Hardworking taxpayers who paid into Social Security and Medicare all of their working lives, with the promised it will be there for them, know them as “Earned Benefits.” On the other hand, Elected Politicians call Social Security and Medicare “Entitlements.”
This is not a minor distinction. It’s like the difference between – they have a legal obligation to pay versus they can decide to pay!
This is important because after the Senate voted to approve the Tax Bill Paul Ryan said, “We’re going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit.”
Hmm, they weren’t concerned about the already forecasted $10.1 Trillion deficits over the next 10 years added to the current $20.5 Trillion debt when they voted on their historic tax revenue reducing, wealth transfer Tax Bill.
Here are a few suggestions before Ryan and his colleagues tackle any reform.
Social Security and Medicare Reform
Likely, these programs need some level of reform due to Elected Politicians’ self-interest, self-dealing and gross mismanagement of our economy. Costs are rising. This was not a secret. It has been forecasted for many years. Elected Politicians knew this, yet for decades they did little or noting to address it just to get votes. They should have thoughtfully addressed these issues decades earlier. Rather, they kicked the can down the road not to lose votes. Now, they just cut taxes to make a bad situation worse!
What can be Done?
Let’s start by terminating and clawing-back the lifelong pensions and benefits from House and Senate members, past and present, who were too busy raising money to do their job, and the federal employees and staffers who aided and abetted them.
Then let’s get the pensions and benefits from guy like Flynn, Petraeus, Weiner, and the cast characters who betrayed our county or us.
Then go after the fraud/overbilling by individuals, doctors, Pharma, and the lobbyists and companies who lined the pockets of Politicians to charge retail prices to the largest buyer of Pharma in the world. Hopefully, there will be additional claw-backs and prosecutions along the way.
Then lets’ talk about the rest of US! Now that’s a workable plan!
Here is a video (“How the Lobbyists Rule America”) on how Pharma bought staffers and member of Congress to vote for retail pricing then immediately hired them at 6+figure salaries as lobbyists for the industry. This added hundreds of billions to our debt!
We must find a way to hold self-interested Politicians and their staffers, from both parties, personally liable, responsible and accountable for the lies they have told US, their gross mismanagement of our county, our $20.6 T and growing national debt (108{2d289d1d5a885a9d806b39988d2a6cc01583b92dbc3439bbfc6e618f5df7dfd3} of GDP), and our $100 T in future, unfunded liabilities they forced on US jeopardizing our economic and national security, while benefiting themselves, their staffers, their party and special interest donors.