Yesterday, I listened to a congressional hearing on Medicare Reform that was broadcast live on C-SPAN. After my first cup of coffee this morning, I realized that the politicians on the committee, as well as the expert witnesses, had managed to avoid confronting three critical aspects of the continuing budgetary problems of the government of this country.

     The first is that no one seemed to know, care or be willing to state that there are no real assets in the Medicare Trust Fund, nor are there any in any of the other so called trust funds for Social Security, government employee retirement and literally all other so called trusts. The pretense that taxes on the working people of this country can be continuously increased in the future to cover the obligations of these trusts was, as usual, tenuously maintained.

     They discussed how the Republican Plan to save Medicare would ensure its obligations could be paid through the year 2002, but neither addressed nor offered any discourse on what would happen to this program thereafter! One of the experts actually said that there would be zero funds in Medicare in 2002, but when questioned about this statement by a seemingly surprised politician, she quickly reassured him that she meant that only the reserves would fall to zero, implying that there were funds in the trust.

     The second is that all of the experts agreed that the economy of the country would continue to grow, apparently forever, albeit at a relatively slow rate. This is and will continue to be a false assumption because N.A.F.T.A. and G.A.T.T. are only the final steps in destroying the industrial base of the United States. Even now, rocket scientists are being laid off, and there are no domestic jobs for them. Who, I wonder, do they think will pay the huge costs of Social Security and the Entitlements in the next millennium, when there are no decent jobs left in the U.S.A.?

     The third is the failure to admit that Social Security, Medicare and all of the entitlement programs are actually funded on a day to day basis from taxes collected by the I.R.S. on the production of the people of this country. Since under the Unified Budget all taxes collected go into the same pot, and are instantly spent, not only are there no funds in any real trusts, but trillions of dollars are owed by present and future generations both to third parties and to the hidden huge debt owed to the empty trusts. The truth is that the number of entitled and those eligible for Social Security and Medicare will soon increase drastically even as the number of people working, as well as their wages, decline.

     At or soon after the year 2012 millions of Baby-Boomers will begin to retire, and there will be no way to fund their promised retirements and medical care under the present tax structure, even if their children and grandchildren are taxed at 100% of their meager incomes!

     How can this situation have possibly developed? you may ask. The answer is all too simple. When the outcomes of elections are determined by terribly expensive and misleading advertising, there can be no true democracy. Only those with great wealth and power can dictate who can run for office and be elected. Thus only those with money and power can ensure that their will must be done by a government of the politicians that they choose and control. By the very nature of this system, no person of integrity, wisdom and intelligence can possibly hold public office!
 

This page was created Nov. 17, 1997 Copyright © 1997 D'Amor.

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