March 17, 2004
Where’s My Money Bubba?
After all of the talk about class warfare in relation to the recent round of tax cuts I find out that the government has stolen my tax dollars collected for use in Social Security. That money was collected over most of my working life. The money that was taken from my salary in 1983 as a young consultant is missing. The money collected when I had young babies and was still struggling with college in between working sixty hours a week is also missing. So is the money that the government took from my salary when I had some success as the CEO of my own business.
Alan Greenspan just last week told us that we have to reign in our expectations for Social Security retirement. The same guy, Alan, also told us in 1983 that if we paid our Social Security Trust Fund taxes in advance the system would be there when we retired to ease our way.
Of course in between those times, Alan, always the voice of the wealthiest Americans, has often warned us about overspending and our government deficits, hasn’t he? Why sure he has, except when the Presidents that he worked for told him to shut up and soldier on. For instance when the recent spate of Bush Tax cuts were passed with his tacit approval the “independent” Chairman of the Federal Reserve caved in to the will of the President and supported them.
The book about Paul O Neil’s tenure as Secretary of the Treasury, “The Price of Loyalty” makes it clear that the price of loyalty to the Bush Tax cuts, in this case, was the future of our Social Security Trust Fund. It is clear that Paul O Neil and Alan Greenspan knew what was necessary to save Social Security. It is also clear that, despite protestations to the contrary by O Neil quoted in that book neither man had any personal investment in saving that fund for the millions of citizens who depend on it every year. Their career’s as sycophants of the rich and powerful were their main concern. Not the good of the taxpayers of the nation at all, not for a minute. Why should I be surprised?
If you think I am angry at the cynicism of the Bush Administration toward working class citizens of this nation you are right. I have a working class background and I believe in the values of the working class in our nation. Family, God and Country above all others are our values. I have lived my life by those beliefs and served in the military as has my daughter. I worked on volunteer committees to help make government better able to solve the problems of my community. I worked endless hours as a young man to build a financial foundation for my family and raised my daughters and stepson to love the same things that I have about our nation. I made a place for myself in the business community and helped to develop a number of small businesses as my knowledge grew. I am still working to make my family secure at sixty. I will do fine if I never receive a nickel of Social Security because I intend to die with my boots on, kicking jerks like Bush out of office when I can. But oh how the lies flow from those who serve their own personal interests first in this nation; and not the nation’s interests at all. Oh how the lies flow from the rich down to the workers and the poor who cannot find jobs in the richest nation in the world. That is the reality of trickle down theory, lies and treacle trickle down but the money only rises.
How can I say I love this nation and still be that cynical about our leaders and their devotion to the wealthiest class of citizens? There is a long history of men and women who think like me in this nation. There have always been men and women here who think that the interests of the wealthiest citizens often diverge from the interests of the rest of the nation. We are men and women who know that when classes diverge the nation sometimes serves the interests of the wealthy first. This is a capacity for recognizing what is actually happening over the illusions that are spun for our consumption.
We all need a capacity to recognize the sweetest of lies for what it is; a lie plain and simple. That capacity has been honed by life and refined by experience. I know that the two trillion dollar tax cut granted by Bush to the wealthiest people in our nation took away the excess money we all paid into the Social Security trust fund during my lifetime. It transferred a large amount of wealth from the poorest workers in our nation to the wealthiest citizens of our nation. It broke the promises of Alan Greenspan and others to uphold the interests of the nation when they took office. People trust Alan Greenspan, who supported tax cuts for the wealthy at the expense of the workers. He and Bush are now betraying the people by telling the poorest of retirees that they must sacrifice their Social Security. for the benefit of the wealthiest ones.
In order to reverse that two trillion dollar transfer we will have to work very hard during this election to get some of us who had our money stolen to recognize what is happening to them. The lies of the Bush Administration are exceptionally effective in dividing the middle class from the lower class. All protestations about class warfare to the contrary, the real war between economic classes in this nation is carried out by Alan Greenspan and Karl Rove and Karen Hughes. The Karl Roves and Karen Hughes who serve their masters so well are exceptionally skilled at pitting the members of all classes against one another. They do that by using false issues like a threat against marriage by the gay people of this nation.
Pay attention America, the war on your future that you should most fear is not being waged by Osama and his cohorts. It is being waged by public relations experts like Rove and Hughes who continuously and convincingly distract you from what is happening to your future and your children’s prospects for a good life. Gays are not a threat to our American values of Family, God and Country; they are begging to be allowed to embrace them. Terrorists are real and scary but we must not allow our future to be destroyed by misuse of their very real threat to eliminate our civil rights in this nation.
Wake up America and smell the sweat of the workers and how they spent hundreds of millions of hours working to amass the two trillion dollars that was stolen from them. Wake up America and don’t deny your homosexual sons and daughters the right to live lives of respect for, and involvement in, our communities and our nation. Wake up America and relegate the scam artists who are more concerned about a woman’s breast appearing on TV than all of the lives destroyed by wars fought over oil and other sources of wealth to the dustbins of history. Wake up to the greatness of the real American Revolution that freed all of us to build a great nation together. It is in the honesty of the people who go to work every day regardless of how their life is going otherwise that our nation is strong. It is in the faith of every citizen that God will provide, if we work a little harder, that our nation has become great. It is in the shared wealth of the rich who feed the poor and build libraries and schools to bring children up in knowledge of the dignity of man and woman that this nation has become wealthy.
It is not in the greed of those wealthy few who would have you believe that greed is good. They want that so that they may be admired not shunned as they deserve. It is in the common interests of all classes in the future of every citizen that we have become the greatest nation on earth. It is in the greatness of spirit of the rich and poor alike in this nation that we have flourished.
The thing that I most dislike about Bush is that he never says a thing that has not been calculated to make his image work to keep people who support him happy. No hard truths are ever uttered by him. No calls to something above greed for his wealthy compatriots come from his leadership. No force that can drive this nation to greatness emanates from his White House. No faith in the decency of a Christ who was the Prince of Peace not the god of war is in his posturing on aircraft carriers. Where’s the beef in that burger contaminated with Mad Cow Disease that we are all being fed by those in power today?
We need to all understand, rich and poor and middle class alike; that we all stand together in this nation. We must all sacrifice and work together to attain a better world or we shall all hang separately as betrayers of the greatest revolution in human history. I will give up my Social Security if everyone who can work longer and make enough money to keep their family afloat without it will join me. I will gladly do that for those who worked with me in my early years and those who worked for me in my later years. I will pay more taxes from my future income if it will keep those people fed and sheltered through their final years. I am not advocating Class Warfare but an end to it by those of us who have won some of the money. Now in all of our hands, the choice to strengthen our nation, or not, resides. God bless you all and keep you all safe in the future regardless of class or gender or your good fortune in life.
Posted by Henri Reynard at March 17, 2004 02:25 PMHenri. You sure do cover a lot here!
I do have one quick question: Is JFK closer to your ideals or are you supporting “anybody but Bush?” I think that’s the debate my friends on the left are having and I’m courious as to where you stand.
George,
I liked a lot about JFK including his drive to make us all work together toward common goals. He became President in a nation vibrant with ideals and full of hope. We have all grown older since he was elected in a tight contested race with Richard Nixon. I worked on his campaign even though I was too young to vote in 1960. I was in the army in basic training when he died and wept with a lot of other young men when we got the news. I am more inspired by the good works of our rich and poor people in our nation today than I am by any leader past or present. I believe as I always have that we, the people are responsible for everything our leaders do on our behalf the good and the bad alike.
I will vote for John Kerry instead of Ralph Nader for President. I admire Nader’s life work more than Kerry’s. I think they have both tried to work for what they perceived as the good of the nation. We do need to remove Bush from office as he is one of the most venal and corrupt men I have ever seen in political office much less as our President. It is not quite an ABB stance but I would take a lot of convincing to vote for Bush against a steer with mad cow disease. Thanks for responding.
Henri
Thanks Henri. I’m sorry for my reference to JFK, I was in fact refering to John F. Kerry and not Kennedy. I too actually liked many things of the Kennedy Administration.
While I do not hold the same views as you, I certainly respect your passion.
Posted by: George at March 17, 2004 07:23 PMon social security, you could blame bush or you could look at the bigger picture and recognize this is exaclty what happends when government gets control of your money. Had social security never been around you would have 12.5% more of your money to spend when you were struggling, and you could have invested the money yourself and would not have dependent upon the whims of our leaders to know if you will be able to retire well. If you want to help your fellow man, then you can pick the charity that you think does the best job of it- and do not “help” your fellow americans by forcing your niebhor to give into a terribly inefficient system of HIS hard earned money.
There does not need to be “class warfare” in our government, if government got out of the redistribution and paternalism business. There would be no warfare if everyone paid a flat tax, proportionate to what they made- no bought loops hopes in the tax code, inefficient, forced pyramid retirement schemes, just a free country, as it was concieved by our founders. You talk about what the American revolution was about- it was about creating a country where people were free to live and achieve as they wanted, not a mutual insurance system where the decisions of politicians decide how you can plan for your retirement or how you can spend your hard-earned money.
What you are missing from the big picture, George, is that this is not a Bush problem- this is a government problem. Politicians do not have the institutional incentives to look in the long term, they have incentive to win the next election. As long as you have a naive faith in these politicians who will manage the lives of your fellow americans better than they can themselves, you will always have these same problems. After all- why it that you do not trust the politicians with your civil liberties but you trust the SAME politicians with your economic liberties? its illogical.
Posted by: Misha Tseytlin at March 17, 2004 07:37 PMHenri, you certainly capture much of my sentiments and thoughts about politics over the decades.
And you are dead on with regard to this Administration’s actions to deficit Social Security and Medicare out of existence. How clever to slip a vote getting medicare bill through while lying about its cost to get the votes. Only to turn around after the election and say, “See, we can’t afford Medicare, we are bankrupt”. Of course a lot could have been included and removed to hold down the cost of the bill, but, that would have defeated the real purpose.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 17, 2004 08:08 PMDavid- i dont agree with you on the purpose of the medicare bill. I believe it was clearly to buy the old people vote in key states like Florida- that is why it was so key that the AARP was on board with it. It was not an ideological move to get rid of medicare (I wish), it was a counter-ideological move to win re-election. Many seem to understand that Rove is running the show at the whitehouse- but what you need to understand is Rove doesnt care about ideology, he cares about re-election. Which is why this presidency is just like the last one, just on the other side of center. sigh.
Posted by: Misha Tseytlin at March 17, 2004 08:32 PMMisha, no obligation to agree. But, the fact that conservatives are busting this nation’s bank and future generations paychecks with harsh taxes, has to be explained. There is a reason, and objective analysis reported this week and linked in my recent article stipulates that the recession is not it. So, what is the reason for all these Conservatives spending like drunken liberals? Just a fluke? Give it a break. Provide a rational reasonable explanation for Conservatives acting as they are with our future taxes (BTW, GAO, CBO, and a number of think tanks have already declared we are not going to be able to grow our way out of this debt), with our current budgets and pork, pork and more pork.
I provided a rational and logical reason consistent with conservative values and views on social programs. I invite you to counter with an explanation that is equally rational and consistent with conservative motives.
Nice to be debating you again.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 18, 2004 12:16 AMMy explanation is one of simple self-interest. This is exactly what latin american populist have done repeatedly to win elections. When you get into a close election, you pass as many bills as possible to pay off as many voter groups as possible to win re-election.
This is actually what did Agentina in and was the biggest factor in their crisis. Menem dicided to change the constitution and run for another term against the wishes of his party, and he started giving out lots of goodies and spending like a drunken sailor to win re-election, contrary to what he did the rest of his time in power.
Now obviously the same thing wont happen in america because we have a perfect credit rating and wont default on our debts in the foreseeable future- but the principle is still the same. If bush cuts taxes on everyone AND increases spending, the theory is that he will have made everyone happy so they will vote for him come election time, and the bill will come down after the election is over. The Bush administration is not guided by ideologues whose biggest goal is to take down these social programs (I wich), its guided (At least in the domestic sphere) by cynical practical politicians like Karl Rove, who couldnt care less about anything but another term for bush.
Posted by: Misha Tseytlin at March 18, 2004 12:54 AMCheers, Henri. I reject so many of your characterizations of Bush here (and think they could be applied equally to most politicians, Democrats like Kerry included—i.e. “taking positions calculated only to help his image”).
But I admire your verve, sincerety, good will and good nature (not to mention prose-style). I think we could all be reminded of the fact that Democrat or Republican, we all desperately hope to live in a society where hard work, honesty and care for ones fellow man are our guiding principles. We may disagree about which party and specific policies will best get us there in the long one, but it’s nice to know that despite our disagreements we share fundamental values. Keep it up.
Posted by: Martin at March 18, 2004 12:58 AMCheers Misha:
I certainly do not think this is a Bush problem and think you might have mistook my comments to Henri.
Henri:
May I suggest a book to you written by a family friend:
It speaks a great deal of men looking for significance in their lives verses success, and ties in religious and social issues. It is a short read and well worth the price.
You see I too am looking for ways to become more compassionate and less driven by my own personal success, just as I feel you are. The only difference is that I do not look towards the government as the outlet for this compassion. While you wish that you could give more to government to help those who need it and to protect later generations, I wish I could give less so that I could better support my church and the community based programs that I am involved in. A different approach to many of the same goals, and that is why I do respect your passion.
