Social Security? Fix it? Easy, Just Not the Way the GOP and Tea Party Want It

The Tea Party and the GOP want to gut Social Security, to end it if at all possible; or to fundamentally change it if they can't end it outright. And then they want to go after Medicare and Medicaid, in that order if they can. 

Except that those programs are wonderfully successful and wildly popular.

So what is wrong with Social Security?  Absolutely nothing is wrong with it; the baby boomers have been paying it forward since Reagan.

Well, nothing other than the payroll taxes which fund it go into the general fund, and members of Congress, from various administrations have spent it, without paying it back.  That matters a lot, because the majority of those who TOOK the money from Social Security are the ones who want us to 'trust them' to straighten out our national debt and federal spending.  I don't think we should do that unless they are willing to pay back Social Security, not gut it, as part of straightening out government expenditures.

That wasn't really much of a problem with the Clinton era, when there was a surplus in the general fund.

But Bush, with his cronies like Boehner, pushed through unfunded initiatives, and unpaid wars, while cutting revenue income with the Bush Tax Cuts.  Who did those wars benefit?  Look to Haliburton; look to war profiteers, the independent contractors who without transparency or accountability have been overcharging us for things that we used to do far more effectively and cheaply within the military.

In effect, they stole FROM US in two ways; one by spending money that should have been segregated and kept sacrosanct.  The other by cutting the money coming in that would have otherwise paid for it, to the overwhelming benefit of the wealthy at the expense of everybody else.

And they continue to do so.  They claim, 'oh......the money isn't there'.  Neglecting to mention the IOUs that they have no intention of honoring - and never did.  That is the equivalent of the Republicans and Tea Partiers stealing the Social Security funds from the people who have paid into Social Security with their payroll deductions. 

You almost never hear an explanation for how the Social Security money was spent, or by whom.  Just....an uncomfortable 'it's gone' glossed over, and a rush to change the subject.

Fix Social Security - by all means, fix it!  Fix it, by damn well paying back the money that was paid forward in anticipation of the baby boomers, and those who came after them, who created a vigorously healthy Social Security fund with payroll taxes.  Fix it, damn it, by holding the Bushies accountable for their actions - and the Democrats who helped them.  Fix it, damn it, by repealing the Bush tax cuts so that there IS enough money in the general fund to replace the misspent social security funds - yes, MISSPENT - AND to begin reducing the deficit.

That bullshit about taking money out of the pockets of the job creators hurting the economy?  They are LYING to us.

According to the Federal Reserve, U.S. corporations held a record $1.93 trillion in cash on their balance sheets in 2010. But they are not investing to expand their companies, grow the real economy or create good middle-class jobs. Corporate CEOs are literally hoarding their company’s cash—except when it comes to their own paychecks.

Read that paragraph again, just to be sure it sinks in.  Read it SLOWLY.  It should make you ANGRY.

Those so-called wealthy job creators HAVE plenty of money, privately and corporately, to create jobs -- they hare choosing not to do so.  Because that creates a situation where they can try to gouge MORE concessions.   If having more money in their pockets would create jobs, they would have done so by now.  If having more money meant creating jobs HERE in the United States, instead of shipping them overseas to countries that encourage that sort of thing -- as is the case with so many of the foreign members of the Unites States Chamber of Commerce, an organization that actively PROMOTES the OUTSOURCING OF U.S. jobs.

We can fix Social Security's problems easily; just get the hands of the conservatives the hell out of its pockets, and make that money safe from their grasping fingers.......and make them pay it back instead of letting them give money in the form of reduced taxes to people who are making so very much more than the rest of us are, at unprecedented rates of increases in their compensation.

The only thing really broken is the Republican and Tea Party ideology.  Don't let them off the hook for the scamming of skimming of Social Security while jacking up the debt to unprecedented levels.  Hold them accountable, now more than ever, when they are back in power in Congress where they did the damage in the first place.

To the Right; it's time to retool that slogan from the senior President Bush's failed second run at the presidency.  "It's the economy stupid.......and Social Security."

Fix it, don't break it even more tha it already is.