"SINK THE BISMARK"
Sozialpolitik
ENTITLEMENTS
The entitlement programs began in this country in the 1930's under Franklin D. Roosevelt and the "New Deal" Democrats. The original concepts are found in the book "Sozialpolitik" by Bismark. The premise of these programs and those that followed are that we can put a chicken in every pot. This is a noble idea. However, we must realize that the chicken in our pot may belong to another.
SOCIAL SECURITY
SOCIAL SECURITY
Why is it called "SOCIAL SECURITY"?
This program is so complicated and the solutions so elusive that no one wants to touch it. We know that we have to do something. Everyone is looking around waiting on someone to step up and say, "I have the solution". It isn't going to happen. Some things can be done to curtail the costs. One is to eliminate funding for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and for children of deceased parents. Social Security (SS) was never intended to be a legacy or inheritance. Another is a transition to SS saving accounts. A portion of your SS tax would be put into individual accounts like IRA's. A fatuous idea would be for the Congress to redeem the $500,000,000,000.00, 500 billion dollars, in IOU's owed to the Social Security Trust Fund. (Note: by Nov. '98 the IOU's will have exceeded 700 billion dollars.)
Each of us is going to have to take responsibility and decide what to do, or at some point in the future the minority of people who are putting money into the system are going to get tired of supporting the majority, let your imagination see the outcome. It is going to be difficult, residing in a camp for the elderly, to say that we have a moral claim to the money.
"We used to suffer from social evils, we now suffer from the remedies for them."
MEDICARE
Why is it called "MEDICARE"?
Medicare like Social Security has become firmly entrenched in the American psychy. It is only 32 years old and yet we think it has been around forever. How did we ever survive without the Government's help prior to 1965?
In many ways life has become more complicated or selfish, depending on how you look at it. The demand for a system began with Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935. The demand steadly grew as fewer and fewer of us were willing to take care of our older family members. So we turned to the government to solve our problem and relieve us of a burden. The politicians were only too willing to help. As usual their solution was easy, "Let's tax everyone".
They fixed the problem didn't they? Yep, with the usual results. Prices for health care are higher. Access to health care is becoming harder to get. The quality is still there but they are trying to kill it too. There is a bill passed by the Republican led 105th Congress that limits the number of Doctors. And the 103rd and 104th Democratic Congresses have passed Education Bills that will guarantee that less qualified people will enter Medical Schools.
Part A, Medicare Hospital Insurance, is a basic hospital insurance plan that covers hospital care, extended care, home health services, and hospice care for terminally ill patients. It is funded by taxes. Insolvent.
Part B, Medicare Supplemental Medical Insurance, is a voluntary medical-insurance program that covers physicians' fees, out-patient services, and other medical services. Funded 75% by taxes and 25% by participants, aged and disabled, contributions. The deficit for 1996 was projected at $2 billion. Bankrupt by the year 2001.
More to come.
WELFARE
Why is it called "WELFARE"?
The crown jewel of socialism. The original sponsors of this program could not have done more harm nor inflicted more pain had these been their intentions. This program is insidious. The typical socialist program: It destroys people's lives, steals money, over $5 trillion dollars to date, from the working people and redistributes it, and leaves an elite group in power to tell us what is good for us.
This program should be burned, stabbed, shot, blown up, discarded into the bottom of a land fill, and covered up so deep that it never has the chance to rise again. Whew! I feel better now.
Proposing legislation or supporting it in order to make oneself feel better or to get votes and not considering the consequences are what got us into this mess. There are ways to incrementally diminish the affects of the "Welfare State". It is going to take awhile.
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evilminded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding. Louis D. Brandeis
The 1996 Republican lead Congress proposed and passed into law most of the following changes in the Welfare system in an effort to reduce the monetary and social costs of Welfare.
This appeared to be a valiant effort by the Republicans to incremently eliminate Welfare but they turned around and subsidized Welfare Programs with more money than any Democratic Congress in the previous years. The good economy is currently masking the actual results of the Republican legislation.
Welfare is Socialism. It must be stopped.
There is one simple argument for ending Welfare. Welfare breeds Welfare.
The only reason for Welfare is to buy votes. Pshaw you say. Welfare receipients receive only 28 cents of every dollar collected on their behalf. The purpose of welfare is not help but to make a whole group of people beholding to their benefactors, the politicians. You do not lend people a helping hand and than attach strings to it.
Strings attached to a helping hand yield marionettes. People are not marionettes. They should not be made to dance to the tunes of politicians.