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"Like all taxes, the money collected is spent immediately as general revenue to fund the federal government."
The ugly truth is that the government runs entirely on borrowed funds and all revenues collected go to pay the interest on that debt.
Leavemebe, unless I missed something, to "opt out" you must be a member of a religious sect that has had a system of taking care of its disabled and retired members in place since before 1950: Amish, some Mennonites, Hutterites, maybe a few others? Read: Click to view link for a thorough explanation. It's also an interesting commentary on the threatened compulsory health insurance scheme, years ahead of time.

"What specifically makes you 'liable' for the SS tax? Did you apply for an 'account'? If you live in the USA, your mother probably did it for you. Were you competent at that time? The card I once had said it was 'Property of the US Government'. What is your relationship to that entity?"
You are made liable by receiving wages subject to the tax. What makes wages subject to the tax? Are all wages subject, or are there only certain wages subject to the tax?
It's not just the card that is property of the SSA; it's the NUMBER. It is NOT "your" number, no matter what government publications and agents say. If it was YOUR number, you could throw it away, give it away, sell it. If you do not have the rights of property over ANYTHING, it's not YOURS in an ownership sense.

10hawks, the military, however wasteful and bloated it is, is provided for in the constitution. Welfare is not. The "general welfare" clause is a RESTRICTIVE clause, not a grant of power beyond Article I, section 8. It requires ALL laws and expenditures to have general application to the wellbeing of the entire population, not to the benefit of particular individuals to the exclusion of others.
The constitutions are not amended by changes in the meanings of words.
Lesley, the employer's FICA tax is money that is to the employer indifferent as to whether it is paid to the worker or to the government (supposedly) on the worker's behalf. All the employer cares about is the worker's total pay, not whether it is paid in full directly to the worker or to other places (FICA, Medicare, garnishments, whatever). To the employer it is of no concern. It's all just cost of doing business.

leavemebe, if the government would just be honest and tell me openly and publicly, in plain language that I am its/their slave (personal property) or serf (attached to the land – real estate), and kindly explain how I became such, I would be a dutiful slave/serf as the Bible instructs me. But as long as it/they play word games, telling me I am FREE, and that paying taxes is VOLUNTARY, I am going to persist in NOT volunteering. (Voluntary: If I don't want to pay alcohol tax, I won't import or make (for sale) alcoholic beverages. If I don't feel like paying import duties, I won't import anything. If I don't want to pay land tax, I won't own or rent land. Etc.)

Lesley wrote: "... the debt needs to be paid down, a bit impossible to do with no revenue."
The debt CANNOT be paid down. As all "money" in circulation is borrowed into existence from the moneylender, if all of it was returned to the lender, the interest would remain outstanding. Back when much of the money was made of gold and silver, there was a possibility of giving all the gold and silver coin to the lender, thereby paying off the principal, and mining more gold or silver out of the ground to pay the interest. But the "mine" for fiat currency is the Fed. To "dig" more out to pay the interest, it has to be borrowed from the "mine's" owner, the Fed. There is no possibility of paying off the debt. Even the interest cannot be paid. The US has been bankrupt (unable to pay debt) since the beginning of the issue of fiat (paper) money.
As the lender has no use for the entire country, it does not want to foreclose as such. Who would buy the country? All other countries are in the same fix. What would a buyer do with it but keep the same scheme going? So we end up as serfs of the moneylenders, ultimately the Bank for International Settlements, Basel, Switzerland, Hong Kong, China and Mexico City. There is no escape unless you can find a way off this planet with somewhere to go. The closest an individual can get to freedom from the lenders is to live under bridges and eat out of dumpsters and soup kitchens.

@Dogwood "

I searched Pew Poll Tea Party Education and didn't find anything supporting your claim that tea partiers are somehow more educated.

Also, given that the education bubble is likely the next to burst, and there are for profit educational institutions out there that are probably more likely to survive than state funded institutions, I don't agree with your claim that education is more public. It is getting more privatized, the less and less funding the state can provide its institutions. Last I heard, Illinois couldn't fund the budgets of its universities. Hardly a sign of the institutions getting more public. To keep operating they're clearly going to have to get funding from somewhere other than the state.

@DailyBell

" you are right, I am a lawyer, a bankruptcy lawyer, I get to see the worst of it every day, be it individuals that haven't had jobs in two years (being in Michigan, this is pretty commonplace, though I happen to be in the least depressed county of Michigan, not that that says a whole lot), I think in my field it is pretty easy to see what is going on, not just from a consumer stand point, but from a business standpoint, what with a large number of my clients being people with failing small businesses, that at some point in time were "prosperous" (usually they THOUGHT they were prosperous, but considering the large amount of debt they had, they weren't really prosperous for quite some time).

You claim the mortgage mess is the government's fault, but I have yet to see evidence from anyone that claims this that the government encouraged lenders to lend to people that clearly couldn't afford the loans.

One trend that was going on around 2000-2004 was that lenders would overappraise houses in order to get people to get more loan against their house, appraisals would typically come in at 110% of actual value. This wasn't even remotely a secret, I recall seeing ads from ditech, quicken loans, etc saying they could give you home equity loans of up to 110% of the value of your home.

This isn't marketed toward people that don't already have a home, but people already with homes. There were plenty of people foolish enough to get a home equity loan on a house that was already paid for. Then there was the whole selling of crappy ARM mortgages to people that were actually qualified for better rates and fixed loans. I know brokers tried to sell me on the "do you really plan to spend more than 5 years at your house?" bs, as long ago as 2003, and as recently as 2007, trying to argue, why get a fixed rate with a "higher" payment, when you can have a lower payment for five years and sell at that time?

On top of that housing prices were absurdly high during that time. What was going on in St. Paul/Minneapolis at that time was just insane. Houses would go up in value up to 30% within a year.

During this time, I would see people buying a $350,000 house with income of only $8/hour. Now no one was being forced to lend to someone who clearly couldn't afford to afford a mortgage, and there's no way someone on those wages could afford a $350,000 house, except at a super low teaser rate that probably wasn't even enough to pay the interest, that would ultimately go up. While the consumer should know what they can afford, they have spent all their lives living in a society that says it is okay to borrow now pay later, and perpetually refinance one's home rather than ever pay the thing off.

Hardly anyone was living within their means (and frankly that's probably still the case). Most people didn't realize it until now when they lost their jobs and were saddled with large credit card debts (because they could afford the payments, but couldn't afford to pay them off every month, and to them making the payments meant they were fine) they could no longer afford.
The government is certainly to blame in the sense that it lives beyond its means as well. While I hate paying taxes as much as the next person, lowering taxes and increasing spending is the dumbest possible way to run a budget. But that's exactly what happened from 2001 on.

I can't exactly say that this has been curbed at all, what with taxes remaining low, and spending not being lowered because without cutting social security, medicare and defense, any cut in spending is going to make hardly a difference. Sure, businesses don't like to be where they are taxed heavily, but the tax cuts that they have been living with since 2001 have not increased enough domestic jobs to justify the tax cuts, which certainly did not result in any sort of increase of tax revenue either.

And FYI, I'm willing to accept that the system is ruined, I keep telling people we're about to enter a new dark age because of this, not that anyone listens to me. I do need to stock up on provisions though. At minimum I don't see the US being an "economic power" for much longer. Not with its current fiscal insanity.

I trust in the constitution, provided it is actually enforced. I don't trust people to protect my rights without a government enforcing them. I have more faith in the court system than congress as far as making sure I still have rights.

Regulatory democracy worked, prior to funding being cut off to the agencies that are supposed to do the regulating, a common theme seems to be "hey lets cut off funding for this agency (ie FEMA, FDIC, the EPA) and then bitch about it when something happens that they are supposed to be in charge of and they can't do anything about it because they have no man power to do anything about it, and private industries don't have the skills to do anything about it either." Agencies have their purpose.

There is a healthy balance for this, but it doesn't currently exist, because everyone wants to outsource everything and not pay for anything. Somehow they perceive outsourcing governmental functions as smaller government, even though all that has happened is a shift on who does it (and it becomes more expensive in the long run as well).

But with that said, democracy doesn't work if anyone's rights are unnecessarily infringed. The constitution in this country exists for a reason. Unfortunately, most people don't seem to care about it right now other than to wish that the 14th amendment never passed, because that apparently did away with states' rights, and people that don't understand it seem to think they can just go back to "an interpretation" of the constitution that dates before that amendment was passed. But that amendment afforded more rights to people than existed before it, because not all states afforded people such freedoms that the federal government was required to provide. I'm sure some way will be found to reinstitute slavery, because businesses make more money if they don't have to pay people!

I am willing to accept the country is falling apart. I don't think things are magically going to go back to some "glory day" that people think there was. It doesn't help that any future age increases for eligibility to Social Security will occur only for people younger than baby boomers. It is so stupid that baby boomers are so concerned about only themselves that they can't recognize how that isn't going to work. I can accept I'm never actually going to get social security, but I don't think baby boomers should have the luxury of receiving it either. Whose fault is it that they didn't breed enough to cover their costs as old people? (not that I'm a fan of overpopulation either).

And instead of feeling some pain now to ensure future generations don't have to spend their entire lives paying for the excess of the boomers, they'd rather get their meager social security payments and let everyone else figure out how to deal with it. Campaigning on cutting "entitlements" is a good way to kill your campaign, and I can't think of anyone that had a chance of winning that championed such an idea, but I certainly wish someone did, considering just how much of the budget that takes up.

Reply from The Daily Bell

Well, you have a lot to say and a lot that is eloquent, even if we here at the Bell (as opposed to our columnists) disagree with it. We will let it stand. Thanks for the feedback.

@John Danforth

I would have to review the Clean Air Act to even know if that would be unconstitutional, whether it is constitutional or not would highly depend on what congress has delegated to the EPA via the Clean Air Act (at least assuming it applies strictly to air pollution) and any other relevant law that delegates authority to the EPA. It is not unconstitutional for congress to delegate certain functions to the EPA or other agencies, the question then becomes, whether it was delegated. And whether the regulation is within the realm of what was delegated.
I do want freedom, and agree that freedom does not mean you can harm your neighbors. Obviously ownership of property means you have the right to quiet enjoyment. This is difficult to do if someone is destroying your property. The problem is, without regulation, how do you stop companies from invading your property rights?

The paper you link to is correct, that when you come to a nuisance, you have to live with it, that is well accepted law (and the basis for many states' right to farm laws). But if a business comes to the area, they don't have a right to create a nuisance. Additionally, it is not financially expedient to have to sue companies every time they cause a nuisance or trespass. The point of regulating pollution is to decrease the need of having to sue people to stop the nuisance from happening. Additionally, when it is a matter of public health, which pollution often is, is it more cost effective to allow each individual sue? Or does it make more sense to have regulations enforced on behalf of all the impacted people? This is not only cheaper for those impacted, but also the offender who could otherwise wind up with thousands of people suing it.

I'm not sure what you are referring to when you refer to "cutting spending elsewhere?" It needs to be cut in defense and entitlements, exactly where it's not going to be cut. Cutting everywhere else will not be enough to balance the budget much less make a dent in paying off the debt. Not cutting entitlements is not a feasible option. How many younger people are really going to save their money if they opt out of social security? And is there going to be an option that is predictable enough to warrant using that option? One proposal I had heard in the past was to allow people to have a 401k type savings plan instead. Well for those that have had 401ks, I think they would be aware that any time the market collapses, you run a risk of your 401k being worth close to nothing (depending how well you diversified your investments of course). You could wind up with nothing, which isn't really any better than if you get no social security at all.

If there is a sound method of investing these funds instead, it might make sense, but there isn't really anything that secure, especially when the economic system is at the brink of complete failure. I hate that I'm paying a tax for something I will never get, but a dent can be made if the entitlements of the boomers are cut. Even if it's to eliminate social security to those that have an existing income (whether it's a pension or a job), that would make more of a dent than refusing to cut social security.

@ JC Dunn

" the 401k system is a rigged crony system where you get a tax break for investing in substandard managers who have regulatory pull. This is exactly the Bush/Obama facist paradigm and you wonder why it's not working? You fool.

And you think industries are being privatized? What about autos, healthcare, insurance, utilities, and education? Those are all significantly more *public* in the last two years time. Right out from under your nose.

Also no new offshore oil & gas lease sales this year in what 50 years? Government stranglehold, buddy.

The Tea Party supposedly favoring entitlement spending is an "Ignorance Meme" pushed by the media. Even if MSNBC can find a few fools in the crowd, there is a broad awakening taking place.

Plus, I think it was Pew Research that had numbers showing the TPM members as better educated (more advanced degrees) than Republicans or Democrats.

Reply from The Daily Bell

Change is coming like a tidal wave. The truth telling of the Internet is thunder. The elite may find it has to take a step back.

@Leavemebe

where did you find the forms or path to 'un-volunteer?' I can't find them for the life of me!

Ironic point of view in light of recent financial crisis !
REALLY!
This is just another selfserving elitist position that fails to face facts (or pretends to do so). Only need to look at collective 401k performance as one example. Do you really understand New Deal legislation and why we are where we are ?
Please let us stop the "free-market" privatization movement that falsely "ensures" propserity security for broadest segment of US populace – clearly, balance in a mixed economy must be rebalanced! US Government used to work – let's backtrack and learn how to better reform this failing Oligarchy before it's just too late

Yeah, young folks got a chance to see how well the private investment scheme worked when their 401Ks were wiped out. If the US honors it's financial obligations it will repay the debt to the Social Security Trust Fund, or is Mr. Paul proposing to wipe it out?

Reply from The Daily Bell

Yeah, young folks will have the opportunity to experience the finest flowering of the Anglo-American financial system, post World War II. Their parents have lost their houses, have blown their retirements in sour stock markets and can expect a diminished or non-existent Social Security. Their children can look forward to jobless futures and quite possibly the collapse of the current monetary system ... So how are those government "sureties" working out for you?

Ok those who wish to participate should do so and those who want to opt out and privatize their savings no problem. And if the market collapses for those who choose Wall Street and the Banks over the Feds ? What then ? How about a Social Security program that does what Mr Paul says it ought to do? Put you money in an interest bearing account NEVER to be used by the government for other expenditures... Wasn't that the case until the 1970's? If Americans had a pure democracy and could decide where there tax dollar would go on an individual basis what do you think the revenue pie what look like then? I'd love to hear your answer.
Blessings ...

@Bluebird:

"Government floor moppers make more than some of our hardest workers." Horsepoop. I have rarely seen a larger generalization than this.

Document it, please.

@Lesley;

OK, so you dropped the global warming thing, I won't belabor it. I did bring it up because the EPA is going to try to implement Cap and Trade even though it got shot down in Congress. Unconstitutional abuse of power. But we'll leave that aside.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume perhaps you are interested in ways that we could have pollution control and freedom too. (Freedom does not mean you can harm your neighbors.)

Here's a link to a paper on the issue:

Click to view link

Please give it some careful consideration.

I helped start the Tea Party in my area before there even was such a thing. Please don't understand me too quickly. We are not in favor of entitlements from government. But a generation of people have been prevented from saving for retirement through taxation while being promised it was an investment for their retirement. No transition away from the system, whether it is broke or not, can be done by simply cutting all these people off. The risk is, as I said in my first post above, that the idiots in government will crash the dollar and pay off in worthless scrip, which will be disastrous for everybody. There IS a way to wean the country off of this Ponzi scheme. It involves cutting spending elsewhere and letting younger people opt out.

"Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard--the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money--the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them.

But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law--men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims--then...the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion--when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing--when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors--when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you--when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice--you may know that your society is doomed.

When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world?" YOU ARE."

The above was shamelessly lifted and altered out of context by me from Francisco d'Anconia. The original speech is about money, and is well worth reading in its entirety.

Click to view link

@John " do you really think pollution has no negative impact on you? Do you think smog is healthy to breath in? Do you like radium or other toxic chemicals in your water because some nearby business just doesn't care about the impact it has on the surrounding populace?

If there was a reason to believe all businesses would make some sort of effort to not put carcinogenic chemicals into the soil and groundwater you might make sense. I'm not talking about global warming, I'm talking about pollution that has immediate effects.

I don't know if you are in denial that it happens, but if no one does anything to make sure it doesn't happen, it happens, because businesses tend to opt for the most cost effective method of dealing with something, properly disposing of hazardous materials isn't always high priority.

You were the one that initially brought up the cap and trade issue, I was explaining the reasoning behind it, it wasn't invented by Obama, or Gore for that matter, I'm fairly certain it was initially supported by republicans back in the late 90s early 2000s.

My point to begin with is, there is pollution that the EPA does need to regulate, because businesses will otherwise just not do what is in the best interests of the surrounding populace. So what if their dioxin waste that gets dumped in the water causes cancer to 50% of the people in their surrounding neighborhood, they save money, so it must be okay.

The US is entering a dark age thanks to the tea partiers (and baby boomers in general) who think they can keep entitlements and cut taxes at the same time. You can keep spending and keep cutting revenue, that is why the country is in the current mess (along with overspending for the past 50 years).

Cutting spending on the EPA (which has already been cut drastically the past 10 years) is not going to help matters, which was my whole point to begin with.

I don't think industry is evil, but there are countless examples of why pollution needs to be regulated that has nothing to do with global warming, but has everything to do with the health of the people impacted by the pollution. If everyone dies of cancer because the business doesn't care about their health but only cares about profits, how would the business succeed?

Consuming as much as possible, ignoring the impact it has on everyone else, does not lend to a sustainable future.

The mortgage mess happened because banks, mortgage brokers, etc were so concerned about the immediate profit they didn't care about the obvious consequences of their moronic lending practices.

Reply from The Daily Bell

"The mortgage mess happened because banks, mortgage brokers, etc were so concerned about the immediate profit they didn't care about the obvious consequences of their moronic lending practices."

You, Sir, are unfortunately an economically illiterate person. Lawyers, in fact, should not be allowed to practice without a fundamental comprehension of economics and you (you seem to be a lawyer), like so many of your brethren, apparently have none.

The "mortgage mess" actually happened because excessive monetary stimulation via government-controlled central banking created a boom in housing purchases. This was exacerbated by government efforts to make houses affordable "to everyone."

The toxic result of monetary stimulation and regulatory dictates opening up the housing market to anyone who wanted to buy, created a real estate mania that helped create the situations the US faces today.

But actually, today's Greater Recession is the result of fairly deliberate fiscal and monetary policies that go back at least 100 years. The current fiat-money/dollar reserve system has collapsed and is being propped up by central bank money pumping which must include nearly US$50 trillion worldwide and climbing. It is an entirely discredited and ruined system at this point, whether or not people are willing to accept it.

That you retain trust in a federal Leviathan that has bankrupted your country, ruined your money, blighted the hopes of families and professional futures is a testament to the mind control that you and your peers suffer from.

It is perhaps a form of the Stockholm Syndrome. You have lost your major industries, your cities are being plowed under for lack of residents and funds, but you insist, nonetheless, that regulatory democracy, which evidently and obviously does not work, is a necessary element of civil society.

Look around you, at your disintegrating society with its 30 percent unemployment rates, fleeing industries, ever-expanding military industrial complex and try to justify more of the same.

That you can apparently do so (the EPA in all its devious corruption and merciless bullying is a necessary facility) is merely a testament to the distortion of your frame of reference, and your (deliberate?) unwillingness to accept the way the world really works. This is the unfortunate reality of the educational system that has made you what you are.

@Lesley;

I must assume you are joking about the 'free market' and Cap and Trade. The mind boggles.

Start with the Cap part. Put a cap on energy (because aside from hydro and nuclear, a carbon cap is an energy cap). You've just dictated a cap on life. Because energy is life. You might think you're punishing producers, but they are the engine that makes life possible. Production will die off or leave the jurisdiction and the loss of production will kill the economy. You'll only be able to consume until the savings dry up. End result, you won't get to partake in the benefits of capitalism.

Now, the trade part. It's a tax, with the added benefit of being able to trade around liability for it. It should be called the Dog Eat Dog law. There is nothing 'free market' about it. Leave out the fact that the plan was to restrict trading to an exchange, and Obama and Gore figured to rake off a percentage of the proceeds. This would take legions of regulators backed by men with machine guns to enforce. The only advantage to it might be that businessmen might finally stand up for themselves and simply refuse to comply. Businesses that don't make things and don't need energy, who lined up to 'sell' their 'rights' for a piece of unearned loot might just find themselves targets for retribution. The overweening state would love such chaos, it would give it all the excuse it needs to say they've tried freedom and it failed, so the state will now have to run everything.

The whole argument is academic anyway. We are entering a cooling period, right on schedule with the solar cycle. Global warming was a sham from the beginning on the science alone, a power grab by government-paid parasites, but many believed it until the truth about their tactics was leaked out in a way they couldn't deny.

Not that this will stop the attempt to get control over your very ability to survive. They will keep trying, even though the truth is out. If they succeed, nothing will work out as you hope (except you won't have all those nasty polluters around any more). The productive sector has seen enough, it has been decimated already. There is no mistaking what the outcome of such a scheme is. This time, they won't wait around to be bled dry, to be lorded over by useless toadies who couldn't survive without stealing. They will shut down their businesses or leave before capital controls are enacted to stop them.

Those who advocate this plan think people like me need to be lorded over at gunpoint. Millions of dead people in the last century bear silent witness to the results of your ideas, yet you continue to propose them as if they were noble. We will not invent at the point of a gun. We will stop producing. You will lose your job. We will watch you starve. You don't deserve to reap the rewards of our labors. All we needed was the freedom to trade with others without interference, the freedom to keep what we earn. That's too much to ask. And so you will sink back into the miserable mud we lifted mankind out of. The process has already started. Communist countries have more freedom than the U.S. The result is predictable, it is inexorable, and it is going to be terrible.

You might be able to destroy my ability to prosper, but I know how to survive, and when people like me are in survival mode, there isn't anything there for you to loot. You who think carbon is evil, industry is evil, property rights are immoral, you don't have survival skills. It is the luxury you take for granted that makes you think you can destroy the basis of our civilization and still have food delivered to your neighborhood in winter, lights and heat to keep you alive, hot and cold running water for your convenience. If you succeed at this pernicious piece of evil, you will most assuredly get what you deserve when the grid goes down.

And you say this plan leaves businesses more control than you would prefer. I choose not to let you control me. It's really not smart to attack people who produce using science, based on a ludicrous lie about science.

It seems unlikely you would be swayed by a line of reasoning based on property rights to restrain people from polluting, since you've taken the bait and you believe that the act of breathing is pollution. That means you are beyond reason. So I will simply call you out as the destroyer you wish you could be.

@ John "

I love how people seem to think that the cap and trade notion that's being contemplated is a bad idea. You know, the concept is to allow the "free market" to determine the value of the pollution allowances that would be traded. A Company that would never need such allowances could auction off their shares to a company that needs it, encouraging companies to become more environmentally conscious and make efforts to not pollute like crazy. It isn't what I'd call ideal in improving air, soil and water quality, but it gives businesses more control than what I personally would do if it were in my power to do anything about it.

It is similar in concept, actually, to trading air rights. For example, in a city like New York, where there are many tall buildings, various plots of land have rights to build buildings x number of stories tall. With approval of the city, it is possible for two property owners to buy/sell their air rights to allow the other property owner to build a taller building. The difference being that, due to zoning ordinances, the city has much more control over what happens, since they would be the ones granting the building permits, than any government would have over the trading of polluting rights in a cap and trade system, from which I understand, at an international level, there is already a voluntary system that does just that. Pollution impacts everyone, and when one is motivated solely by making money, cutting corners in regards to that is going to happen unless they are forced to follow the rules. If implemented properly, it won't make businesses flee, it will cause them to be more careful about how they go about their business, hopefully to do things in a manner that is less likely to harm those that are near the business.

As for the Social Security stuff, if anyone has noticed, the increase in ages for being eligible for social security significantly goes up for those that are not part of the baby boomer generation, it's 67 for all baby boomers, whether they were born in the 40s or the 60s. The largest generation is making the effort to be the least impacted. They clearly don't care about their own offspring's future when they make no effort to make sure the program is sustainable. Not that social security payments are even livable, but for the second year in a row, social security payments are not going up, it sounds like they aren't going to be going up any time soon either. That isn't enough to make a difference, because we do not have enough revenue coming in to pay for it as it is. I operate under the assumption that I'm never getting social security, I've assumed this for as long as I've had any understanding of the dire situation that social security is in. I assume I'm working until I die, there is no reason to think otherwise.

Unfortunately, most people living in America today have been left ignorant by the educational system and unable to comprehend what it means to be born without a saddle on your back to be ridden to death by the US Congress and its Banker owners. This makes for easy prey.

The SS system will default, only the timing and nature of the default are in question. I am betting on a continuation of the "extend and pretend" strategy that has been in place for some time (i.e extend the time to "retirement" and pretend to pay folks a bit of what they "contributed"). That is how socialist systems degrade " until they die.

Dr. Paul can try to work the halls of power as best he can but the reality is that the money powers want a large dependent class, especially in USA. Such a dependent class provides substantial political cover and are easily herded and culled when the time comes.

I have immense respect and admiration, even love for Dr Ron Paul. He has been a consistent, indefatigable force in Congress, always struggling to further the cause of Truth, Justice and the American Way. Since 2008 and his run for presidential office, during which period he became the "founding father" of the "Tea Party Movement", his status in the political landscape has improved, and it appears likely he will run again in the 2012 presidential election.

If somehow I were ever to be in a position to offer advice to candidate Ron Paul on how to run his campaign for 2012, I would suggest that he do some work on his entitlements plank. The voting
block represented by elderly, retired and disabled American citizens will not respond positively to Libertarian calls for abolishing Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare.

Dr. Paul needs to work onpresenting his ideas on overhauling entitlements in ways that will guarantee a fair, gradual and workable solution; one that safeguards the needs of those currently depending on benefits to survive, and that can be acceptable to the voters he will be wooing.

Of course I wouldn't expect him to change his stance on the issue, but if he wants to be realistic about his candidacy, he must tone
down his rhetoric on the "welfare state".

Social Security is like having an ex-con cousin to whom you remit sums every month for safe-keeping. Americans have very stupidly bought into this scam far too long. Same for Medicare and Medicaid. It is as if the whole nation gave up trusting in themselves long ago, giving up their freedoms and entrusting their financial future to the "kindness of strangers".

The political will does not exist to dump these entitlement programs. They will only go away after the USA has suffered complete default and the dollar collapses. We have only ourselves to blame for so easily surrendring our liberties.

@Kenn,

OK, I'm sorry for the harsh reply.

If there were a draft, which is slavery in the first place, then there would be a legitimate gripe about the issue because people would be forced into the kind of situations that are brought to mind when contemplating the issue. (But then, slaves don't get to dictate their situation, do they?)

Since the military is voluntary, and once you sign up you are willingly committed to absolute obedience to the State, you at least have the option to not join.

So, disgusting sexual practices and uncomfortable sexual situations are not being imposed on you.

That leaves the question of whether such a policy is wise, whether it will diminish the effectiveness of the military for its purported purpose of defending freedom. This is a theoretical question at best, since we aren't in any danger of being invaded by a hostile nation, and we are not legally at war.

People who find homosexuality disgusting to contemplate can refrain from joining the military, same as they can avoid going to work as a bartender in a gay bar.

There are any number of heterosexual fetishes that are every bit as disgusting to contemplate as homosexual practices. Should government start making lists of how to treat people based on which fetishes people are accused of, or should it do its best to attempt to ignore the whole thing and simply set standards for acceptable conduct in public for its employees? The only logical place to go with it is to try to get official government policy out of the business altogether. Otherwise you end up with a Pandora's box of one injustice after another, and a never-ending fight over the issue. I'd rather just see it go away.

And no, the issue is not more important than paper money. It's a red herring, tossed out there to get you to take your eyes off the ball, to get you enthusiastically advocating the creation of different classes of people to be treated differently under the law while ignoring what is happening to your own rights while you grant government the power to dispense injustice.