Middle Class Part 30: Issues Article 3; Social Issues at the Heart of Darkness, Listing of Other Issues and Topless Female Soccer Matches

Plan of attack: Last time, I listed 33 issues in a hiearchy of importance. There may be some issues that I failed to include in either the ranked list or the best of the rest list below because the relevance, timeliness, persistence, or overall costliness to taxpayers simply has not occurred to me. My plan is to address as many of the ranked issues, (from last time) devoting a paragraph or more to each, until I simply give up, or if I am so ambitious, until I complete the task. Hell, I was ten days at cleaning about 10,000 rocks, in order to avoid weeds, for my latest landscape project, so I don’t know that anyone could question my diligence. I will likely also include commentary on some of those issues I have not ranked- such as those below. If I were to include a paragraph for each issue, including those I list immediately below, I don’t know that I would ever complete the task of chronicling the continued growing disparity of the rich vs. the middle class economically. The ranking or inclusion of most issues may be arbitrary, excepting the top three of campaign finance (see parts 19-21), immigration (parts 22-27) and taxation (forthcoming).

Listing of other issues: Pensions, Natural Disaster Relief, Families and Children, Canine Cinematic Achievement, Unemployment, Homeland Security/Terrorism, Prevailing Wage, Technology, Potty Training, National Debt, Federal Budget, Infrastructure concerns, Wiretapping, Insurance Industry Nightmares (car, health, life, home), Light Rail, Flag Burning, Inter-species Sexual Interaction, Drugs (legalization of), the tattooing of the universal product code on the necks of tigresses, Federal Trust Fund, Bond Money (how it is earmarked) etc. Admittedly- 30-40 more issues could be listed that concern us locally, state-wide, regionally, nationally or internationally or occur to us during the restlessness of our sleep apnea spells which disturb our REM sleep. A few of those just listed have the concern and backing of both major parties; I am fairly sure that both parties would like people who have spent 3-4 decades working and earning their pensions, to receive them. Both parties are certainly against rampant unemployment and are against terrorism and probably think the national debt is too high. It would be futile to spend space or time performing an autopsy on the carcass of unemployment when both sides can successfully avoid being considered accomplices or primary suspects in the murder of effective issue resolution techniques. Of course, with unemployment still being statistically and consistently low, 33 states currently rank at 5% unemployment or less, (money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/state_unemployment/) it wouldn’t make for interesting reading, much like the remainder of my contributions.

Adopted resolutions: I know that the two major parties have historically been amenable to borrowing some of the best ideas that an up and coming extended party have had in order to keep the latter at bay and continue to gather the overwhelming majority of votes. Reagan, Lincoln, John Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt have all adopted ideas or approaches to issue resolution first put forth by politicians outside of their political coterie. The problem is that according to me, and millions and millions of others, given the dissatisfaction of the multitude of voters, the two major parties do not adopt these approaches at a rate conducive to earning the public’s favor. The major party’s inability to adopt a compromising resolution more often and more quickly is downright cryonic- keeping in mind the progressive nature of the voting public, their continued disaffection, etc. I wouldn’t let record voting numbers or the fact that the two major parties continue to garner the overwhelming majority of votes each election fool a conservative or liberal sheep into justifying the status quo. The more sophisticated voter, it is to be hoped, has begun to find that neither side is entirely wrong, nor are they entirely right. I am sorry, but I need a politician representing me in a republic, not a good old boy forgoing my views in an oligarchy. Michel de Montaigne, in about 1578, should be considered less aimless for roaming the countries of Europe searching for the curative waters that might bring him relief from kidney stones than the modern voter too slow to realize how little one of the major parties truly speaks to their needs. A June bug with transient acantholytic dermatosis (something, something, something of the chest, with scattered lesions of the back and lateral aspects of the extremities, lasting from a few weeks to several months) exhibits more urgency seeking a resolution to its misery than our elected politicians do for ours.

Focus: My points over the next few installments may appear to vacillate between criticizing the politicians because of the issues they are not adequately addressing and the issues themselves. This would have been apparent starting with this offering, but I have had to move the material condemning our representatives because I wanted to have the space to address all of the social issues at once, excepting Welfare which I will have to get to later. That intended approach, may appear to be fraught with a lack of focus, but it is awfully difficult to write about issues without providing commentary on the men responsible for an issue’s continued march toward insolvency. When I have begun to write about one issue or another and then provide the words- (‘see part 9’ or ‘see part 24’) it is a signal of how interconnected the issues really are, not because the material that necessitated these notations should have been previously discussed (i.e. when I was on that topic). Of course my research and blind luck can lead me from one issue to another and so can the timeliness of the news, as articles and studies can be acquired which did not exist at the time I was focusing on one issue or another.

Quoting the old guys again: Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist No. 31 wrote- “The obscurity is much oftener in the passions and prejudices of the reasoner than in the subject. Men upon too many occasions do not give their own understandings fair play; but yielding to some untoward bias they entangle themselves in words and confound themselves in subtleties.” I have bee as guilty of that as Hamilton. In addition to my being passionate and jaded, intractable, effusive and repetitive . . . so was Hamilton. It took him five papers to state what could have been delivered in two- about the desire and need for a standing army, even in peace time and who should be able to beckon the army and to what purpose- at least that is what I believe he was advocating in #s 24-29 of his Federalist Papers where he was not a little redundant. He was tasked with an important message, that of advocating the merits of a union to the perils of a confederacy; so I will forgive him his prodigiously redundant manner, given the difficult and important subject matter. I too have chosen a subject, which I have often referred to in the course of this screed (middle class subjection), that is not easily digestible, but that can naturally incline a writer toward topical contortions. Though it may appear that I am unnaturally swaying off course at times, it should not be supposed I do so unwittingly, nor that I always do so deliberately. My arguments are likely judged to be overwhelmingly lucid about as often as my rhetoric is muddied by prose. Note- I wrote about the same thing at the beginning of part 27. Perhaps I am being redundant on purpose. I am fairly certain that Hamilton knowingly duplicated his arguments in order to drill home the imperativeness of the points he was making so that his concerns were given due consideration. However, Hamilton’s prose is severely lacking in analogies which arbitrarily assign physical or psychological maladies to animal species for a desired comic effect. I’ll add that as a demerit when grading the overall effect of his compositions.

Issue focus: Of the 33 issues I identified last time, I feel that for 17 of them, neither major political party has put forth ideas or enacted into laws, measures that might secure their resolution. That is due in large part because the opposing party (the democrats playing the antagonist to the republicans and vice versa) keep the country from enjoying a resolution to any issue imaginable. I am beginning to think that splitting an infinitive in Latin would be easier than seeing true, acceptable issue resolution to any of the top 14 issues I identified last time. (Note: it is considered impossible to split infinitives in Latin.) I side with the democrats on 10 of the remaining ranked issues from last time and four times side with the republicans. Given that my top three issues have not been adequately addressed, there is justification in deciding not to cast my vote for either party. I am equal parts pragmatist (practical) and idealist and I have continually noted where each major party falls short, having failed to act practically or ideally, when one or the other possibility might present itself.

My line of thinking—an example: In an ideal world, no immigrant would be granted amnesty, but there is absolutely no way to avoid amnesty for illegal immigrants at this point. The republicans not agreeing to let that portion of the immigration issue go, further prevents us from moving forward on the other satellite issues that revolve around the major issue of immigration. Of those satellite tasks to be performed is the building of a 2,000 mile wall and employment of hundreds of border patrol agents that I believe many democrats are against. So, in an ideal world, I would favor the no amnesty, no compromises, build that wall mentality of many republicans but looking at the issue practically, I can’t be on their side; the reality is that the cost and logistics of deporting over 12 million illegals is impractical.

So, on with the social issues which can be found to have an economic impact on all classes, even should it not be immediately apparent.

Conservative hypocrisy: Republicans are against any acknowledgement that second-hand smoke kills people after an unspecified prolonged exposure and so it makes sense that they would be against a ban of public smoking; they are also against admitting that people have had an affect on global warming (Really? With nearly 7 billion people residing on the planet, we have had no collective residual affect on any of the earth’s natural properties? Really?); and republicans also fiercely favor either no federal government control, or very little, in the areas of free trade, social aid (Social Security, Medicare, Welfare), and education, but will invade foreign countries when there is neither the public demand, nor the money, and sometimes not the overriding moral sense to do so. I do not include the invasion of Iraq as an error, just the level of involvement, given the cost to taxpayers to this point. Nevertheless, conservatives will tell gay men and women that they are not allowed to become legally bound to each other, which denies homosexuals a number of other permissions or freedoms. Now, that sounds an awful lot like hypocrisy to me. If republicans were to be forced to consider this convolution of thought and how they can so unforgivably compartmentalize certain examples of individual liberty, perhaps the ideological stranglehold they suppose is theirs in the areas of social freedom and private market (i.e. free trade) non-interference wouldn’t be so hardy. Conservatives, the individual freedom component of your ideology is a bunch of hogwash; it is the deteriorating gusset plate of consistent argumentation. It is structurally flawed from a consistency standpoint. The social holy war you fight against those who would impede your limp toward universal selfishness is a complete fraud. Unfortunately, you cannot be legally charged for political Philistinism.

Gay marriage: If two same sex adults want to be united in holy matrimony or at the court house across town, what business is it of mine- so long as the unions do not affect my freedom or my wallet. If they want to adopt children- who should prevent them? Someone who fights for every other individual freedom excepting the right for same sex couples to be legally bound is a hypocrite. Same sex couples have as much chance of succeeding as a family as two members of the opposite sex who decide to have children. Traditional marriages result in divorce anywhere between 40-60% of the time. Is the number of dissolutions among same sex couples likely to be higher for some reason? And if it could be scientifically or statistically proven that same sex couples fail more frequently and thereby bring about the ruination of familial life more often, you (Mr. conservative) would look into the face of a well-intentioned gay or lesbian couple and ban them from becoming legally bound? If two wedded people have brought one or more children into the world, separate and become estranged, just as much strain is put on the community and the government to provide for children as those brought into a non-traditional relationship. If the union of love is broken between opposite sex partners, there are just as many child care, Welfare, Medicaid and broken family issues to consider as when the broken home features the break-up of two men, two women or two lesbian members of an anteater species who will not mate with the eager male at the zoo. Government’s role in seeing to the economic concerns of children in the dissolution of a relationship is not lessened in either case.

Health benefits and social security (as they pertain to civil unions/gay marriage): I am well aware of the ancillary issues (that are actually bigger issues in their own right) which affect the potential legality of gay marriage. Not to be overlooked is a concern about the prevalence of this option as it equates to the potential of a domestic (legal) partner being in line to receive social security, pension, life insurance payouts, Welfare or health care benefits, etc. I do not believe that conservatives object to the possibility of gay marriage on these grounds. Hypocrisy and righteousness often work in concert and too often when those most responsible for exhibiting them are not made aware of it. If everyone else’s health care benefits go up and/or social security becomes insolvent more quickly and these results can be traced to the cause of same sex marriages becoming legal (whether it came into effect through petition, judicially, or legislatively) then a vast number of people will be even further disgruntled economically. It would be a problem of introducing more variables into the equation, similar to the environmental, social and economic concerns I have about vast numbers of immigrants being made legal (see parts 22-27). Variables/instances always have this effect on scientific or social experiments- which is not to say that gay marriage would be an experiment. It may be just as frustrating but more reasonable that a car with 110,000 miles breaks down as when one with 30,000 breaks down. The number of miles a car has will have a direct impact on the likelihood of the car breaking down. If it didn’t, then more people would pay $7,500 for an 1982 Pacer with 200,000 miles. The more there is of something, the more difficult it can be to control*- more venemous snakes on a movie set, more money to distribute in a will, more children per adult on a field trip, more metachlorians in the blood streams of Jedi with a lot of potential, etc. Perhaps the only instance where this is not the case involves a topless soccer match among Austrian and German females. Apparently the contest involved no more than six players a side. Every sports fan knows that a competitive soccer team traditionally includes 11 players. See- the Reuters article- “ ‘Beautiful Game’ Takes on New Meaning” June 16, 2008 (http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/25199236/). Might the topless Sweedish females be fielding a team? Females from Eastern-ish bloc countries scare me for reasons that take me further away from the imagery of a topless female soccer team, and thus, well off topic.

Variables/instances/potential ancillary issues: I am not aware of a direct or indirect relationship between the legality of same sex marriages and a potential rise in health care or life insurance premiums, or the potential accelerated insolvency of Medicaid or social security, but it is something to consider before I would be a naive proponent of same sex marriages. Again, mindful of Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill who adeptly addressed universal and individual freedoms from a philosophical perspective, I would not want my tax to be increased (should it come to that, which consequently would affect my earning and saving and spending freedoms- and which will directly impact my children’s futures) so that two people of the same sex could be legally accepted as married. If twelve thousand gay or lesbian couples were married, the potential economic impact to taxpayers would be less than if 100,000 same sex couples were to wed. It is as simple as that. The share of incurred costs to taxpayers would be reduced if fewer gay or lesbian couples were to become legally married. If there is absolutely no cause for concern, that the two events (same sex marriages contributing to an increase in the average middle class taxpayer’s health care costs, etc.) have absolutely no connection, then who would desire to stand in the way and why? Those two major issues (social security’s likely insolvency and rising health care costs) are bigger problems irrespective of gay marriage. The medical industry and health care costs are an issue primarily because of big pharmaceutical company lobbyists, campaign finance donations to candidates that back certain drugs or medical companies (see part 21 concerning Joseph Lieberman), the acquiring of drugs, the price of drugs, misdiagnoses, inadequate care, the charges for certain medical procedures, the duplication of efforts of medical procedures, the malpractice issues, the standardization of medical records among various providers, the administration of drugs generally, the specific issuance of multiple prescriptions which override the desired affects of other prescribed medications and on and on. Social Security, in its own right, has a laundry list of ancillary issues that cause it to be a major issue as distinguished from its potential accelerated insolvency due to gay marriage (see below).

Abortion v. Adoption: The abortion issue is a bit different. Ordinarily, I maintain that no one should be telling a woman what to do with her body, her life or the life of her child which she has just spent nine months becoming biologically attached to. I would like to maintain that stance as much as possible. For that reason, I would be in favor of increased funding to inform women at risk for unwanted pregancies of the options of adoption, in lieu of abortion. We always know when the next big Memorial Day, blockbuster movie is coming to the cinematic multi-plex because of the number of television commercials that begin airing a month or two in advance of release. I am not quite as sure that troubled women are as aware of their options excepting abortion in cases where the economic and/or familial situation is less than ideal. I don’t visit Planned Parenthood or work with at-risk teens, but perhaps a simple poster and leaflet at a family planning center is not enough information for an expectant mother to be made aware of her options. Again, we always know that a Buick may be a viable option as a potential new vehicle or that the Masters golf tournament is just weeks away from airing on CBS, but I don’t know that troubled, future fathers, who made an unwise choice of getting a girl (or a woman, because teenagers aren’t the only ones making mistakes) in trouble are aware of their options. I do not say this to be a pompous moralist.

Irresponsible procreation as an economic drain: Consider a destitute woman, perhaps with loose morals or religious or social reasons for continuing to bring poor children into the world she, or she and her spouse/mate, are ill-equipped to manage economically. Adoption is simply the best alternative to the continued, avoidable, terrible decision to bring children into the world, whose fates are incompletely considered by the parents who produce them. The feeling of the parents toward obligatory parenthood costs the parents, the child and the country too much emotionally and fiscally. Continuing to allow destitute mothers and fathers to pretend they are economically equipped to care for a child when they cannot care for the two they already have is an economic drain on the rest of the country, on the taxpayers who would like to not have to continually pay for other people’s mistakes. I am referring primarily to Welfare. See this story concerning teen pregnancy in Albany, Georgia- http://www.wfxl.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=145650. “Teen pregnancies cost Georgia taxpayers $344,000,000 in 2004 and Dougherty County has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country.” Or this one- “US Teen 'pregnancy pact' Probed” June 20, 2008- http://www.itv.com/News/Articles/US-teen-pregnancy-pact-probed-466145091.html. “US teenage pregnancies are showing signs of rising after steadily declining from 1991 to 2005. According to the National Centre for Health Statistics, birth rates for teenagers aged 15 to 17 rose by 3 percent in 2006, the first increase since 1991.”

Enable v. Compassion: Again, we have nearly 7 billion people on the planet. Too many of them are hungry and are born into a situation of depravity from which it is extremely difficult to be saved. If two parents can economically support twelve children, then they should go ahead and screw like bunnies (or like willing penguins with oafish elephant seals- see part 28). Having five kids because a religion or a personal preference prohibits one’s ability or interest to act responsibly too often requires the tax money of others who better consider the bigger picture. Oversight and selfishness should not be rewarded with a check from the government that comes indirectly from someone who has not acted so irresponsibly. This likely will be considered the most controversial thing I ever write on this overall topic—taking a healthy child from a willing parent—even more controversial than questioning the motives of economists (see part 4, no. 9). I am simply tired of the specific Welfare state in which I live (MN) and the general politically correct compassion is king, sans reason, that rules this country. Compassion is not synonymous with enabling. Where might we find money to begin to promote this method of forced adoption in the form of radio and television advertisements? Again, see part 9, the government waste offering and realize that what I included in that installment is just a drop in the bucket. And consider that the military and major social-aid programs drain the federal budget of 69% of its allotted money (military 21%, Social Security 20%, Medicare, Medicaid and other major social-aid programs 28%). See the 2007 federal budget- http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy08/sheets/hist03z2.xls. While it would be impractical to assume that all 69% could be removed from a taxpayer’s financial obligation to the state and federal government of his choice, it seems to me that not less than 20% could be removed from those combined areas and that the state and federal governments would not suffer as much as the most reasonable, least politically affiliated and therefore more objective, citizens in the land could expect. I am terrible at math and potentially cost my Canasta team a victory last weekend by assuming I had enough points to meld, so calculating the total cost of a 20% reduction in those combined areas based on the 2007 or 2008 federal budget would not be my strong suit.

Global warming I: I wrote above of the unlikely possibility that humans are innocent of affecting our planet’s environment. I do not believe that every catastrophic event, from earthquakes in China, to tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes in the South, wild fires or landslides in California, floods in the Midwest, or prolonged below average temperatures in traditionally temperate climates are attributable to global warming. This is an extremist’s viewpoint. A man who questions the legitimacy of the Warren Commission on the J.F.K. assassination, and considers that Oswald may not have acted alone is not a conspiracy theorist, but is more drawn to the possibility of fact than to dismissing the likelihood of blame. I include global warming as a significant social issue because it is tied to fossil fuel emissions, gas taxes, cap v. tax debates, highway funding, campaign finance (environmental lobbyists), the automobile and oil industries (car manufacturers and oil special interest groups), etc. If you cannot see this, you will probably sleep better voting for McCain or Obama, secure in the knowledge that the candidate who “earned” your vote has a chance to win.

Global warming II: I am not convinced that climate change** is a reality based on our presence on the earth, but I simply think our inaction as well as our actions, may have an affect. Sorry folks, it is probable that complete and final verification of this hunch will not dance on nerve endings in our brains any time soon. Proof of the earth’s decline, that is the bloold on our hands, may only come to the minds of men long after the current occupants are found to have been the cause of the planet’s demise—only after we are buried within it. This is likely to occur well after we have so confidently exhibited the fruits of absolution that feed the disaffected conscience that is the hallmark of righteousness and impudence. How dare you consider my guilt without my consent!- might be the response of liberals who would oppose forced adoption or conservatives who are like the “Not me” gremlin parading about in the “Family Circus” cartoons. Nice mentality- just deny responsibility for everything. I will not get into the economic affects on the middle class that either ignoring or wholeheartedly accepting the “facts” that rational men might communicate on the topic of global warming mostly because I do not know them and what is more, I will not “know” them even if I devoured books on recycling, on how to be more green, average temperatures in Iceland over the past 100 years, the rise in sea levels, the migration patterns of seals or methane hydrates that could be used as a relatively inexpensive and reusable energy resource. Thing is, one of the most gifted scientist/philosophers now living in the world, should he entirely dismiss global warming as a fraud, has, as his direct opposite, another scientist/philosopher, who is just as brilliant, who just as adamantly scoffs at our lack of contrition. And even if they both agreed, I would be skeptical that nearly 7 billion people could not have an affect on the planet. Funny thing- being skeptical either way, will not solve the problem. You would have a better chance of getting a California bill through the judiciary which allows you to wire earmarked travel expenses from the state budget to the ugliest dog in the world, (L.A. Times, June 23, 2008) http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed/2008/06/worlds-ugliest.html) a three-legged, one-eyed, Chinese-crested pooch so it could be the wedding coordinator as you exchange vows with a serial urinator of a ferret whose primary source of income is its constant participation in athlete’s foot studies than you would have of getting politicians to push through meaningful fossil fuel legislation that would disfavor the oil company’s rights to winfdall profits.

Social Security I: See the Gregg report link, and the other links referenced below for more information or perform a Google search for “social security”. Spending three columns or even three pages on a problem of this magnitude when thousands of other writers, politicians, pundits and talk-show hosts have so adroitly and continually addressed the issue would be redundant . . . and I am not into that . . . Ok, so I am into that, but just not this time. I’ll spend one page. “A report issued by the Treasury Department said that some combination of benefit cuts and tax increases will need to be considered to permanently fix the funding shortfall.” See the Associated Press article from September 24, 2007, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20957376.

Social Security II: Privatize social security. This does not mean that the government is allowed to pick the investment funds into which our privatized money is funneled and it also does not mean that investment bankers can collect on what would normally be massive profits given the number of accounts they would be expected to manage. This would mean employing plenty of governmental fund management accountants and would probably mean that we cannot simply funnel all of the money we would invest into a risky portfolio. Supplementing our retirements with diversified portfolios would be ideal, but I am not a financial expert and would have to defer to the logic of an objective investment banker*** who does not stand to gain what I stand to lose by investing. If members of the fund management circuit are troubled by this, perhaps we should consider treating them like Darth Vader treated Lando in The Empire Strikes Back, by at least allowing him a deal in exchange for Luke Skywalker. Any and all types of workers should then be encouraged to select a retirement investment vehicle of their choice. This encouragement should not be considered akin to a concentration camp resident being encouraged to proceed toward the showers. We are taxed enough, so the fund management expenses should be fairly low, so too should the tax on our money for disbursement into an account and the annual withdrawal from it after retirement. The money would automatically be deducted from a citizen’s payroll check and placed in their account. Standard penalties would apply should the future retiree draw on the money before retirement.

Social Security III: I have currently been paying into social security for 21 years and stand to lose the chance at regaining any of the benefit I have contributed to others if a proposal such as that I propose below is adopted. That is quite a loss. I would rather have the program declared insolvent sooner rather than later, have a retirement account or two in place and not pay in for an additional 28 years to find it insolvent upon my retirement, whereby I will have paid in for twice as long and received still nothing in return. The program can continue to pay out to those who will retire within the next 25 years as its probable insolvency is due to hit in 2041 by most accounts. Discontinue payroll deductions from workers checks ASAP and let the taxpayer have the freedom to choose a retirement account of their own that is not taxed as heavily as current Roth or 401K accounts. If I am mistaken—if people cease to contribute to social security and it then would be due to be insolvent prior to 2041 then divert money from the general fund to social security as that was the primary purpose of the money to begin with. “Social Security is projected to start spending more than it collects beginning in 2017, with its trust fund depleted in 2041.” (see the Obama article link in the next paragraph). So pay out to those who will retire until then and then ask those who are thinking of retiring around that time to start saving the money that will no longer be removed from their payroll checks to fund the retirement of others into a private account for their own retirement.

Social Security- additional information: See these articles for some background information on the sub-topic- http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/sschanges.asp. “How Big a ‘Nest Egg’ Do You Need to Retire?” John W. Schoen, November 5, 2007- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21548538. “Obama to Push for Higher Social Security Tax” Associated Press, November 11, 2007, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21739271/. “The Looming Crisis: Budget Impact of Social Security Insolvency is Closer than it Appears” by United States Senate Budget Committee chairman Judd Gregg. In this document (from 2005) is included this sentence- “In the five-year period from 2011 to 2016, the contracting Social Security surplus will gouge $32 billion out of the rest of the budget and with each coming year remove an accelerating amount as the Social Security surplus continues to shrink.” Surely, people can debate budget shortfalls, which party is more responsible for having adopted social security as a measure to provide for the elderly and disabled, its monies having been redirected to the general fund, what kind of risk is involved when privatized money is invested rather than stockpiled, the anxiety about its insolvency, the raising of the cap on the level of income subject to the payroll tax, the support of private accounts for lower income wage-earners, that it is 20+% of federal spending, etc. and can learn a heck of a lot more about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_debate_(United_States.**** But the bottom line is that it is a huge drain on the taxpayer, to say the least. “Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance” or (OASDI) as it is referred to on our paychecks, is something that needs to go away. Again, other bloggers, hypocrites, geniuses, contrarians, appointing a bi-partisan commission to look into the program’s solvency issues, raising the cap via an increased reduction from the checks of the rich or those households earning less than $102,000, is not enough and blogging back and forth providing revisionist commentary, futile prognostications, arguing semantics, the finer points of the issue, arguing period, brings us no closer to a resolution. These guys—Greg Anrig Jr. and Bernard Wasow of the Century Foundation have made available a document they titled- “Twelve Reasons Why Privatizing Social Security is a Bad Idea” from 2004- (http://www.socsec.org/publications.asp?pubid=503. I have not conducted an exhaustive search for a companion article, written by the same two gentlemen on the “12 Ways in Which Social Security Can be Successfully Reformed” because they have put all of their efforts into noting the problems (i.e. “privatization has been a disappointment elsewhere,” “young people would be worse off,” “retirees will not be protected against inflation,” etc. These guys risk nothing by being intelligent enough to note the pitfalls of Social Security reform and assist no one by doing so. But neither are they cavalierly boasting workable solutions with a neosporin-like healing time for the wounds previous generations have caused us.

Wah!: If anyone has a better plan to combat the future insolvency of social security- by all means let us know. The Wikipedia link offers a number of revenue raising and cost trimming measures, which I am sure politicians and voters will promote the adoption of, so that this issue can be put to rest. My proposal perhaps has as many problems as an out of work cartoon animal addicted to having phone sex with a carnival worker, but we have to start somewhere. Please find a way to keep it solvent without reducing benefits or without raising taxes, including the taxes of the rich, because they’ll never go for it, nor should they. And remember- immigrants who currently reap relatively few rewards for having paid in will soon enough demand their social security benefits to be paid in full commensurate with their contributions- hopefully you have taken that into account. Perform a search for “immigrants and social security benefits” and find out for your self. Consider this frequently asked question and the accompanying answer from this website- http://www.network-democracy.org/social-security/ff/faq/immigrants.html.

Q: “Is the number of immigrants a significant effect on the financing of Social Security, and if so is it taken into account when the projected deficit date is produced?”

A: “Yes, the number of immigrants has a significant impact on Social Security. The actuaries do include immigration rates in their projections. According to the 1998 Trustees Report prepared by the actuaries, the Social Security cost rate (the ratio of the cost of the program to the taxable payroll for the year) decreases with increasing rates of net immigration, due to the fact the immigrants are usually relatively young and thus increase the number of covered workers earlier than the number of beneficiaries.” Please see the site directly above for other pertinent questions and answers concerning immigrants and Social Security benefit payments. Immigrants are “relatively young”; and when they age, when they retire they will also need to be collecting social security if it remains as a social aid program. What will we do then, in 2085 when our children begin to retire at age 75? Import the Antereans (mythical planet alien life-forms from the movie "Cocoon") to work picking lettuce, nursing us through our pancreatic cancer or laying asphalt on our streets? The will never get sick, never grow old and never die, and thus will never have the need for social security . . . or Medicare or Medicaid. Then we can spend more money on military hardware to fight against the Chinese.

Wah II!: Anyone aged 30 or over who is in the middle class and has yet to have set up a retirement account is a lunatic. If you have a big screen television, spend all your money on booze, cancer sticks, high-speed internet, trips to Nascar events, fishing boats and new pick-up trucks, and unsuccessfully and repeatedly lost all of the money you’ve withdrawn early from your 401K trying to breed box turtles for profit do not complain to anyone that you are being economically pinched.

Medicare and Medicaid: Medicare covers about 43 million elderly or disabled people and total expenditures from the American government were $256.8 billion in fiscal year 2002. “Enrollment in Medicare is expected to reach 77 million by 2031, when the baby boom generation is fully enrolled.” 1.45% of each worker’s net income is withheld from their paychecks to fund Medicare. I can afford that so that some old guy can have the health care he needs or so that some woman can have the medications she needs. About 42.9 million people, as recently as 2004, were enrolled in Medicaid at a total cost of $295 billion. The Medicaid “program, on average, tak[es] up 22% of each state’s budget.” I have not scoured the internet hoping to find a dozen articles on the governmental mismanagement of either of these two social aid programs. I would suspect we could find plenty of millions of dollars worth of wasteful spending but I would imagine that much of that is the fault of the health care industry, which I’ll get to in a later installment. 28% of the 2007 federal budget went to the funding of Medicare, Medicaid and other major social aid programs. The two major Medi-programs would not be exempt from being audited on the grounds of potential misallocation of government funds, because said funds were previously the property of taxpaying Americans. Military and social aid program expenditures combined comprise too much of the federal budget for us to assume, without vigorous attention paid to their respective allocations, that the monies are consistently properly used. For information revealed above see the Wikipedia articles on Medicare- http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States) and for Medicaid- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid. One thing I do know- allowing in immigrants to keep either or both of these programs solvent is a massive mistake. We brought in the French to help us out with the Revolutionary War and the French still haven’t paid off that debt. No, I did not misstate that. It is quite an obligation to be beholden to a mass of people that arrogant, whose ideas on reparations run so completely counter to reason. A French gendarme would probably arrest a wildebeast (said animal has the most successful conception rate of all mammals) for jaywalking if it had impregnated a female while crossing the Avenue des Champs-Elyses. The French are not consciously aware of their own impotence . . . of course, neither are many Americans where the effects of widespread, continued, unregulated immigration is concerned.

Gloom and doom for Medicare and Social Security: “Each spring, administration officials release the annual reports on the benefit programs and warn they will go bust without urgent intervention. The officials and Congress then spend the rest of the year not fixing the problem.” (Courtesy of Dana Milbank, “Spring Forecast? Its Always Gloomy” Washington Post, March 26, 2008- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/03/25/ST2008032503837.html. Medicare is expected to be insolvent at some point in the next eleven years according to the article, 22 years before Social Security’s expected insolvency. Medicare’s “projected solvency has shrunk by six years in President Bush’s tenure. Bush’s prescription-drug benefit has added $915 billion in costs to the program” but as the secretary of health and human services points out, that is “ ‘about $117 billion less than we felt it would be last summer.’ ” Oh goody. So we can tell a man who is certain to drown that he gets to struggle for 30 extra minutes before he goes the way of Leo at the end of “Titanic.”

Medicare’s insolvency: Just a couple of closing quotes on the subject of Medicare from a Glenn Beck CNN.com article from March 14, 2008- http://www.cnn.com/2008/us/03/26/beck.deficit/index.html. “Only an immediate 122 percent increase in Medicare taxes . . . can prevent . . . its impact.” Beck had metaphorically hinted at the connection a Medicare asteroid would make with earth, thus the use of the word “impact.” “ ‘Without change,’ [says U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson] ‘Rising costs will drive government spending to unprecedented levels, consume nearly all projected federal revenues, and threaten America’s future prosperity.’ ” Huh, apparently I was making all that stuff up about the amount of concern Americans should have for the future economic insolvency of the middle class relative to the rich. I know, quoting one man does not make this so. I have quoted well over a hundred sources (excepting online articles about animal insurrections) that contribute to my argument. Beck reveals that: “former Comptroller General of the United States David Walker . . . writes that our unfunded promises translate into “ ‘an IOU of around $455,000 per American household.’ ” I don’t think my 2-4% cost of living increases over the next 28 employable years will cover that. But, retirement age will likely be 70 by then, so I will be provided that additional five years to struggle against drowning. Medicare will be insolvent; I probably will not qualify for Medicaid because I would make too much money; and Social Security will also have just become insolvent . . . unless of course the immigrants they are allowing into our country are allowed to “rescue” us from the domestic nightmares I have just detailed.

Heart of Darkness: It was Joseph Conrad who wrote- “. . . I found myself lumped along with Kurtz as a partisan of methods for which the time was not ripe: I was unsound! Ah! but it was something to have at least a choice of nightmares.” We can reduce benefits or raise payroll taxes to continue to fund our social aid programs, or we can privatize retirement accounts; we can allow in immigrants to “solve” those problems for us. We can allow gays to marry and should if they do not affect our economic bottom lines; we can continue to scoff at the notion of our impact on the environment in which we live or we can be foolhardy reactionaries and allow our ears to adore all that Al Gore tells us****** (see “An Inconvenient Truth”; we can continue to fund the lives of children who will largely, given the family situation they will have been born into, have less and less of a chance to succeed as the woes continue to go unaddressed (for one cannot possibly argue that if all types of taxes and necessary costs continue to rise as expected, that the middle class will be able to afford to have 3-4 children should they desire to; we can force mothers who love their children no less for their expected pauperism to give their children to strangers who will be better able to provide for them. Yes, it is great to have our choice of nightmares.

Welfare: Is simply too large a topic to be snuck in at the end of this installment, though it would normally be considered, at least to me, as a social issue.

Special note: Goodbye- Tim Russert and George Carlin- your diligence and irreverence, respectively, are qualities I can certainly appreciate.

* Not designing to control gay marriage or its participants or its prevalence, just attempting to illustrate a point about how an excess of anything- 60 gallons of water in a 50 gallon tub, can be problematic, all things considered.

** “Climate change” is what the democrats have started to call global warming to avoid the negative stigma that is spirited up by those/conservatives who clamor for either silence or irrefutable evidence of mankind’s contributions to all kinds of statistical weather phenomenon- (i.e. unseasonably warmer temperatures any and all types of catastrophic events, including the prevalence of them).

*** Investment bankers- show me in which ways you are or are likely to be financially compromised by market conditions that would preclude you from becoming rich (perhaps not in the proportion that you would desire) and I would reconsider a proposal.

**** Several potential solutions are included within the Social Security Wikipedia entry, but I imagine that one member or another of the Social Aid revisionist intelligentsia would have a problem with each of them. I plan to address the back and forth sniping, in tennis-like fashion, of bloggers who solve nothing by counter-pointing each other to death. Look for this commentary following the Cap v. Tax fossil fuel debate I will get to at some point.

***** Excepting those whose income is less than his support obligation.

****** See Gore in the starring role in “An Inconvenient Truth” which won the 2006 Oscar for best documentary.