Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Do We Own Our Social Security Accounts?, I: The Complaint


A little while back we got a forwarded e-mail from a correspondent who occasionally sends us . . . provocative materials.  This piece, with the subject line, “Do You Think She’s Pissed?” contains language that really doesn’t have a place in a learned forum such as this, but it would detract from the overall impression to delete it.  We don’t even know if this thing is real, but that’s not the point: it expresses what many people believe Social Security to be, i.e., a bank account with our money in it, earning interest for our retirement.

We’re not posting this for the shock value, but to explain the problem — and the solution — from a Just Third Way perspective.  Here’s the e-mail, edited somewhat for punctuation, spelling, and grammar, but not much else.

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Subject: Do you think she's pissed?

If you feel the need to vent, this will help; [it] needs to go to a whole pot load of Senators and Congressmen

Alan Simpson, the Senator from Wyoming, calls senior citizens the “Greediest Generation” as he compared “Social Security” to a milch cow with 310 million teats.

Here's a response in a letter from a lady in Montana . . . I think she is a little ticked off!  She also tells it like it is! Oh, so-o-o true!

Hey, Alan, let’s get a few things straight!

1. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole (teat) for fifty years.

2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 years (since I was 15 years old. I am now 63).

3. My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were safely tucked away in ‘an interest bearing account’ for decades until you political pukes decided to raid the account and give our money to a bunch of zero losers in return for votes, thus bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud.

4. Recently, just like Lucy and Charlie Brown, you and “your ilk” pulled the proverbial football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age 67. Now, you and your “shill commission” are proposing to move the goalposts yet again.

5. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare from day one, and now “you morons” propose to change the rules of the game. Why?   Because “you idiots” mismanaged other parts of the economy to such an extent that you need to steal our money from Medicare to pay the bills.

6. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our entire lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again. Why? Because you “incompetent bastards” spent our money so profligately that you just  kept on spending even after you ran out of money. Now, you come to the American taxpayers and say you need more to pay off your debt.

To add insult to injury, you label us “greedy” for calling “bullshit” to your incompetence. Well,
Captain Bullshit, I have a few questions for you:

1. How much money have you earned from the American taxpayers during your pathetic 50-year political career?

2. At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and how much are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the American taxpayers?

3. How much do you pay for your government provided health insurance?

4. What cuts in your retirement and healthcare benefits are you proposing in your disgusting deficit reduction proposal, or as usual,   have you exempted yourself and your political cronies?

It is you, Captain Bullshit, and your political co-conspirators called Congress who are the “greedy” ones. It is you and your fellow nutcase thieves who have bankrupted America and stolen the American dream from millions of loyal, patriotic taxpayers.

And for what? Votes and your job and retirement security at our expense, you lunk-headed, leech.

That's right, sir. You and yours have bankrupted America for the sole purpose of advancing your pathetic, political careers. You know it, we know it, and you know that we know it.

And you can take that to the bank, you miserable son of a bitch. No, I did not stutter.

P.S. And stop calling Social Security benefits “entitlements”. WHAT AN INSULT! I have been paying in to the SS system for 45 years “It's my money” — give it back to me the way the system was designed and stop patting yourself on the back like you are being generous by doling out these monthly checks.

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We’ll respond to this in tomorrow’s posting.

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