on a dollar for dollar basis against other income above the poverty level.
One of the reasons Medicare was passed and expanded over the years is that people 65 and older couldn’t even get insurance companies to write health insurance for them, particularly if they had any medical conditions requiring treatment. Your approach would only work if insurance companies were required to issue such policies and the rates for those policies were limited by regulation. Isn’t that what you gripe about with the ACA?
I also think you’d find that our courts have not treated the Preamble as merely the label on the can, but as a mission statement for the entire Constitution. Dismissing the purpose statement of any legal document or piece of legislation can lead you off into conclusions that are unsupportable.
When you claim the Constitution does not specify how its purposes are to be achieved, you are partially correct. That’s why it empowers Congress to pass all legislation necessary to achieve the stated purposes. You’ll sometimes see that power referred to as the “necessary and proper clause.”
I do think Tom may have been close to the mark with his assessment of your character. You clearly don’t like or have much tolerance for those who may not be as fortunate as you have been. That’s too bad, but a common trait among the right in this and many nations.
@Tom, sorry but you’ve wandered off the reservation of opposition sanity with this comment:
uh…. AARP? Lobbying to the tune of almost $1 million in 2012 alone? And most often to the detriment of their own membership. However I will agree that they do not fall into the “heavy hitter” lobbyist category.
But it’s a silly putty type deviation from facts when you were actually demonstrating some cogent arguments. Rein in what you perceive as enthusiastic bashing, dude, and don’t get ahead of yourself. You will be fact checked by those taking the time (when partially interested…) to read just as fast as correcting the fringe right will be.
@MataHarley:
Tom can certainly explain his own thoughts, but I understood his point to be that the recipients of TANF, SSI, and Medicaid are among the most vulnerable and, therefore, the most easily attacked in these conversations. Certainly AARP is a strong advocate for Social Security and Medicare, but those in need of other support aren’t normally part of the AARP base.
@MataHarley:
Fair point. I should point out that my comment was in direct response to the following Retire5 comment, which isn’t really about the elderly, per se, or the entitlements they receive, but more aimed at those in poverty and/or distress who don’t have anything like an AARP in their corner:
Edit: Missed your post, SkippingDog. Thanks for pointing that out.
@Tom:
There is a lot more than just income taxation that goes to pay for those items, Tom, and in most cases, those who make more, or businesses, while possibly and probably availing themselves of those things and more that you haven’t listed, also pay for them at many times the rates of the average citizen. Take road travel, for instance. While a business that makes a product might ship many units of that product, and thus use the roadways at a greater rate than the average citizen, they also use more fuel, paying many times the taxes, in that manner, than the average citizen. You cannot discount scenarios such as that and suggest that progressive income tax rates are the equalizing factor. In many cases, the equalizing has already been accomplished even before we get to paying the income taxes.
@SkippingDog, you’re doing a good job of holding your own against what some here call the “gangbangers” of opposition. But when you said this above, I had to weigh in as I did with Tom the comment before.
Ironic since those who could best afford insurance were the first of those to sign up… most notably Harry and Bess Truman, happily looking on at LBJ signing the Medicare bill. So the more burning question you should be asking yourself is, could Harry and Bess get a policy, but not for the price they wanted? Or were they refused?
The problem is, Clinton has tied SS and Medicare together with regulations. I did an FA post on this back in August of 2009… that a few of the wealthier seniors were attempting to sue Sebelius to allow them to voluntarily opt out of Medicare and get insurance on their own. However with the Clinton regs, if you attempt to opt out of Medicare, you also have to forfeit your SS check as well.
I still follow that lawsuit, and they have still not prevailed – tho ongoing to this day. They are still forced into Medicare coverage, despite the fact they can afford – and prefer – private coverage. It is places like this for reform that I believe conservatives, progressives, liberals and moderates can find common ground.
They should not be tied together, and there’s a lot of cost that can be saved by seniors who can afford private care, but are not allowed to do so.
Nothing is ever absolute, and generally when the government tries to fix things, they make it worse. And that is a valid point.
@johngalt:
Interesting points, John. I don’t pretend to be an expert on taxation, so I appreciate your perspective. To be honest, I am less concerned with the taxation at the top than at the bottom. While it’s debatable whether tax cuts at the top levels of income translate into real investment in the economy, I think it’s almost a given at the bottom, where savings, let along investment, aren’t always an option. Not to be a New Yorker spammer, but another interesting perspective on taxes:
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/apple-walmart-and-the-payroll-tax.html#ixzz2MdAyu8kw
@MataHarley:
Don’t know about the ability of Harry and Bess to get an insurance policy. I do know Truman was one of the rare former Presidents who refused to take advantage of his connections and status, and therefore lived in near poverty until Congress passed the first pension provisions for former presidents.
As a political strategy it makes sense to tie Social Security and Medicare tightly together. Isolating either would make it easier to attack and eventually undermine it, and I think we can be confident that approach would quickly emerge from the right if they saw such an opportunity.
If the goal is to have seniors who can afford care pay for it themselves, wouldn’t it be equally well served by implementing means testing?
Now Tom, you’re smarter than that. Just because they are in poverty today doesn’t mean they aren’t entitled to Medicare if they worked prior to their not-so-golden years. If they didn’t, they they are on Medicaid (oops typo), and their lobbying voice is a different entity.
Fact is the elderly do have voices, and most especially since both the parents of the boomers, and the boomers, are fitting that category and dwarfing the young. You just need to be more specific in the criticism you are offering.
SkippingDog, it’s quite thoughtful and courteous that you wanted to answer for Tom, but I assure you that he and I are not new to each other here. Those of us who have been around have our own dynamics, and you are still new to the active… and lately not so active… crowd. But Tom knows where I’m coming from, and he’s quite competent on his own.
But your protective loyalty is, no doubt, appreciated.
That makes no sense whatsoever, SkippingDog. If you go back and read the links on the old projections on my post, at least 1% in Medicare spending could have been saved 4-5 years ago by wealthy seniors, opting out and taking their own private policies.
It also goes against the grain of the liberal (and some conservative) suggestions that the benefits should be “means tested”. What better “means testing” is there than wealth seniors who can afford *not* to be on Medicare, and leaving the separate robbery of the SS Trust Fund out of the mix?
In short, you are looking in reality at two bathtubs and two babies, that government has attempted to combine into one because the Ponzi scheme collection falls apart if they don’t.
@MataHarley:
I am enjoying your posts, Mata. Good to see you.
Sure, I should have been more specific, but I assure you, I was speaking about programs that benefit the poor, single mothers, and children: i.e. that trifecta that some on the Right find so easy to attack, typically under the guise of the “Welfare Queen” meme. Believe me, it didn’t even cross my mind to think of the elderly, because taking from them is pretty much unthinkable. When we start tossing the elderly out of their wheelchairs into the gutter, well, then I guess I’ll tip my cap to Retire5 and move to Canada. I’m a graceful loser, and this is what Leftists say when they find themselves living in a situation that’s become intolerable to their consciences. Don’t you think that’s more dignified than running around in camouflage, blowing up things and shooting people?
No problem, Tom. None of us wants to rob the elderly since we have paid in to such schemes, forced in fact, for most of our lives. That said, even I know that the system is unsustainable since it is supported on the backs of the younger, non beneficiaries. Personally, I’d take a one time buy out by the government in exchange for my bennies. But they won’t offer it. They can’t afford to because they’ve already spent the cash on other things. And that is a sad and pathetic truth.
@Tom:
Oh, I understand obama’s stance quite well, Tom. I understood it from the article he wrote while at Columbia supporting both the Green Party and the anti-American protestors.
Are you really that uninformed that you think that wealthy, even upper middle income earners, reap more from the government than do those that pay absolutely no taxes and subside on the money the government takes from the taxpayers? Here is a little exercise for you: go to any criminal court and check the docket. Then research those who are appearing in those courts and give us a percentage of those that are wealthy and a percentage of those who are poor. Ask any cop, Curt for example, where the most services from police and fire departments are most required. South central L.A. or Beverly Hills?. Check with your local 911 service and ask them where the majority of their calls go? Ask a EMT what a frequent flyer is.
Those in the middle class, and the wealthy, do not access WIC, TANF, public housing, food stamps, Medicaid or Obamaphones. Your statement is absurd. Not to mention that the system of progressive taxation was the brain child of Karl Marx.
So what? Where in the U.S. Constitution does it discuss fairness? I think the goal was to allow people to pursue happiness. Not have it guaranteed by the federal government by the theft of the wealth of others.
While you progressives want to whine and cry how it is harder on someone at poverty level to pay taxes (which most pay no federal income taxes), you never want to talk about the cause of poverty. Instead, you have some idea of capitalism being the Big Bad Wolf to certain Little Red Riding Hoods. There is a cause for poverty. It is called “bad decisions.” I suggest you read the writings of Walter Williams, who grew up in the projects, or Dr. Benjamin Carson whose mother could not even read and worked three jobs as a domestic just to put food on the table. I suggest you read the history of Clarence Thomas, who by no stretch of the imagination, came from a well to do family. Let me be very clear; poverty never has to be a permanent condition. It can be overcome. And it can be overcome by simply taking advantage of the free education to the 12th grade that is available to every child in America.
@retire05:
That sounds suspiciously like the old “It’s their own fault they’re poor” argument. You’re not really trying to sell that nonsense, are you?
@retire05:
You really don’t get it. Your pathological hatred of the less fortunate seems to cloud your judgment on almost any topic. Go do your next start up company in North Korea or Sudan, then come back and lecture us on how the only benefits derived to its citizens from the United States of America are things like “Obamaphones’.
I don’t think I ever stated that the Constitution discussed fairness. Meanwhile you call taxation “theft” when the Constitution specifically empowers Congress to levy taxes.
@SkippingDog:
As someone who served their country for 30 years, my main concerns are for this nation’s defense and for those putting their lives on the line for their country not for defense contractors. You don’t know jack shit about me.
@johngalt: That would be asking too much.
@SkippingDog: @SkippingDog:
Bull. Check the dockets of the courts in your city and see what the majority of the cases entail. I think you will find that criminal courts are the busiest.
But those cases also come with a cost. Court costs, either applied to the plantiff or to the defendant. Those court services do not come free. So in actuality, the parties involved pay for the service of the court, or least a portion of it.
If you read the history of Social Security, it was doomed to be ruled unconstitutional by the SCOTUS. Until FDR threatened to pack the court by adding six more justices for every justice over the age of 70. And since FDR had a totally Democrat Congress at the time, the justices of the SCOTUS knew he could do it. So a kind of gentleman’s agreement was made; the SCOTUS ruled SS constitutional and FDR did not pack the court with six of his cronies.
And exactly where in the Constitution does it say that the federal government should be in the business of insurance? Where does it say that the government is responsible to take care of anyone financially? What do you think millions of Americans did to survive in their old age prior to Social Security?
Taking care of the aged is what families did. It is what churches did with the construction of old folk’s homes. Millions of Americans, donating to charities, not to the government, took care of the aged, orphans and the sick. In every large city, the convents of Catholic nuns often had old folks homes attached to them. Many faiths had charities like that. What FDR did was take over the responsibility that charities had always accepted, taking care of the aged, the children and the sick, and handed it over to the federal government. Now we have programs that are placing a financial tax burden on the adults of the future, the children of today, that they will never be able to meet.
That is simply a redistribution system. Why should I pay into a program that I will never see a benefit from? If the Social Security system was so great, even in the beginning, why was it made mandatory and not voluntary?
@another vet:
Don’t particularly want to, given your belligerent attitude. If you really only care about those serving, you’d support the elimination of weapons systems the services don’t want and can’t use, such as MEADS, Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, the F-35 alternate engine, more F-22 fighters, etc. All of which the Pentagon says are unwanted, unneeded, and do nothing to improve current or future readiness of our armed forces.
@MataHarley:
I agree this is one of the great challenges of our time. I don’t know that the answer is to give in to the temptation to fiddling with the benefit itself (i.e., a voucher systems, changing the minimum age, etc.). Any degradation to the benefit merely shifts costs to other areas of the health care system. I don’t know what the answer is, but I think we need to resist the temptation to fiddle with something that can never be put back together again right once changed.
@Tom:
What a load of bullcrap. You have no idea what I feel about those less fortunate. You are just spewing more left wing blather because you don’t have any valid arguement.
Sorry, Bubba, but there are charities that I donate regularly to. But that should be MY choice. Not for the government to take my earnings at the point of the IRS gun and give it to those they think deserves my earnings.
If taxing a persons earning was part of the taxation the Framers felt was legitimate, why didn’t they put that into the Constitution when it was written?
@SkippingDog:
And whose fault do you think it is? Your answer should be interesting.
@MataHarley:
Bingo!
@SkippingDog: You made an unfounded accusation against me. Am I supposed to sit back and not respond in kind? Had you not made the comment, I would not have made mine.
@retire05:
Good for you. That doesn’t have anything to do with my argument. And I”m going to go out on a limb and guess you never paid taxes at the “point of the IRS gun”. You don’t want to pay taxes, we get it. That doesn’t make you unique, on the right or left. What makes you somewhat unique, psychologically, is that you seem to think anything you don’t like is somehow justified on a larger scale, whether in the Bible or the Constitution. You’re an expert at spinning your own greed as virtue.
@retire05:
There were a lot of things that weren’t put into the Constitution “when it was written”. Do you really want to go down that path?
@retire05:
It is interesting to see how your comments become more surly and antagonistic as your positions are challenged for their credibility.
The criminal departments of most state courts are comparatively small in comparison to their civil divisions, and the criminal departments of the federal courts are vastly outweighed by their civil counterparts in every district. Don’t believe me. Go to your phone directory and look at the courts in your area. Civil cases are also generally more complex than criminal cases. Rather than just counting the courts, you should do a comparison of the legal practices in your area. In most cities, there are substantially more civil lawyers than criminal lawyers.
Court costs don’t begin to cover their actual cost of operations, nor to they reflect the business costs that are apportioned in an alternative dispute venue. You clearly don’t understand that portion of the legal framework at all.
Although FDR’s court packing scheme was turned back, there have been many other opportunities for the court to limit or reverse the provisions of the Social Security Act, just as there have been numerous opportunities to declare Medicare unconstitutional. It has never happened because those programs are clearly within the constitutional authority of our government to implement.
As to your demand to know where the constitution permits a federal insurance program, I would ask you to demonstrate for us where that document prohibits such. Thus far, our Supreme Court has not found such a prohibition for such activities, as most recently demonstrated in the ACA case last summer. As Justice Scalia often reminds us, because we don’t like something doesn’t mean it is unconstitutional.
Social Security was made mandatory to prevent those with an inclination to be what economists call “Free Riders” – perhaps people like yourself – from attempting to benefit from a program into which they had never contributed. As a social insurance program, it was clearly designed to operate like insurance. You pay your premiums and, if you live long enough or have some catastrophic event happen, you collect the benefits you have paid to receive. If you don’t collect your benefits for some reason, such as not living long enough to do so, you have still received the ongoing benefit of income security during your working life. We’ve also long known that younger people believe themselves immortal, so there would be a high percentage of them not participating in the risk pool if that were an option. An expanded risk pool reduces the cost of any insurance because the risk cost is spread across a wider population. That’s why you can’t opt out.
@Tom:
When was that ever the norm in America? There was a time when families took care of each other, when they were young, and then when they were old. Churches provided old folks homes where the aged were cared for. If you think that the aged were just thown into the gutters prior to the enactment of Social Security, well, show us the photos. There were many, many photos taken during the Great Depression. Surely you can find those of all the elderly laying in the gutters requiring food and medical care.
@Tom:
The framers lived in a preindustrial society where most wealth was held in the form of land and stock. They had the foresight to insert a process for amendments into our constitution, so the 16th Amendment was ratified to create that ability when our transformation to a wage-based industrial society was becoming well established.
This should have been directed to Retire05
@retire05:
Look up the percentages of seniors living in poverty before and after the Social Security Act was implemented.
@another vet:
If you go back and read the comment you’ll find it was nothing of the kind. If you can’t get your panties untwisted I’ll be happy to call you a waaaaaaambulence.
@SkippingDog:
You can’t opt out because FDR understood that the cost would have to be redistributed. But FDR was not as smart as he thought he was. There was a reason the age for benefits was set at 65. Most people did not live that long. The average life span of a white woman was around 52, less for a white man, and under 50 for blacks, who were not all covered by FDR’s Ponzi scheme, and FDR knew that. He believed that all would contribute but few would collect. FDR was not a forward thinker, at least not when it came to medicine. He understood the war machine, and that scientists and engineers could create almost any weapon he wanted, but when it came to medicine, he was stuck in the early 20th century.
But medical advances have given us a longer life average. And more and more people are not demanding benefits from the program they were forced to pay into all their working lives. Even so, most people who start collecting SS at age 65 will have to live to be 72 just to break even.
There is a great book written by a really brilliant man, Edgar Browning, Stealing From Each Other.
I suggest you read it.
@retire05:
That would entirely depend on who we are talking about. There are many people who are poor through no cause of their own, some of them formerly hard working members of the middle class. Job losses, illness, accidents or sometimes just plain old misfortune strike everywhere, and many people don’t have a very big buffer between their current circumstances and poverty.
Do you consider yourself a good Christian as well?