OT: "Not even Social Security was paid for with recipients' taxes"
Yep. Amazing how few people realize Social Security is actually just a giant Ponzi scheme. Super for the people who got in when worker to retiree ratio was 24:1. Acceptable even in 1950 when it had fallen to 16:1. Today it's 3:1 and falling, on its way to 2:1. Which is why Social Security "borrows" from general revenue to make ends meet. Granted, Medicare is nearly 8 times more dramatically upside down, but combined they ain't gonna last at the rate they're going now. Anyone who doubts that ought to spend some time with David Walker.
There's never been a bigger lie in American politics than the "lock box".
This is the disaster that ensues when government intertwines welfare programs with general services programs. Social Security is neither pure welfare for poor elderly who didn't save enough or never had enough to care for themselves in later years, and neither is it a mandatory retirement savings program.
This is the exact same phenomenon that doomed Fannie and Freddie. The liberals tried to use it as a welfare and subsidy program, while pretending it was a market functionary. It was a completely predictable ending.
And it will be the exact same ultimate ending for Social Security.
The horror of Fannie and Freddie is that Barney Frank and others like him are actually trying to leverage Fannie and Freddie even more heavily now to more fully convert them to clandestine welfare programs. He wants to take their carcasses and convert them to a massive welfare entitlement program to give everyone a home.
If he succeeds, screw it, we can all quit work and just have "the government" buy our homes for us.
I fear the next crisis in this country will be a social one driven by a war between the AARP and whatever organization gets formed to represent everyone aged 18 to 49. Won't happen for a while, but when it does, it's bound to be ugly.
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