Memories, Social Security and Socialism

Memories, Social Security and Socialism

As I have said on more than one occasion, I have a memory that reaches far, far back.  In fact, I can remember falling into the fireplace after tripping over my father’s foot because I was off balance after having gone to the doctor to have my hands bandaged from reaching out to the gas-fire box on the bottom of someone’s hot water heater and burning the palms of my hands pretty badly, and my mother having hysterics over the whole thing.  I was only 11 months old.  Yeah, that did happen.

But I also remember the family arguments in the 1930’s about how this new proposal by FDR (that rabid socialist) called Social Security to provide a safety net for “old” people who could no longer work, and had no family to help them out was going to destroy the soul of the people, make them dependent on government, blah, blah, blah.  I remember because parts of the argument were that this program would destroy the rest of the economy, the government would collapse, and we would all become Communists.  This was pretty scary for a little kid, so when none of this happened, needless to say I was quite relieved, but I also began to question some of my family’s more adamant pronouncements.

As an adult when Medicare was passed, I heard the same statements that this program was going to destroy the soul of the country, make people dependent on government, blah, blah, blah.  This time I was not particularly frightened, since as far as I knew after Social Security passed, the economy had not been destroyed, the government had not collapsed and we were not all Communists.  In fact, in the 1960’s, we were the greatest nation in the world. 

Needless to say, my past experiences have made me particularly skeptical about some of the more radical and extreme statements coming from the radical right about now being a nation of “takers and makers”.  I will admit that changing the language from all becoming Communists has been fairly refreshing.  Because I have this history, however, when I listen to even the pundits on MSNBC, I get fairly frantic because they seldom mention relevant facts regarding Medicare and Social Security in response to the radical rights’ assertion that these two “entitlement” programs are destroying the economy, are going to cause the government to collapse, and we will all become Socialists.  To be upfront, I receive both Social Security and Medicare.  In my opinion, these are not “entitlement” programs from the government, because I paid into them with my taxes, and I believe that if there is any entitlement connected to them, I am entitled to get my taxes back! 

Regarding Medicare, there was a tremendous amount of fraud connected with the program, but it was more from the provider side rather than the recipients defrauding the government.  Consequently, the Obama administration has cut some $650 B dollars in fraud out of Medicare, which has helped tremendously to cut our federal deficit in half in just the last 5 years.  With other changes in how it is operated, Medicare is now running quite smoothly.  And the government is running this program quite efficiently.

Social Security should not even be mentioned in the same breath as Medicare and the federal deficit because it has absolutely nothing to do with the deficit.  It has its own funding source provided by future recipients.  These funds go into the Social Security Trust Fund, which is overseen by a Board of Trustees.  The amount of the taxes going into the fund was 6.2% of income, but several years ago a cap on the top wage earners was placed at $113,700.00.  People earning over that amount were no longer required to pay into Social Security.  One of the reasons for this, and probably the most important in our present political climate, was that it amounted to taking hard earned money away from high wage earners to provide for those who earned less.  In other words, taking from the “makers” to help the “takers” out.  If this tax cap were eliminated, the problem with the Social Security Trust Fund being depleted would certainly be significantly helped out.

During the Reagan years I remember reading or hearing someone comment that in the middle class savings accounts was all of this money that the more affluent had no access to.  That needed to be changed.  For the past 30 years, the Radical Right has been trying to do just that.  And then toss in the Radical Religious Right stating categorically that this is what God wants so that people do not rely on government but rather on God, and you have an evil brew in the making. 

And why, pray tell, is it OK for the wealthy to take wealth from the middle and poor classes, but if we down here toward the bottom want some of it back, it is SOCIALISM!!!!