Entitlement Society? Nah....
Cowboys and the Tea Party political movement have a lot on common. Both believe in individual responsibility; judging a man by his actions not words; and, both are disgusted with government intrusions into our lives and particularly our God given rights.
Showing posts with label entitlement society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label entitlement society. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
President wants More Power
Found the topic for this post from an article on Yahoo!
The Department of Commerce will celebrate its 109th anniversary this year, having been created in 1903. And if President Obama gets his way , the agency won't make it much past 110. Announcing last week that he is seeking authority to streamline the executive branch, President Obama said he needs the same kind of "authority that every business owner has to make sure that his or her company keeps pace with the times. And let me be clear: I will only use this authority for reforms that result in more efficiency, better service, and a leaner government." Never mind what the Constitution says.
As an example, the president wants to shut down the Department of Commerce, taking its core functions and giving them to a new agency that will also fold in the tasks of the Small Business Administration, the U.S. Trade Representative, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Trade and Development Agency and the Export-Import Bank.
The President said of his grab for additional powers: "This is a big idea."
"We live in a 21st century economy, but we've still got a government organized for the 20th century," President Obama said this morning. "Our economy has fundamentally changed - as has the world - but the government has not. The needs of our citizens have fundamentally changed but their government has not. Instead, it has often grown more complex."
The Department of Commerce will celebrate its 109th anniversary this year, having been created in 1903. And if President Obama gets his way , the agency won't make it much past 110. Announcing last week that he is seeking authority to streamline the executive branch, President Obama said he needs the same kind of "authority that every business owner has to make sure that his or her company keeps pace with the times. And let me be clear: I will only use this authority for reforms that result in more efficiency, better service, and a leaner government." Never mind what the Constitution says.
As an example, the president wants to shut down the Department of Commerce, taking its core functions and giving them to a new agency that will also fold in the tasks of the Small Business Administration, the U.S. Trade Representative, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Trade and Development Agency and the Export-Import Bank.
The problem is that Obama is not shrinking government, he is consolidating power. We drastically need a much smaller government and for that government wort work within the enumerated powers outlined in the Constitution rather than what a group of elite politicans think this country should look like.
This is the same President who recently said that he will go around Congress and did so when he unconstitutionally declared Congress in recess then made four political appointments.
The President said of his grab for additional powers: "This is a big idea."
Big Idea? Nope. Big departure from the constitution and big step for the administration to control more power? Yes, absolutely.
"We live in a 21st century economy, but we've still got a government organized for the 20th century," President Obama said this morning. "Our economy has fundamentally changed - as has the world - but the government has not. The needs of our citizens have fundamentally changed but their government has not. Instead, it has often grown more complex."
Economy fundamentally changed? Yes as a matter of fact. From production and manufacturing to services and an entitlement society.
The American people are going to be seeing alot more of this from President Obama as he recognizing his has to make a big departure, a radical azimuth change from the past years in order to get elected again. But all the clues are there. The way he thinks he can make presidential declarations and executive orders to take this country towards an European look alike My God, this is the president that gave us,..what?,....30+ Czars?? The greatest expansion of government in history. The first credit downgrade in history,.....and lets not forget about the biggest federal debt in history!
Friday, August 26, 2011
Social Security Disability Near Insolvent
From an Associated Press article by Stephen Ohlemacher, 21 August 2011.
Laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are flooding Social Security's disability program with benefit claims, pushing the financially strapped system toward the brink of insolvency. Applications are up nearly 50 percent over a decade ago as people with disabilities lose their jobs and can't find new ones in an economy that has shed nearly 7 million jobs.
The stampede for benefits is adding to a growing backlog of applicants — many wait two years or more before their cases are resolved — and worsening the financial problems of a program that's been running in the red for years.
New congressional estimates say the trust fund that supports Social Security disability will run out of money by 2017, leaving the program unable to pay full benefits, unless Congress acts. About two decades later, Social Security's much larger retirement fund is projected to run dry as well.
Much of the focus in Washington has been on fixing Social Security's retirement system. Proposals range from raising the retirement age to means-testing benefits for wealthy retirees. But the disability system is in much worse shape and its problems defy easy solutions.
The trustees who oversee Social Security are urging Congress to shore up the disability system by reallocating money from the retirement program, just as lawmakers did in 1994. That would provide only short-term relief at the expense of weakening the retirement program.
Claims for disability benefits typically increase in a bad economy because many disabled people get laid off and can't find a new job. This year, about 3.3 million people are expected to apply for federal disability benefits. That's 700,000 more than in 2008 and 1 million more than a decade ago.
"It's primarily economic desperation," Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said in an interview. "People on the margins who get bad news in terms of a layoff and have no other place to go and they take a shot at disability,"
The disability program is also being hit by an aging population — disability rates rise as people get older — as well as a system that encourages people to apply for more generous disability benefits rather than waiting until they qualify for retirement.
Retirees can get full Social Security benefits at age 66, a threshold gradually rising to 67. Early retirees can get reduced benefits at 62. However, if you qualify for disability, you can get full benefits, based on your work history, even before 62.
Also, people who qualify for Social Security disability automatically get Medicare after two years, even if they are younger than 65, the age when other retirees qualify for the government-run health insurance program.
Congress tried to rein in the disability program in the late 1970s by making it tougher to qualify. The number of people receiving benefits declined for a few years, even during a recession in the early 1980s. Congress, however, reversed course and loosened the criteria, and the rolls were growing again by 1984.
Cowboy's comment: We are going to "Entitle" ourselves into bankruptcy. Obama and the Democrats want to give another Social Security payroll tax deduction to seem like they support the middle class, making the Republicans look like tax hikers, when in fact the problem is that the current government spends too much and brings in too little by emplaces too much big government regulation to include high taxes on business. We'll either learn and correct this or wither into a economically despondent country like Greece.
Laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are flooding Social Security's disability program with benefit claims, pushing the financially strapped system toward the brink of insolvency. Applications are up nearly 50 percent over a decade ago as people with disabilities lose their jobs and can't find new ones in an economy that has shed nearly 7 million jobs.
The stampede for benefits is adding to a growing backlog of applicants — many wait two years or more before their cases are resolved — and worsening the financial problems of a program that's been running in the red for years.
New congressional estimates say the trust fund that supports Social Security disability will run out of money by 2017, leaving the program unable to pay full benefits, unless Congress acts. About two decades later, Social Security's much larger retirement fund is projected to run dry as well.
Much of the focus in Washington has been on fixing Social Security's retirement system. Proposals range from raising the retirement age to means-testing benefits for wealthy retirees. But the disability system is in much worse shape and its problems defy easy solutions.
The trustees who oversee Social Security are urging Congress to shore up the disability system by reallocating money from the retirement program, just as lawmakers did in 1994. That would provide only short-term relief at the expense of weakening the retirement program.
Claims for disability benefits typically increase in a bad economy because many disabled people get laid off and can't find a new job. This year, about 3.3 million people are expected to apply for federal disability benefits. That's 700,000 more than in 2008 and 1 million more than a decade ago.
"It's primarily economic desperation," Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said in an interview. "People on the margins who get bad news in terms of a layoff and have no other place to go and they take a shot at disability,"
The disability program is also being hit by an aging population — disability rates rise as people get older — as well as a system that encourages people to apply for more generous disability benefits rather than waiting until they qualify for retirement.
Retirees can get full Social Security benefits at age 66, a threshold gradually rising to 67. Early retirees can get reduced benefits at 62. However, if you qualify for disability, you can get full benefits, based on your work history, even before 62.
Also, people who qualify for Social Security disability automatically get Medicare after two years, even if they are younger than 65, the age when other retirees qualify for the government-run health insurance program.
Congress tried to rein in the disability program in the late 1970s by making it tougher to qualify. The number of people receiving benefits declined for a few years, even during a recession in the early 1980s. Congress, however, reversed course and loosened the criteria, and the rolls were growing again by 1984.
Cowboy's comment: We are going to "Entitle" ourselves into bankruptcy. Obama and the Democrats want to give another Social Security payroll tax deduction to seem like they support the middle class, making the Republicans look like tax hikers, when in fact the problem is that the current government spends too much and brings in too little by emplaces too much big government regulation to include high taxes on business. We'll either learn and correct this or wither into a economically despondent country like Greece.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
What we have learned in 2,056 years
controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest
Rome becomes bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living
on public assistance."
- Cicero, 55 BC
So, apparently nothing.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Put Me in Charge! - One Texan's Editorial Letter
The following letter to the editor was sent to me having been published in the Waco Tribune Herald, Waco, Texas, on 18 November 2010. Still interesting and applicable today.
Put me in charge
Put me in charge of food stamps. I'd get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho's, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza, then get a job.
Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I'd do is to get women Norplant birth control implants or tubal ligations. Then, we'll test recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine and document all tattoos and piercings. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, smoke or get tats and piercings, then get a job.
Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks? You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your "home" will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your own place.
In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or you will report to a "government" job. It may be cleaning the roadways of trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We will sell your 22 inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo and speakers and put that money toward the “common good.”
Before you write that I've violated someone's rights, realize that all of the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules. Before you say that this would be "demeaning" and ruin their "self esteem", consider that it wasn't that long ago that taking someone else's money for doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem.
If we are expected to pay for other people's mistakes we should at least attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current system rewards them for continuing to make bad choices.
AND While you are on Government subsistence, you no longer can VOTE! Yes that is correct. For you to vote would be a conflict of interest. You will voluntarily remove yourself from voting while you are receiving a Gov’t welfare check. If you want to vote, then get a job.
Put me in charge
Put me in charge of food stamps. I'd get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho's, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza, then get a job.
Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I'd do is to get women Norplant birth control implants or tubal ligations. Then, we'll test recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine and document all tattoos and piercings. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, smoke or get tats and piercings, then get a job.
Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks? You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your "home" will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your own place.
In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or you will report to a "government" job. It may be cleaning the roadways of trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We will sell your 22 inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo and speakers and put that money toward the “common good.”
Before you write that I've violated someone's rights, realize that all of the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules. Before you say that this would be "demeaning" and ruin their "self esteem", consider that it wasn't that long ago that taking someone else's money for doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem.
If we are expected to pay for other people's mistakes we should at least attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current system rewards them for continuing to make bad choices.
AND While you are on Government subsistence, you no longer can VOTE! Yes that is correct. For you to vote would be a conflict of interest. You will voluntarily remove yourself from voting while you are receiving a Gov’t welfare check. If you want to vote, then get a job.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)