Ahh, the classics. Here's another classic comedy bit from that era(emphasis added by me):
Mary Mornin: Okay, I'm a divorced, single mother with three grown, adult children. I have one child, Robbie, who is mentally challenged, and I have two daughters.
President George W. Bush: Fantastic. First of all, you've got the hardest job in America, being a single mom...You don't have to worry.
Mornin: That's good, because I work three jobs and I feel like I contribute.
Bush: You work three jobs?
Mornin: Three jobs, yes.
Bush: Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that. (Applause.) Get any sleep? (Laughter.)
Mornin: Not much. Not much.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Social Security has been a prime target of the class warriors for decades, and their ceaseless onslaught of false propaganda against America's greatest and most successful social benefit program is starting to pay off. I frequently hear younger people worrying that Social Security won't be there when they retire. It is a fear based mostly on lies. The system will always be funded because Social Security benefits for retirees are paid for by the payroll taxes of those currently working.
These are the only ways Social Security won't be there when our young people retire:
a)The U.S. Government ceases to exist in its current form
b)Top-down class warriors succeed in "reforming" the program out of existence.
c)People stop making babies a la "Children of Men"
The retirement of baby-boomers does present a challenge to the system, and that is why the Social Security Trust Fund was established. This is a collection of U.S. Treasury securities that the class warriors like to dismiss as nothing but "worthless IOUs" and "money we owe ourselves". If one is to believe that the Trust Fund is worthless, as the class warriors claim, one must also believe that every Treasury bond held by a U.S. taxpayer is also worthless.
It is more accurate to say that the Trust Fund is money owed by rich Americans to working class Americans. Why is this so? The money that makes up the Trust Fund is collected through payroll taxes. The payroll tax is a regressive tax, meaning it is slanted toward lower income workers. The income tax, on the other hand, is a progressive tax. The higher your income, the more income tax you supposedly pay. At the same time the government was increasing payroll taxes to create the trust fund, it was lowering income taxes, primarily for the wealthy. These cuts to the income tax, enacted over the last 30 years, are the primary reason for our massive national debt. Americans are now paying the lowest taxes they have since 1950. The reason wealthy class warriors like the Koch Brothers would like to pretend the Trust Fund does not exist is that they know they owe you that money, and they just don't want to pay it back.
The primary way class warriors are now attacking Social Security is to lump it in with Medicare and Medicaid as an all-encompassing "entitlement crisis". Here is a video of The Nation's Chris Hayes ably debunking that nonsense:
Unlike Social Security, which should remain financially sound for at least the next twenty years, Medicare and Medicaid do have huge funding problems due entirely to the outrageous price of health care in America. Any "deficit hawk" who is not working for a major overhaul of our dysfunctional health care "system" is either not serious about reducing deficits, or they simply don't care if sick and elderly people suffer.
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