The Ultimate Scam:
The unsustainable promises of lying politicians
As maddening as the endemic corruption in Washington between the governing class, labor leaders, Wall Street and Corporate titans, lawyers, lobbyists and a compliant media is, it is not the worst of the crimes being committed against the American people by the Crooks and Thieves. While this poses a great threat to our liberties and our free enterprise system, it is not what will directly cause the imminent bankruptcy of the United States. That comes from the ultimate scam ever perpetrated on the American people by its elected representatives.
Imagine, if you will, that the government promises every senior citizen in the country free health care and a government pension check once they reach a certain age regardless of whether they need it or not. For just a small contribution over the course of your working life, you will be entitled to benefits far in excess of what you originally contributed. Sounds great, right? Who could object to that?
Even better, imagine that you were assured that this was the same as an “insurance” program whose sound actuarial principles guaranteed that this funding stream would last forever. Therefore, everyone entering into the program would be assured equal benefits when it came their time to collect. Where do I go to sign up, right? Who is the genius that came up with this? I’ll vote for him. Clearly anyone that objects to this is an idiot.
Now, suppose you found out later that you were deliberately lied to and purposely misled. Supposing that everything you were told about how this program would fund itself was a pile of manure. What if it turned out that programmed into the very design of the plan was a point of diminishing returns. Everyone has been promised a check, but there is less and less money available to pay them. Worse, before long, the funding stream turns upside down. Now, instead of their being a surplus from which to pay people there is a short fall and imagine that this deficit begins to crowd out every other aspect of government bringing it to the point of insolvency. Imagine that the politicians told you not to believe your own lying eyes, but that everything was still peachy keen. What would you say about those politicians then?
Why you’d call them Crooks and Thieves! You’d say that they were a bunch of con artists like Bernie Madoff. You might even get out the tar and feathers or propose reinstituting the stocks so that you could pelt then with rotten vegetables in the public square. Supposing that this is actually happening right now. Supposing that this scam is about to cause a financial catastrophe in this country worse than the collapse that caused the Great Recession. Well, I am sad to tell you, it is happening as you read this. It is the greatest generational swindle in history. Those entering the workforce today and paying everyone's checks don't stand a prayer of receiving one themselves.
The party that proposed this dishonest scheme is hoping that you are all too dumb, gullible or greedy for your check that you will ignore the truth and allow them to keep scamming you with their lies. They are hoping that their evasions and deceptions will keep you all comfortable and content within the Matrix and they'll try to scare you away from taking the "red pill" with tall tales about granny being thrown off a cliff. They hope they can pull the wool over your eyes long enough that they can just kick the can down the road for a few more elections until the day of reckoning finally arrives. Welcome to the Democrat party of 2012!
The "red pill" reality is that politicians made promises year after year to millions upon millions of Americans about entitlements that cannot be kept as currently structured. Either we do something to fix them now while we still can or we'll have to do something drastic at some point in the future. It isn't as though there is a choice. We can either be forward thinking and prepare for the excrement to hit the fan or we can get fully covered in it. The longer we wait, the more drastic and smelly it will be:
Imagine, if you will, that the government promises every senior citizen in the country free health care and a government pension check once they reach a certain age regardless of whether they need it or not. For just a small contribution over the course of your working life, you will be entitled to benefits far in excess of what you originally contributed. Sounds great, right? Who could object to that?
Even better, imagine that you were assured that this was the same as an “insurance” program whose sound actuarial principles guaranteed that this funding stream would last forever. Therefore, everyone entering into the program would be assured equal benefits when it came their time to collect. Where do I go to sign up, right? Who is the genius that came up with this? I’ll vote for him. Clearly anyone that objects to this is an idiot.
Now, suppose you found out later that you were deliberately lied to and purposely misled. Supposing that everything you were told about how this program would fund itself was a pile of manure. What if it turned out that programmed into the very design of the plan was a point of diminishing returns. Everyone has been promised a check, but there is less and less money available to pay them. Worse, before long, the funding stream turns upside down. Now, instead of their being a surplus from which to pay people there is a short fall and imagine that this deficit begins to crowd out every other aspect of government bringing it to the point of insolvency. Imagine that the politicians told you not to believe your own lying eyes, but that everything was still peachy keen. What would you say about those politicians then?
Why you’d call them Crooks and Thieves! You’d say that they were a bunch of con artists like Bernie Madoff. You might even get out the tar and feathers or propose reinstituting the stocks so that you could pelt then with rotten vegetables in the public square. Supposing that this is actually happening right now. Supposing that this scam is about to cause a financial catastrophe in this country worse than the collapse that caused the Great Recession. Well, I am sad to tell you, it is happening as you read this. It is the greatest generational swindle in history. Those entering the workforce today and paying everyone's checks don't stand a prayer of receiving one themselves.
The party that proposed this dishonest scheme is hoping that you are all too dumb, gullible or greedy for your check that you will ignore the truth and allow them to keep scamming you with their lies. They are hoping that their evasions and deceptions will keep you all comfortable and content within the Matrix and they'll try to scare you away from taking the "red pill" with tall tales about granny being thrown off a cliff. They hope they can pull the wool over your eyes long enough that they can just kick the can down the road for a few more elections until the day of reckoning finally arrives. Welcome to the Democrat party of 2012!
The "red pill" reality is that politicians made promises year after year to millions upon millions of Americans about entitlements that cannot be kept as currently structured. Either we do something to fix them now while we still can or we'll have to do something drastic at some point in the future. It isn't as though there is a choice. We can either be forward thinking and prepare for the excrement to hit the fan or we can get fully covered in it. The longer we wait, the more drastic and smelly it will be:
The data that Marco Rubio cites about how soon Medicare will go bankrupt is unassailable. It comes directly from the Medicare actuaries themselves. You don't have to take Senator Rubio's word for it or even mine. You can read what the people responsible for overseeing programs like Medicare and Social Security are saying about how soon these programs will be insolvent by following the links. It makes for scary and unpleasant reading, but it is the painful truth.
However, the Democrats don't want you to swallow the red pill of knowledge. They'd prefer you didn't follow those links. They'd like you to continue to keep buying the snake oil cure of something for nothing that they've been selling for generations. It's the biggest vote buying machine they've yet invented. It makes their welfare machine seem puny in comparison. They could have created old age pension and medical plans based on need, but that doesn't give them the ultimate political weapon that current entitlements do. It's long been the conventional wisdom that talking about reforming these entitlement programs is the third rail of politics. Touch it and you die! That's just the way the Democrats designed them and it is how they use them to buy votes election after election. It's the ultimate scam
It all started with the largest major entitlement of the New Deal Era: Social Security. Remember that this great grandaddy of all entitlement programs to come began its existence as a small means of support for the elderly to help them to survive with dignity for the last few remaining years of their lives. Today, it has transformed into a cash cow for "seniors" who will milk it for twenty years sucking up far more money than they ever paid in. Even FDR and the other Crooks and Thieves who passed this program could never have imagined a time when people lived well into their eighties and they designed a program, that while always a ponzi scheme, should have remained solvent for years and years on the taxes they proposed had not modern medicine and modern technology advanced the way it has. Yet, in all the years since then, have our politicians, particularly those who claim to revere the program so much, fixed it structurally in a way that reflects modern realities and would save it from going bankrupt? Of course not. That would be to admit that the whole thing has become a massive vehicle for generational theft!
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If you actually read the history, even back in the 1930's it wasn't as if there was a big hue and cry from the populace to have the Social Security program enacted. In fact, it had to be sold to a skeptical public. Often, through the use of fraud and deceit. Remember that Social Security was sold as "insurance" even though it was never more than a glorified Ponzi scheme:
However, the Democrats don't want you to swallow the red pill of knowledge. They'd prefer you didn't follow those links. They'd like you to continue to keep buying the snake oil cure of something for nothing that they've been selling for generations. It's the biggest vote buying machine they've yet invented. It makes their welfare machine seem puny in comparison. They could have created old age pension and medical plans based on need, but that doesn't give them the ultimate political weapon that current entitlements do. It's long been the conventional wisdom that talking about reforming these entitlement programs is the third rail of politics. Touch it and you die! That's just the way the Democrats designed them and it is how they use them to buy votes election after election. It's the ultimate scam
It all started with the largest major entitlement of the New Deal Era: Social Security. Remember that this great grandaddy of all entitlement programs to come began its existence as a small means of support for the elderly to help them to survive with dignity for the last few remaining years of their lives. Today, it has transformed into a cash cow for "seniors" who will milk it for twenty years sucking up far more money than they ever paid in. Even FDR and the other Crooks and Thieves who passed this program could never have imagined a time when people lived well into their eighties and they designed a program, that while always a ponzi scheme, should have remained solvent for years and years on the taxes they proposed had not modern medicine and modern technology advanced the way it has. Yet, in all the years since then, have our politicians, particularly those who claim to revere the program so much, fixed it structurally in a way that reflects modern realities and would save it from going bankrupt? Of course not. That would be to admit that the whole thing has become a massive vehicle for generational theft!
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If you actually read the history, even back in the 1930's it wasn't as if there was a big hue and cry from the populace to have the Social Security program enacted. In fact, it had to be sold to a skeptical public. Often, through the use of fraud and deceit. Remember that Social Security was sold as "insurance" even though it was never more than a glorified Ponzi scheme:
Did you hear how many times the narrator refers to Social Security as an insurance program? What absolute B.S.! In an insurance system a company collects your money in the form of premiums and then invests it to make money which is then used to pay out benefits and deliver profits for the shareholders and owners of the company. It is based on sound actuarial principles. The Federal government never invested any of that money or used sound actuarial principles. In fact, they never intended to!
Like the establishment of the income tax which progressives promised would only affect the rich, the guarantees made that the Social Security tax would only rise to a maximum of three percent of income were totally bogus. They weren't based on any sound accounting principles. They were based on whatever number the progressives thought it would take to sell it to the American people (exactly like Obamacare). The system was sold as something is wasn't. In reality, Social Security is nothing more than a confidence game and their are no longer enough suckers to add to the bottom of the pyramid to make it work. Yet, despite the fact that the system is fatally flawed, progressives protest even the thought of change and improvement. They'd rather we go broke than admit they made a mistake and that the emperor has no clothes.
Now, I am not advocating that we don't need some sort of national pension system. But, I am saying that we can do better than what we have. A lot better. Perhaps something like this:
Like the establishment of the income tax which progressives promised would only affect the rich, the guarantees made that the Social Security tax would only rise to a maximum of three percent of income were totally bogus. They weren't based on any sound accounting principles. They were based on whatever number the progressives thought it would take to sell it to the American people (exactly like Obamacare). The system was sold as something is wasn't. In reality, Social Security is nothing more than a confidence game and their are no longer enough suckers to add to the bottom of the pyramid to make it work. Yet, despite the fact that the system is fatally flawed, progressives protest even the thought of change and improvement. They'd rather we go broke than admit they made a mistake and that the emperor has no clothes.
Now, I am not advocating that we don't need some sort of national pension system. But, I am saying that we can do better than what we have. A lot better. Perhaps something like this:
Now you might disagree with the Chilean plan for making Social Security both solvent and a better financial deal for each citizen. That's totally fine. What's another idea or concept that will guarantee an old age annuity for all Americans? What's the Democrats plan other than to attack any alternative? It is well within the bounds of political discourse to disagree with the way that the GOP, Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio go about reforming Medicare and Medicaid, but to say that their purpose is to kill Granny or autistic kids, like Obama has done on numerous occasions, is to directly attack their motives while spinning a false narrative. It is demagoguery of the worst kind. Talk like that is designed to kill intelligent conversation and an honest debate of the issue and should be beneath the President of the United States and his party. But apparently not.
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Apparently the lure of partisan gain and reelection is greater than the promise of post partisanship that Barack Obama originally campaigned and was elected on. Hope and Change is now Fear and Dread.
Even Bill Clinton recently said that this kind of attitude and partisanship is unacceptable given the dire financial straits we are in:
“I think the Democrats are going to have to be willing to give up, maybe, some short-term political gain by whipping up fears on some of these things — if it’s a reasonable Social Security proposal, a reasonable Medicare proposal. We’ve got to deal with these things. You cannot have health care devour the economy.”
He even shares this sentiment in an exchange with the "evil" Paul Ryan:
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Apparently the lure of partisan gain and reelection is greater than the promise of post partisanship that Barack Obama originally campaigned and was elected on. Hope and Change is now Fear and Dread.
Even Bill Clinton recently said that this kind of attitude and partisanship is unacceptable given the dire financial straits we are in:
“I think the Democrats are going to have to be willing to give up, maybe, some short-term political gain by whipping up fears on some of these things — if it’s a reasonable Social Security proposal, a reasonable Medicare proposal. We’ve got to deal with these things. You cannot have health care devour the economy.”
He even shares this sentiment in an exchange with the "evil" Paul Ryan:
I think it is high time everybody engaged in a fact based conversation about the actual proposals put forth if we want to have any chance of saving our country from bankruptcy and finding the "moderate centrist" compromise the public seems to want and that we can all grudgingly agree on. As long as the other side's position is to cast aspersions, allegations, and intimations of motivations no productive conversation can occur:
Nazis, eh Louise? The plain truth of the matter is that no one that I have ever heard, not me, not Paul Ryan, not Rand Paul, not Ronald Reagan, no one of any stature in the Republican party has ever talked about killing women or eliminating entitlements to the extent that old people eat pet food as they lay freezing in the streets huddled together with their special needs grandchildren. No one. It has never been proposed in my lifetime and I doubt it ever will. But, that doesn't stop Democrats from doing everything in their power to convince people that the people trying to reform the system are just plain evil. Even so far as implying that their motivations are racist:
Yes, Ms. Lee, the reason why I want to reform entitlements and reduce spending has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that I want to save the country from fiscal collapse. Oh, no. My only motivation is to obstruct the President because he is black! If I got on the floor of Congress and said that Ms. Lee only voted against every debt ceiling hike of the W administration because he was a white man, I'd be censured forthwith and might be hounded completely out of my job. But, for Ms. Lee, to cast these kinds of aspersions and accusations is totally ok. How is resorting to the worst kind of demagoguery conducive to an intelligent debate on the future of our country? It isn't, but it is exactly what people do when they don't want to have a discussion based on the facts. Only by having such a discussion can we save ourselves from a national nightmare.
For me, it is facts and evidence that I have always been most concerned with. Personally, I don't give a fig how good your intentions are if your ideas don't work in the real world. I only care about provable results. I truly believe that the vast majority of us want the exact same things. We all want peace, prosperity and justice. We may disagree on the method of reaching those goals, but not the goals themselves. Thus, I always enjoy a good debate with someone with whom I disagree. As long as it is honest, without rancor and without motives being impugned I think it is an enlightening experience. If engaged in this fashion, compromise and agreement is achievable. Unfortunately, if your object is the crass accumulation of political power and a need to divert attention from the facts to achieve it, what you get is the kind of partisan mudslinging we just saw from Ms. Lee and Ms. Slaughter. That leads to the kind of partisan divide that we have today in our country that prevents anything from getting done.
It took me a long time to realize that the other side of the debate in this country had absolutely no desire to play "fair" or discuss facts and results. I started out life as a McGovern Democrat. My parents were big time liberals and they made sure that I grew up knowing that the left were the only decent and caring human beings on the planet. I was a kid so I bought that nonsense hook, line and sinker. However, as I started to grow older and began to actually read about history and current events I slowly came to realize I'd been sold a bill of goods. It dawned on me that the reason that so many aspersions were being cast upon my motivations, morality and even my essential humanity was that this was all that the left has left. They cannot defend decades of the failure of their ideas when put into practice and the unsustainability of their "blue state" model by debating honestly and fairly.
Indeed, the more I found out about the facts, the more alarmed I became about how unsustainable the whole progressive house of cards is. Twenty five years ago, I read a book called "The Biggest Con: How the Government is Fleecing You" written by Irwin Schiff. In that book, Schiff used the Federal government's own numbers to demonstrate how Social Security, Medicare, Federal and State Pensions, and Medicaid would inevitably bankrupt the country and he showed how the governments of the Seventies (Nixon, Ford, Carter) were inflating the currency to hide the structural deficits that these entitlements were causing. In other words, he revealed that the entire welfare state, was demographic disaster just waiting to happen:
For me, it is facts and evidence that I have always been most concerned with. Personally, I don't give a fig how good your intentions are if your ideas don't work in the real world. I only care about provable results. I truly believe that the vast majority of us want the exact same things. We all want peace, prosperity and justice. We may disagree on the method of reaching those goals, but not the goals themselves. Thus, I always enjoy a good debate with someone with whom I disagree. As long as it is honest, without rancor and without motives being impugned I think it is an enlightening experience. If engaged in this fashion, compromise and agreement is achievable. Unfortunately, if your object is the crass accumulation of political power and a need to divert attention from the facts to achieve it, what you get is the kind of partisan mudslinging we just saw from Ms. Lee and Ms. Slaughter. That leads to the kind of partisan divide that we have today in our country that prevents anything from getting done.
It took me a long time to realize that the other side of the debate in this country had absolutely no desire to play "fair" or discuss facts and results. I started out life as a McGovern Democrat. My parents were big time liberals and they made sure that I grew up knowing that the left were the only decent and caring human beings on the planet. I was a kid so I bought that nonsense hook, line and sinker. However, as I started to grow older and began to actually read about history and current events I slowly came to realize I'd been sold a bill of goods. It dawned on me that the reason that so many aspersions were being cast upon my motivations, morality and even my essential humanity was that this was all that the left has left. They cannot defend decades of the failure of their ideas when put into practice and the unsustainability of their "blue state" model by debating honestly and fairly.
Indeed, the more I found out about the facts, the more alarmed I became about how unsustainable the whole progressive house of cards is. Twenty five years ago, I read a book called "The Biggest Con: How the Government is Fleecing You" written by Irwin Schiff. In that book, Schiff used the Federal government's own numbers to demonstrate how Social Security, Medicare, Federal and State Pensions, and Medicaid would inevitably bankrupt the country and he showed how the governments of the Seventies (Nixon, Ford, Carter) were inflating the currency to hide the structural deficits that these entitlements were causing. In other words, he revealed that the entire welfare state, was demographic disaster just waiting to happen:
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I have to say, learning this knowledge for the first time back in the early Eighties was eye opening for me. Sure, today there are more people like John Stossel and Paul Ryan saying these things on Ruppert Murdoch's cable channels, but that is the extent of it. However, back in the early Eighties no one, and I mean no one was saying anything like this. Heck, if you did, they controlled all of the means of disseminating information and they made sure to shut you up before anyone else could be "poisoned" by these heretical ideas:
I have to say, learning this knowledge for the first time back in the early Eighties was eye opening for me. Sure, today there are more people like John Stossel and Paul Ryan saying these things on Ruppert Murdoch's cable channels, but that is the extent of it. However, back in the early Eighties no one, and I mean no one was saying anything like this. Heck, if you did, they controlled all of the means of disseminating information and they made sure to shut you up before anyone else could be "poisoned" by these heretical ideas:
Telling people the truth is controversial, you see. It goes against the accepted dogma of the Matrix. Back then this kind of talk was taboo. The emperor had clothes. Everyone agreed. Republicans. Democrats. The Media. The Emperor had clothes. Nothing to see here.. move along now.
However, I refused to swallow that blue pill. I was a Columbia University student, after all. I could do the research, and I did. I found out that the truth was that the Emperor was stark naked. The numbers were insistent and immutable on the fact that too many people would be getting in the wagon and not enough people would be pulling it. Yet, it was clear that very same government would focus its efforts on casting the “pullers” as the demons for the slowing momentum of the wagon and amazingly placing even further burdens (taxes) on their shoulders and obstacles (regulations) in their way.
In the end, it is just a matter of simple mathematics. It is just a matter of crunching numbers and those numbers say, without any doubt whatsoever, that once the baby boom starts to retire in earnest, the country will become insolvent. Not a situation of if, but of when. Unless something is done. Back then, all those years ago, I knew how screwed we'd be if we didn't recognize the problem and do something about it. I told everyone I knew about it and they laughed at me and called me a “nut”. I was an extremist and they were “moderate centrists” in the mainstream of conventional thought.
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Today, we now have the irrefutable evidence that what crunching the numbers told me would happen is occurring:
However, I refused to swallow that blue pill. I was a Columbia University student, after all. I could do the research, and I did. I found out that the truth was that the Emperor was stark naked. The numbers were insistent and immutable on the fact that too many people would be getting in the wagon and not enough people would be pulling it. Yet, it was clear that very same government would focus its efforts on casting the “pullers” as the demons for the slowing momentum of the wagon and amazingly placing even further burdens (taxes) on their shoulders and obstacles (regulations) in their way.
In the end, it is just a matter of simple mathematics. It is just a matter of crunching numbers and those numbers say, without any doubt whatsoever, that once the baby boom starts to retire in earnest, the country will become insolvent. Not a situation of if, but of when. Unless something is done. Back then, all those years ago, I knew how screwed we'd be if we didn't recognize the problem and do something about it. I told everyone I knew about it and they laughed at me and called me a “nut”. I was an extremist and they were “moderate centrists” in the mainstream of conventional thought.
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Today, we now have the irrefutable evidence that what crunching the numbers told me would happen is occurring:
In case reading that article isn't enough to shock the heck out of you about how many people are getting into the wagon. Take a look at this chart:
And this is before the baby boom generation have all started collecting their pensions, Medicare and Social security benefits and all of the millions of people who will have their health care fully or partially subsidized under Obamacare join the current 50% in the wagon. How is it going to be pulled forward now? Seriously, take a look at that chart and think about it. Things are that bad:
This is exactly what Schiff was warning would happen to us. I knew this in the early eighties (Schiff was writing in the mid seventies). Now, back then, I was a big supporter of the idea that we could fix the situation with minimal entitlement reform (means testing and a new retirement age that better reflected the new advances in medicine that prolong life to a point never dreamed of by FDR or even LBJ) and pro-growth economic policies that would allow us to grow our way out of the problem. In other words, we could become wealthy enough as a nation to afford to cater to the pension and health needs of a baby boom generation that would retire later and later with benefits directed towards those most in need of the assistance.
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As the years went on, no reform was done and money was pissed away on other things. When Ross Perot ran for President in 1992, with his pie charts and slideshows depicting the looming crisis, I thought, finally, someone gets it and has the courage to tell the unpleasant truth to the American people. Perot proposed means testing all entitlements, raising the retirement age, cutting spending on failing programs, and raising taxes. I didn't agree with the raising of taxes, his protectionist attitude or the fact that he was a total loon, but he was the only one who was willing to say that the Emperor had no clothes, so I voted for him:
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As the years went on, no reform was done and money was pissed away on other things. When Ross Perot ran for President in 1992, with his pie charts and slideshows depicting the looming crisis, I thought, finally, someone gets it and has the courage to tell the unpleasant truth to the American people. Perot proposed means testing all entitlements, raising the retirement age, cutting spending on failing programs, and raising taxes. I didn't agree with the raising of taxes, his protectionist attitude or the fact that he was a total loon, but he was the only one who was willing to say that the Emperor had no clothes, so I voted for him:
After Perot lost, every time that Republicans and even some Democrats would propose some type of reform to save the system, they were immediately demagogued to death by Liberals and their allies in the media and any chance we would do something, no matter how small, died immediately. Granny, the alley and pet food you see. For twenty five years Medicare and Medicaid grew and grew and grew and politicians kicked the can down the road because it wasn't politically expedient to touch the third rail of politics. We've had Medicare commissions, Deficit commissions, all kinds of Medicaid panels. We've had Concord Coalitions, special Presidential Commissions. We've had all kinds of proposals and they were all shot down because it was just too easy to paint the author or party of the proposal as wanting to have Grandma thrown off the cliff. So nothing was done when it would have been relatively painless to have done so.
Now, most people have been totally ignorant for all these twenty five years about the looming crisis and for that I blame the media. But, I knew. Tim Russert (RIP) knew. The heads of the Democrat party knew. The heads of the Republican party knew. I voted Republican because at least three times during the past twenty five years they had the courage to try and fix things before it was too late. Each time they were shot down and so badly demagogued that when they finally had control of the whole enchilada, they spent like drunken sailors, figuring that's how the Democrats stayed in power, so that's how they would. Fixing the structural problems of entitlements were for a party of losers, better to find something new to spend money on that would inoculate them from the charge that they were heartless to Granny. Instead, lets feed Granny some more benefits! That's how we got the Medicare Drug Entitlement passed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Republican President. It disgusted me no end.
Fortunately, I am not alone in my disgust for the scam that the Crooks and Thieves of both parties have been playing on us for years. That revulsion with the status quo of corruption and power seeking by the leaders in this country is what has made the Tea Party such a force in modern politics. Someone must stand up and say that the Emperor has no freaking clothes. Would we be even having any serious discussion about the deficit today had not hundreds of thousands of people been willing to demonstrate and march on Washington and elect a huge majority of like minded politicians to the House of Representatives? I think not. I think the Democrats and establishment Republicans would have continued on their merry way paying lip service to the debt till it was too late to do anything except either massive cuts in entitlements or massive tax hikes or both. It would have been Greece writ large.
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Looking at what has become of our country and how the only difference between the parties is whether they are Crooks or Thieves can be demoralizing to say the least. It would be so easy just to say a pox on both their houses and spitefully vote for Third party candidates who at least wouldn't leave such a bad taste in your mouth as you pulled the lever for them. The only candidate for President that I ever voted for with joy and happiness in my heart was Ronald Reagan.
It was Reagan's words during the famous "evil empire" speech that made me realize how important it is to reject the notion of disengaging oneself from the political system. That's exactly what the Crooks and Thieves want you to do. In the interests of explaining what I mean about this, I am going to paraphrase Ronaldus Magnus for a second here. I am sure he would understand:
“It was C. S. Lewis who, in his unforgettable `Screwtape Letters,’ wrote: ‘The greatest evil is not done now in those sordid `dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint. It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.’
“Well, because these `quiet men’ do not `raise their voices,’ because they sometimes speak in soothing tones of brotherhood and peace, because, like other [politicians] before them, they’re always making `their final [request for a tax increase],’ some would have us accept them at their word and accommodate ourselves to their aggressive impulses. But if history teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded [conformity] or wishful thinking about [their willful deceptions] is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.
“So, I urge you to speak out against those who would place the United States in a position of [fiscal insolvency]. You know, I’ve always believed that old Screwtape reserved his best efforts for those of you in the church. So, in your discussions of the [corruption and deceptions coming from Washington], I urge you to beware the temptation of pride — the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of [a power hungry ruling class] to simply call the [debate over entitlements and deficits] a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.”
That's why, as much as I despise Republicans, I cannot vote for a Democrat. Knowing the same things I know, seeing the same unsustainable numbers I see, the left wants to spend even more. Now, admittedly some of them are acting like ostriches and burying their heads in the proverbial sand so that they don't have to see that their entitlement ponzi shceme is taking the country off of a fiscal cliff. But, most of them really don't give a flying leap as long as a compliant media allows them to promulgate the fiction that all would be just swell if only the rich were paying their fair share. After all, they'll be out of office long before the excrement hits the fan. Or, at least, they hope so. These people are beyond irresponsible. They are, in fact, the very definition of Crooks and Thieves.
How, at a time of clear and present danger and economic crisis, can both parties keep playing games with the numbers and using budget gimmicks to avoid making the tough choices needed to save the country from bankruptcy:
Now, most people have been totally ignorant for all these twenty five years about the looming crisis and for that I blame the media. But, I knew. Tim Russert (RIP) knew. The heads of the Democrat party knew. The heads of the Republican party knew. I voted Republican because at least three times during the past twenty five years they had the courage to try and fix things before it was too late. Each time they were shot down and so badly demagogued that when they finally had control of the whole enchilada, they spent like drunken sailors, figuring that's how the Democrats stayed in power, so that's how they would. Fixing the structural problems of entitlements were for a party of losers, better to find something new to spend money on that would inoculate them from the charge that they were heartless to Granny. Instead, lets feed Granny some more benefits! That's how we got the Medicare Drug Entitlement passed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Republican President. It disgusted me no end.
Fortunately, I am not alone in my disgust for the scam that the Crooks and Thieves of both parties have been playing on us for years. That revulsion with the status quo of corruption and power seeking by the leaders in this country is what has made the Tea Party such a force in modern politics. Someone must stand up and say that the Emperor has no freaking clothes. Would we be even having any serious discussion about the deficit today had not hundreds of thousands of people been willing to demonstrate and march on Washington and elect a huge majority of like minded politicians to the House of Representatives? I think not. I think the Democrats and establishment Republicans would have continued on their merry way paying lip service to the debt till it was too late to do anything except either massive cuts in entitlements or massive tax hikes or both. It would have been Greece writ large.
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Looking at what has become of our country and how the only difference between the parties is whether they are Crooks or Thieves can be demoralizing to say the least. It would be so easy just to say a pox on both their houses and spitefully vote for Third party candidates who at least wouldn't leave such a bad taste in your mouth as you pulled the lever for them. The only candidate for President that I ever voted for with joy and happiness in my heart was Ronald Reagan.
It was Reagan's words during the famous "evil empire" speech that made me realize how important it is to reject the notion of disengaging oneself from the political system. That's exactly what the Crooks and Thieves want you to do. In the interests of explaining what I mean about this, I am going to paraphrase Ronaldus Magnus for a second here. I am sure he would understand:
“It was C. S. Lewis who, in his unforgettable `Screwtape Letters,’ wrote: ‘The greatest evil is not done now in those sordid `dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint. It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.’
“Well, because these `quiet men’ do not `raise their voices,’ because they sometimes speak in soothing tones of brotherhood and peace, because, like other [politicians] before them, they’re always making `their final [request for a tax increase],’ some would have us accept them at their word and accommodate ourselves to their aggressive impulses. But if history teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded [conformity] or wishful thinking about [their willful deceptions] is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.
“So, I urge you to speak out against those who would place the United States in a position of [fiscal insolvency]. You know, I’ve always believed that old Screwtape reserved his best efforts for those of you in the church. So, in your discussions of the [corruption and deceptions coming from Washington], I urge you to beware the temptation of pride — the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of [a power hungry ruling class] to simply call the [debate over entitlements and deficits] a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.”
That's why, as much as I despise Republicans, I cannot vote for a Democrat. Knowing the same things I know, seeing the same unsustainable numbers I see, the left wants to spend even more. Now, admittedly some of them are acting like ostriches and burying their heads in the proverbial sand so that they don't have to see that their entitlement ponzi shceme is taking the country off of a fiscal cliff. But, most of them really don't give a flying leap as long as a compliant media allows them to promulgate the fiction that all would be just swell if only the rich were paying their fair share. After all, they'll be out of office long before the excrement hits the fan. Or, at least, they hope so. These people are beyond irresponsible. They are, in fact, the very definition of Crooks and Thieves.
How, at a time of clear and present danger and economic crisis, can both parties keep playing games with the numbers and using budget gimmicks to avoid making the tough choices needed to save the country from bankruptcy:
Like I say, Crooks and Thieves!
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How else can you explain spending a Trillion dollars (more like 2.5 Trillion) on Obamacare at a time when the country is borrowing 42 cents of every dollar that we spend? I mean think about that for a second. It's like someone massively in debt on his credit cards and with his mortgage under water and past due, who decides to "invest" a bucket load of money he doesn't have and will have to borrow for new solar panels on the roof hoping that they will one day save him a few dollars on his electric bill. I mean that's insanity! It may be "good" for the environment if you believe in that kind of "green" nonsense. It might even save a buck or two at some distant point in the future, but it is absolute freaking insanity given your current fiscal crisis! But, that's exactly the way the Vice President of the United States describes it himself:
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How else can you explain spending a Trillion dollars (more like 2.5 Trillion) on Obamacare at a time when the country is borrowing 42 cents of every dollar that we spend? I mean think about that for a second. It's like someone massively in debt on his credit cards and with his mortgage under water and past due, who decides to "invest" a bucket load of money he doesn't have and will have to borrow for new solar panels on the roof hoping that they will one day save him a few dollars on his electric bill. I mean that's insanity! It may be "good" for the environment if you believe in that kind of "green" nonsense. It might even save a buck or two at some distant point in the future, but it is absolute freaking insanity given your current fiscal crisis! But, that's exactly the way the Vice President of the United States describes it himself:
Okay, now it isn't as if I don't understand what Vice President "foot in his mouth" is saying. If we had a well designed, well thought out and coherent strategy for health care reform designed specifically to save money and improve care which required a certain amount of up front money to get it underway, then that would be a justifiable maxing out of the nation's credit card. But is that what the Democrats gave us when they jammed Obamacare down our throats? Heck no!
What we got was a 2000+ page bill that no one could have possibly understood before they went to vote on it. How's that for due diligence? Heck, Democrat Representatives trusted Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid so much they didn't need to read the bill at all. Here is former House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers on why reading the most important legislation in a generation was completely unnecessary:
What we got was a 2000+ page bill that no one could have possibly understood before they went to vote on it. How's that for due diligence? Heck, Democrat Representatives trusted Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid so much they didn't need to read the bill at all. Here is former House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers on why reading the most important legislation in a generation was completely unnecessary:
Well, OK, Mr. Judiciary Chairman. I hear ya. They didn't give you two days and you couldn't find two lawyers to explain all that gobbledygook and legal mumbo jumbo. Yep. No need to read the bill. None at all. Surely, the Speaker of the House, who was there in that tiny room away from the TV cameras where Obamacare was being crafted in secret like some witches brew, has read it and approved it right? And she herself is a legal genius, health care expert and noted economist, right? Surely, you must have had such complete and total confidence in her ability to successfully and skillfully take over 1/6th of the US economy that there was absolutely no problem at all in rushing it to passage without enough time for any human being to sift through the 2000+ pages of legalese you describe, right? Because, Speaker Pelosi knows this stuff backwards and forwards:
Well if you don't know what's in it, Madame Speaker, who the heck does? And that's the problem.
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Don't get me wrong, I can understand how a well constructed well thought out plan might require some upfront money to save a lot of money in the long run and be worth gambling a Trillion plus dollars on at a time when we are nearing fiscal insolvency, but if the people who vote on the bill don't know what's in it, the American people don't know what's in it, and even you don't know what's in it, then it is just plain irresponsible to enact it. Democrats clearly don't get it. But this guy does:
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Don't get me wrong, I can understand how a well constructed well thought out plan might require some upfront money to save a lot of money in the long run and be worth gambling a Trillion plus dollars on at a time when we are nearing fiscal insolvency, but if the people who vote on the bill don't know what's in it, the American people don't know what's in it, and even you don't know what's in it, then it is just plain irresponsible to enact it. Democrats clearly don't get it. But this guy does:
I want to be clear here. I am not trying to engage in a debate over whether universal health care is a desirable goal or even an affordable one. I am just saying that Social Security was based on a flawed model that is over budget beyond even the wildest nightmares of its creators and Medicare and Medicaid are over budget by factors in the double and triple digits. With that kind of track record, and at a time of economic and fiscal crisis, how in the world does it make any sense to enact a new massive entitlement taking over 1/6th of the economy without having enough time to read the final bill? And now we find out that the CBO's new scoring of the bill says that it won't save a dime, even under the rosiest of rosy scenarios. Way to go Nancy! Like I say, total irresponsibility. Crooks and Thieves!
Democrats know the numbers, like I said. Some have their heads in the sand, but most do not. They understand the media is so in the tank for them that they will be able to continue to hold themselves up as the good guys for standing against any cuts in government spending by the evil Republicans while, at the same time, they can continue to pass around new goodies and candies to their constituencies in exchange for future dependency and the guaranteed votes they produce. If you think people are freaking about cuts to Medicare which just affects seniors, wait ten years or so when Obamacare is bankrupting the country and fiscally responsible politicians talk about the need to make cuts in a program that affects every single American. Can you say demogoguery? I knew you could!
Our politicians are addicted to a very dangerous drug: spending. Using other people's money to buy votes is a great way of getting reelected year after year. It is probably the most addictive drug known to government:
Democrats know the numbers, like I said. Some have their heads in the sand, but most do not. They understand the media is so in the tank for them that they will be able to continue to hold themselves up as the good guys for standing against any cuts in government spending by the evil Republicans while, at the same time, they can continue to pass around new goodies and candies to their constituencies in exchange for future dependency and the guaranteed votes they produce. If you think people are freaking about cuts to Medicare which just affects seniors, wait ten years or so when Obamacare is bankrupting the country and fiscally responsible politicians talk about the need to make cuts in a program that affects every single American. Can you say demogoguery? I knew you could!
Our politicians are addicted to a very dangerous drug: spending. Using other people's money to buy votes is a great way of getting reelected year after year. It is probably the most addictive drug known to government:
Even now, in these fiscally perilous times, Obama, Pelosi and Reid were screaming at the top of their lungs about how draconian the recent piddly thirty eight billion in cuts were out of a 3.5 Trillion dollar budget in the continuing resolution for 2011. Even after Standard and Poor downgraded our credit rating to "risky" and then stripped us of our AAA status, Obama is still out there telling the world that there is no way he'll allow Republicans to kill Granny whether the country goes off the fiscal cliff or not. Failure to pay every penny today of what we promised Granny is un-American, but a national bankruptcy that happens at some later date that would completely jeopardize grandma’s checks is just fine it would seem.
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The truth is that unless we both cut and structurally reform entitlement programs, they are going to run out of money and the checks are going to stop altogether. This is what Chris Christie was trying to tell the firefighters who complained about having to contribute more to their pensions:
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The truth is that unless we both cut and structurally reform entitlement programs, they are going to run out of money and the checks are going to stop altogether. This is what Chris Christie was trying to tell the firefighters who complained about having to contribute more to their pensions:
Like I say, there are two kinds of politicians: Crooks and Thieves. It doesn’t matter what party affiliation is next to their names, they will lie and deceive and misdirect your attention away from the real issues because they think... no wait! They Know! That most people are live in the Matrix in a state of blissful and purposefully media induced ignorance and they can treat them all like saps. They also know, particularly if they are Democrats, that the that same media will continue to cover for them. So they’ll promise every Senior citizen that everything is just fine with Medicare and Social Security. You’ll keep getting your checks. Don’t pay any attention to the actuaries of Medicare and Social Security telling you the systems are broke. Don’t pay any attention to that Paul Ryan guy, he just wants to push Granny off a cliff:
Politicians like Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and the President are not only trying to paint Republicans as heartless cads, but like good confidence men, they are still trying to peddle the notion that Social Security is fiscally sound and that no changes need to be made to the system:
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It is interesting to note that all the Democrats are in lockstep with their focused grouped Talking Points about "not a single penny" and they are all full of crap. And they know it! But, the amazing thing isn't what is in this Fact Check analysis, it is what these so called "fact checkers" left out. The supposed “trust” fund for Social Security that they are basing the above horrible numbers on…. doesn’t actually exist. The only thing in that so called lock box that we claim is a trust fund is a bunch of government I.O.U.s. There are exactly zero dollars and zero cents in the account. So, the actual truth is that as each year’s trust fund dollars are needed, not only is the government going to be in the red for this:
It is interesting to note that all the Democrats are in lockstep with their focused grouped Talking Points about "not a single penny" and they are all full of crap. And they know it! But, the amazing thing isn't what is in this Fact Check analysis, it is what these so called "fact checkers" left out. The supposed “trust” fund for Social Security that they are basing the above horrible numbers on…. doesn’t actually exist. The only thing in that so called lock box that we claim is a trust fund is a bunch of government I.O.U.s. There are exactly zero dollars and zero cents in the account. So, the actual truth is that as each year’s trust fund dollars are needed, not only is the government going to be in the red for this:
It is also on the hook for every dime of the 2+ Trillion that is supposedly in the trust fund as well to cover the structural deficits between now and 2037. But, that's not what Democrats want you to believe. Barack Obama has the audacity to send out his budget director Jacob Lew to tell the American people a bold faced lie:
Well Jacob, so far in my life I have only been able to have a constructive conversation and reach a "consensus" with someone who wasn't lying to my face. As the respected conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer (and any honest research into this issue) explains:
As Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Jack Lew wrote in USA Today just a few weeks ago, the trust fund is solvent until 2037. Therefore, Social Security is now off the table in debt-reduction talks.
This claim is a breathtaking fraud.
The pretense is that a flush trust fund will pay retirees for the next 26 years. Lovely, except for one thing: The Social Security trust fund is a fiction.
If you don’t believe me, listen to the OMB’s own explanation (in the Clinton administration budget for fiscal year 2000 under then-director Jack Lew, the very same). The OMB explained that these trust-fund “balances” are nothing more than a “bookkeeping” device. “They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits.”
In other words, the Social Security trust fund contains — nothing.
Here’s why. When your FICA tax is taken out of your paycheck, it does not get squirreled away in some lockbox in West Virginia where it’s kept until you and your contemporaries retire. Most goes out immediately to pay current retirees, and the rest (say, $100) goes to the U.S. Treasury — and is spent. On roads, bridges, national defense, public television, whatever — spent, gone.
In return for that $100, the Treasury sends the Social Security Administration a piece of paper that says: IOU $100. There are countless such pieces of paper in the lockbox. They are called “special issue” bonds.
Special they are: They are worthless. As the OMB explained, they are nothing more than “claims on the Treasury [i.e., promises] that, when redeemed [when you retire and are awaiting your check], will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures.” That’s what it means to have a so-called trust fund with no “real economic assets.” When you retire, the “trust fund” will have to go to the Treasury for the money for your Social Security check.
Bottom line? The OMB again: “The existence of large trust fund balances, therefore, does not, by itself, have any impact on the government’s ability to pay benefits.” No impact: The lockbox, the balances, the little pieces of paper, amount to nothing.
So when Jack Lew tells you that there are trillions in this lockbox that keep the system solvent until 2037, he is perpetrating a fiction certified as such by his own OMB. What happens when you retire? Your Social Security will come out of the taxes and borrowing of that fiscal year.
Why is this a problem? Because as of 2010, the pay-as-you-go Social Security system is in the red. For decades it had been in the black, taking in more in FICA taxes than it sent out in Social Security benefits. The surplus, scooped up by the Treasury, reduced the federal debt by tens of billions. But demography is destiny. The ratio of workers to retirees is shrinking year by year. Instead of Social Security producing annual surpluses that reduce the federal deficit, it is now producing shortfalls that increase the federal deficit — $37 billion in 2010. It will only get worse as the baby boomers retire.
That’s what makes this administration’s claim that Social Security is solvent so cynical. The Republicans have said that their April budget will contain real entitlement reform. President Obama is preparing the ground to demagogue Social Security right through the 2012 elections. The ad writes itself: Those heartless Republicans don’t just want to throw granny in the snow, they want to throw granny in the snow to solve a problem that doesn’t even exist! Vote Obama.
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So, if we listen to the Democrats, $38 billion in “faux” spending cuts on domestic discretionary spending in the 20111 Continuing Resolution was “draconian”, reform of Medicare and Medicaid under the Ryan plan is “un-American” and will screw granny and the autistic grandkid and Social Security should not be touched because it is just fine and dandy. It's all political spin. Don't worry everything is fine. Just like there was no way we would never lose our AAA credit rating. Right Timmy?:
As Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Jack Lew wrote in USA Today just a few weeks ago, the trust fund is solvent until 2037. Therefore, Social Security is now off the table in debt-reduction talks.
This claim is a breathtaking fraud.
The pretense is that a flush trust fund will pay retirees for the next 26 years. Lovely, except for one thing: The Social Security trust fund is a fiction.
If you don’t believe me, listen to the OMB’s own explanation (in the Clinton administration budget for fiscal year 2000 under then-director Jack Lew, the very same). The OMB explained that these trust-fund “balances” are nothing more than a “bookkeeping” device. “They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits.”
In other words, the Social Security trust fund contains — nothing.
Here’s why. When your FICA tax is taken out of your paycheck, it does not get squirreled away in some lockbox in West Virginia where it’s kept until you and your contemporaries retire. Most goes out immediately to pay current retirees, and the rest (say, $100) goes to the U.S. Treasury — and is spent. On roads, bridges, national defense, public television, whatever — spent, gone.
In return for that $100, the Treasury sends the Social Security Administration a piece of paper that says: IOU $100. There are countless such pieces of paper in the lockbox. They are called “special issue” bonds.
Special they are: They are worthless. As the OMB explained, they are nothing more than “claims on the Treasury [i.e., promises] that, when redeemed [when you retire and are awaiting your check], will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures.” That’s what it means to have a so-called trust fund with no “real economic assets.” When you retire, the “trust fund” will have to go to the Treasury for the money for your Social Security check.
Bottom line? The OMB again: “The existence of large trust fund balances, therefore, does not, by itself, have any impact on the government’s ability to pay benefits.” No impact: The lockbox, the balances, the little pieces of paper, amount to nothing.
So when Jack Lew tells you that there are trillions in this lockbox that keep the system solvent until 2037, he is perpetrating a fiction certified as such by his own OMB. What happens when you retire? Your Social Security will come out of the taxes and borrowing of that fiscal year.
Why is this a problem? Because as of 2010, the pay-as-you-go Social Security system is in the red. For decades it had been in the black, taking in more in FICA taxes than it sent out in Social Security benefits. The surplus, scooped up by the Treasury, reduced the federal debt by tens of billions. But demography is destiny. The ratio of workers to retirees is shrinking year by year. Instead of Social Security producing annual surpluses that reduce the federal deficit, it is now producing shortfalls that increase the federal deficit — $37 billion in 2010. It will only get worse as the baby boomers retire.
That’s what makes this administration’s claim that Social Security is solvent so cynical. The Republicans have said that their April budget will contain real entitlement reform. President Obama is preparing the ground to demagogue Social Security right through the 2012 elections. The ad writes itself: Those heartless Republicans don’t just want to throw granny in the snow, they want to throw granny in the snow to solve a problem that doesn’t even exist! Vote Obama.
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So, if we listen to the Democrats, $38 billion in “faux” spending cuts on domestic discretionary spending in the 20111 Continuing Resolution was “draconian”, reform of Medicare and Medicaid under the Ryan plan is “un-American” and will screw granny and the autistic grandkid and Social Security should not be touched because it is just fine and dandy. It's all political spin. Don't worry everything is fine. Just like there was no way we would never lose our AAA credit rating. Right Timmy?:
In order to maintain the fiction that everything is still hunky dory, they attack anyone who disagrees with them and attribute to them all kinds of vile motives. For example, here is what Obama said about the Ryan Medicare plan and here are some of the actual facts:
[Note, I do not think that factcheck.org is the gold standard or even the copper standard of facts. I think they are biased and unreliable in bringing out all the facts, like not telling you about the reality that the trust fund is a fraud in the SS article I linked to earlier. However, I have fact checked this fact check and most of it is solid.]
You'd think that these kinds of fact checks would shame the Democrats into playing a little nicer with the truth. But, the unfortunate reality is that while some in the media feel they are obliged to publish these kinds of fact checks, the reporters themselves don't use them to shame and ridicule the lying politicians to be honest with their rhetoric. Have you seen a Presidential news conference lately? It sure isn't anything like it was under Reagan or even Clinton. Now, it's just one softball after another. It's even gotten to the point where their defense of the President and his policies has them looking totally ridiculous as being the shills they are:
You'd think that these kinds of fact checks would shame the Democrats into playing a little nicer with the truth. But, the unfortunate reality is that while some in the media feel they are obliged to publish these kinds of fact checks, the reporters themselves don't use them to shame and ridicule the lying politicians to be honest with their rhetoric. Have you seen a Presidential news conference lately? It sure isn't anything like it was under Reagan or even Clinton. Now, it's just one softball after another. It's even gotten to the point where their defense of the President and his policies has them looking totally ridiculous as being the shills they are:
Turns out the Congressman has three degrees. One in Economics, one in Law and one in Political Science. You'd think that with that kind of snarky, know it all attitude about economics and her rude questioning of the knowledge of her guest that Ms. Brewer has a degree in economics of her own, right? No, of course not. She has a degree in Broadcast Journalism which given the egg on her face, isn't serving her too well at the moment. The point here isn't to trash Contessa for being an elitist ignoramus, but to provide an example of a member of the media acting, not as a journalist reporting the news dispassionately, but as an activist promulgating a particular ideology and political party.
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It isn't my contention that the media should be without bias. Fox news certainly isn't. I do think, though, that when the head actuaries of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security put out reports that say that these programs are going bankrupt and are unsustainable, that the only question anyone on either side of the media should be asking, is how do we fix them. As long as the media allows the Democrats to get away with spinning the tale that all is well and that the GOP reform proposals just show how mean and heartless they are, we are verily and truly screwed as a country. Considering the gravity of our fiscal situation, I think what the Crooks and Thieves in the Democratic Party and their shills in the media are doing is truly unconscionable.
I don't think I can say it any better than this:
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It isn't my contention that the media should be without bias. Fox news certainly isn't. I do think, though, that when the head actuaries of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security put out reports that say that these programs are going bankrupt and are unsustainable, that the only question anyone on either side of the media should be asking, is how do we fix them. As long as the media allows the Democrats to get away with spinning the tale that all is well and that the GOP reform proposals just show how mean and heartless they are, we are verily and truly screwed as a country. Considering the gravity of our fiscal situation, I think what the Crooks and Thieves in the Democratic Party and their shills in the media are doing is truly unconscionable.
I don't think I can say it any better than this:
Now, you and I are not politicians and we don't have to get elected next year. Can there be any doubt that we are headed for a fiscal trainwreck? Is there any doubt the Crooks and Thieves and their enablers in the media have been bamboozling us for years?
If anyone does honest research and looks at the fiscal numbers and projections that come directly from government documents, they will find that California is broke, NY is broke, NJ is near broke, IL is totally broke. Japan, Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Spain, Italy and soon France and Belgium and eventually the rest of the countries of Europe are broke. It's just a matter of time. You can kick the can down the road only so long before the day of reckoning comes as it is coming shortly to California, Illinois and the European Union.
If, enough of the American people are willing to swallow the red pill and finally wake up to the fact that we have reached a moment of fiscal crisis as a result of the entitlement state, then perhaps they will begin to accept what I believe to be an indisputable fact. We have been lied to and deceived by Crooks and Thieves all of our lives. The real inconvenient truth is that the Social Welfare state model is inherently flawed. It is unsustainable over the long term.
The left in this country will do everything in their power to prevent people from knowing the real truth that we all face. They will call books like this "extremist" hate tracts and try to scare everyone into believing that my sole purpose in writing this book is that I am a racist who hates old people. They will try to say that if, indeed, there is a problem, then the only way to solve it is to find some kind of "moderate" compromise. Well, that might be true if the goal was to hit a hundred and the Democrats offered fifty and the Republicans counter-offered one hundred and fifty. But, when one of the sides starts off the conversation offering zero and screaming that the other side are all a bunch of mean spirited scrooges, then there is no "moderate" solution to this crisis. As we shall see in "Broke", the Democrats aren't even willing to come to the table to have a meaningful discussion. Unfortunately, given the current decision of the Democrat party that we should not only not change course, but step on the gas, we are going to have to veer sharply in one direction in order to fix the problem. In this case, to paraphrase Barry Goldwater, extremism is the quest for fiscal solvency and sustainability is no vice!
If anyone does honest research and looks at the fiscal numbers and projections that come directly from government documents, they will find that California is broke, NY is broke, NJ is near broke, IL is totally broke. Japan, Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Spain, Italy and soon France and Belgium and eventually the rest of the countries of Europe are broke. It's just a matter of time. You can kick the can down the road only so long before the day of reckoning comes as it is coming shortly to California, Illinois and the European Union.
If, enough of the American people are willing to swallow the red pill and finally wake up to the fact that we have reached a moment of fiscal crisis as a result of the entitlement state, then perhaps they will begin to accept what I believe to be an indisputable fact. We have been lied to and deceived by Crooks and Thieves all of our lives. The real inconvenient truth is that the Social Welfare state model is inherently flawed. It is unsustainable over the long term.
The left in this country will do everything in their power to prevent people from knowing the real truth that we all face. They will call books like this "extremist" hate tracts and try to scare everyone into believing that my sole purpose in writing this book is that I am a racist who hates old people. They will try to say that if, indeed, there is a problem, then the only way to solve it is to find some kind of "moderate" compromise. Well, that might be true if the goal was to hit a hundred and the Democrats offered fifty and the Republicans counter-offered one hundred and fifty. But, when one of the sides starts off the conversation offering zero and screaming that the other side are all a bunch of mean spirited scrooges, then there is no "moderate" solution to this crisis. As we shall see in "Broke", the Democrats aren't even willing to come to the table to have a meaningful discussion. Unfortunately, given the current decision of the Democrat party that we should not only not change course, but step on the gas, we are going to have to veer sharply in one direction in order to fix the problem. In this case, to paraphrase Barry Goldwater, extremism is the quest for fiscal solvency and sustainability is no vice!