I'm getting awfully tired of hearing politicians harping about our government starving children, and hurting the elderly by trying to control government spending. If what little information I've been able to learn about our government's handling of our money and economy is correct, both of these subjects are very valid concerns. Neither of them is being properly or appropriately addressed by today's politicians, however.
Although the vast majority of our elderly are not directly responsible for the actions of the government of the United States of America, over the past forty or so years, they have benefited handsomely from the policies of that government. Never before in history have the elderly of any nation fared so well, and been able to really enjoy their later years. Indeed in 1970, the average elderly per-capita income in this country was only about 60% of that of the non-elderly. Now it is 120%.1
Some most disturbing facts are now finally beginning to surface, however, that render that situation only temporary. Those who have run this nation, and who even now control our government, have told us two horrendous lies!
The first of these lies is that sufficient money has been accumulated in trusts to fund Social Security and Medicare. The fact is that no one, who is now drawing Social Security and Medicare benefits, has actually paid in enough money to fund any viable trusts that could actually pay for even a small portion of his or her benefits!
The second lie is that is that there is any real money or assets in the trusts! The funds that should have been prudently invested in the Social Security and Medicare Trusts, was all spent by the government years ago, and replaced with non-negotiable securities (Special Issue Treasury Securities). These misnamed securities are merely journal entries that say we owe ourselves money that's already been spent, and the interest on it. They have no tangible value whatsoever, and the government uses this as an excuse to hide from us this debt we owe ourselves, and the fraud they have perpetrated upon us.
From what I can gather, the unfunded liability for Social Security and Medicare alone, is about six trillion dollars, and it is not included in the so called National Debt at all, you know that $4.8 Trillion they're always talking about!
How then have they been providing income to those drawing benefits, and paying for their medical and hospital needs? For some years now, all of the F.I.C.A. taxes, plus other tax moneys, collected from the people who are still working, has been used to pay the benefits to those drawing Social Security and Medicare. That's right, over a trillion dollars of the budget is being spent on Social Security, Entitlements and Welfare this year 1! Now, we are told that Medicare will run out of funds around the year 2002. Maybe I'm being silly, but how can a trust with no money in it go broke?
The real problem is that both the Democrats and the Republicans have failed to tell us, and perhaps themselves, the whole truth about all too many things!
Over the past couple of generations, the income and F.I.C.A. taxes have grown tremendously. But, corporate, luxury, sin, and all sorts of other hidden taxes have also grown, and new ones have been levied. Most of the money that our governments now collect is in the form of hidden taxes. Several years ago, Mr. J. Peter Grace (author of The Grace Report) said that the average working person in this country pays about 72% of his or her income in taxes of one kind or the other.2
This fact, in and of itself shook me up, but after some thought I do believe it's true. This level of taxation of the middle class takes on much more sinister proportions, however, in light of some more information disclosed by one of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's best and brightest, Mr. Lester Thurow.
This expert and leading economist was recently featured on a C-SPAN broadcast. Among other disconcerting things, he said that over the past nineteen years, the lower income 60% of the families in this country have actually seen their effective incomes decline!?
Now, I understand that our government does not declare many other trusts such as government retirement programs, loan guarantees, and other public debts, in their official National Debt. The final straw, if this information is true and I believe it probably is, is that the real, national debt plus the unfunded trust liabilities total over twenty trillion dollars ($20,000,000,000,000.00)3.
Since our total population (1994) is about 260 million people, that means that now, every American man, woman and child each owes about $76,923 on that debt. But, since only about 110,000 people actually work, each working person (including government employees) must come up with about $181,818 ($20,000,000,000,000 ÷ 110,000,000 = $181,818.18).
In order to repay what they (we) now owe, using a 7% interest, twenty year loan, a typical working person would have to pay *$1,409.63 per month or $16,915.60 per year, over and above the taxes they are already paying! (*Payments on a direct rate mortgage loan of $181,818, at a simple interest rate of 7%, for a term of 20 years.)
That's crazy, of course. The median family income before taxes, with both husband and wife working in most, is under $50,000 a year, and most people certainly can't pay that kind of taxes, can they? But wait, the government has actually been borrowing over three hundred billion dollars ($300,000,000,000) a year lately (the deficit; the stated amount equates to borrowing $1,200 per person per year if our population is 260,000,000 people).
They're also charging additional principal and all of the interest on an ever growing fifteen trillion ($15,000,000,000,000+) dollars in hidden, unfunded liabilities to us, by signing our, our children's and our grandchildren's names to the notes.
Maybe ... just maybe it is true!
Let's also not forget about N.A.F.T.A. and G.A.T.T., those wonderful, new economic philosophies, passed into law by the same guys who gave us the Debt. I find it difficult to believe those foreign workers, who are even now doing many jobs Americans used to, are going to buy very many of our products with their 15 cent an hour wages.
Excessive tax collecting policies, imposed upon business and industry in the U.S.A., have inflated their costs of doing business. Now they really cannot compete economically with their foreign competitors, and are flocking to foreign shores, even as we speak. With them will go what's left of our jobs and our economy.
In just a few years, we're certainly not going to have enough young people and children in this country, working and being productive, to pay everybody's bills. I'm afraid that even if the A.A.R.P. convinced our government to take all of the incomes of all of our working people, there won't be enough money to fund Social Security and Medicare, not to mention all of the other government expenses and programs.
Remember that there's really no money in any of the trusts!
Now, let's discuss the definition of treason.
1 Mr. Lester Thurow, Professor of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; From an address at Morningside College, Sioux City, Iowa carried on C-SPAN in January of 1995
2 Mr. J. Peter Grace (Chairman of the Board of W. R. Grace & Co., now deceased) in a speech to the Washington Press Club several years ago. His address was carried live on C-SPAN.
3 Presidential Candidate Morey Taylor, reading from the 1993 Federal Audit, stated the total Federal Debt as shown in that document to be $20.3 trillion dollars. (In a speech given at the Republican Governor's Conference in November of 1995, carried on C-SPAN.)
Also see Dr. Robert B. Clarkson's article published in the Preparedness Journal of February, 1995; Dr. Clarkson; P.O. Box 2368, Anderson, S.C. 29622; Phone: (800)-225-3061
Copyright © May 3, 1995 by D'Amor (Revised 11/20/95) All Rights Are Reserved