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The (Tea) Party of ME!
Author: velveeta jones    Date: 12/12/2010 15:35:03

Soooo, the Tea Party want to take away my Social Security? Why, I haven't even been able to tap into it yet and I've been paying into it since my first job at 16. Sure, admittedly, there were a few years that I did not pay in, but still.....

I don't really know much about this socialist program, so I went to America's leading source of information, Fox News. There, I put "social security" into my Fox News search and found some sound advice from one of the fine business advisers over at Fox News Business (tag line: The Power to Prosper).

The question was posed by a true American Patriot Fox watcher who wants to weasel out of, er, I mean, provide for his family, by not paying into social security. Contributor Dave Ramesy has a perfectly moral answer:

If I were a pastor, I could easily look at the horrible mathematics involved in Social Security--what an absolute rip-off and terrible program it is--and decide as a Christian that sending money to those clowns in Washington, D.C. is a terrible use of God’s money. To use the Christian term, I would view it as bad stewardship. I could conscientiously object on a spiritual basis in a heartbeat!

Now, once you’ve done this, you need to understand that you’re giving up three things Social Security tries to accomplish. You’re giving up a Social Security check when you retire. It’s not much, it’s enough to eat dog food on, but it’s a check. So, you have to make sure you fund your own retirement.

Second, you need to get long-term disability insurance. Social Security would provide a little something had you been paying in, but if you haven’t, it’s all up to you. You don’t get money from the government for long-term disability if you opt out. And the third thing you need is life insurance. Social Security would pay your family a little bit if you died, but only if you’d been paying into the program. If you opt out and don’t have life insurance in place, that means the money is gone when you’re gone.

But guess what? You should be doing these three things whether you opt out or not. It’s called wise financial planning!


Leaving aside the "Gods money" verbal disaster, I would like to remind Mr. Ramsey that there is another answer that is Christian and thereby moral - helping people that have much less than you. You know, that pesky part in the Bible where Jesus says we should sell our possessions and help the poor, blah, blah, receive treasures in Heaven, etc. Also, that camel/needle thingy that says its easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. (Though I do hear that Halliburton has acquired a needle enlargement contract). But, Mr. Ramsey does not want to focus on that old stuff.

Instead, Mr. Ramsey has answered this question much like I answered essay questions on tests in college: find 3 things - anything - and string them together into 2 or 3 short, concise paragraphs and hand in paper. Whew! Good job! I hope they pay you well over at News Corps. The fact that he missed the most glaring answer - giving a helping hand to others who might need it - is just typical of us mediocre students.

But I suspect that it's the "social" aspect that upsets him. He is not alone. Larry "Check My Pulse, Quick" King had a show about ObamaCare (tm FoxNews) in March of this year and this conversation occurred between Larry and his two guests, Dana Loesch, a tea party organizer from Missouri, and another tea party organizer, Wayne Allyn Root. Here is part of the conversation:


Loesch: For the first time ever in American history, just to exist in this country, you have to purchase a product now. You have to purchase insurance. And they can try and make it go through the IRS --


King: No, no. Wait a minute. We had to pay Social Security. That's a socialist concept. Republicans voted against it --

Loesch: -- Oh I agree. It's bankrupt.

King: Would anyone turn away Social Security now? Would you do away with it?

Loesch: I would, yeah. Absolutely.

King: Would you do away with it, Wayne? Would you do away with Social Security?

Root: Well, I'd certainly like to. At best, I'd do away with it because I can find a better way to spend and save my own $15,000.


How Christian of him/her! Yes, I too can find a better way to save and spend $15,000 - wait, I don't pay nearly that much in taxes. Why, I could buy that motorcycle I've been eyeballing or I could splurge on a little nip and tuck, or I could have install a spa in my tiny yard! Hmmm, the thought of helping someone who's barely scraping by on Disability and living on Meals on Wheels didn't come up first?

This is why we pay it out to a third party to manage it. If all of us kept our taxes, we'd all have big honkin' 4x4 trucks painted orange and green with large tires on them and our ATV's strapped in the bed. It's a good thing too, because none of us would be contributing to the highway systems, right?


 

1 comments (Latest Comment: 12/12/2010 19:16:08 by livingonli)
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