Were You Asked If You Wanted In Or Out of Social Security?

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Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Audio and Transcript – Here’s what ought to be done: The program ought to be eliminated.  There ought to be a grandfather and date set that in 2042 this program will cease to exist, whatever the date may be.  Anyone currently on course, if you’re of retirement age and you paid in and haven’t made any alternative plans, here’s the cutoff date.  Say your birthday is on or before January 1st, 1960 or whatever the case may be, you can get some of what the benefit is that you were allegedly to collect because it was promised to you.  Anyone born after that date, you’re poop out of luck; you’re not getting anything.  You have to continue paying into it until such time so we can fund the Ponzi scheme which now will not be a Ponzi scheme.  We’re going to then end the program. Check out the rest in today’s transcript…

 

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  My buddy Mish Shedlock has this headline: “Social Security Trends: Beneficiaries, Total Costs, Number of Workers, Ratio of Workers to Beneficiaries.”  We’re told that the trust fund is solid.  Social Security doesn’t go belly up until 2189, or whatever it is that they lie about.  That is not the case.  As I’ve been reporting to you for over three years now, Social Security is already broke.  It’s already upside down.  Cybercast News Service, CNS, has this report:

[reading]

The Social Security program ran a $47.8 billion deficit in fiscal 2012 as the program brought in $725.429 billion in cash and paid $773.247 for benefits and overhead expenses, according to official data published by Social Security Administration.

The Social Security Administration also released new data revealing that the number of workers collective disability benefits hit a record 8,827,795 in December—up from 8,805,353 in November.

[end reading]

Mike:  In other words, more people are unemployed, claiming disability, which is a function of SSI, more people are claiming Social Security benefits.  Social Security Administration bureaucracy continues to expand.  The Ponzi scheme is up.  It’s over.  They’re broke.  They don’t have the money.  The money does not exist to cover the current payments.  This is a very serious problem here.  What are we doing?  We’re having vainglorious meetings with Joe Biden and company talking about gun safety.  The prudent thing to do — I’m always accused of, [mocking] “You always bitch about these things.  You never propose solutions.”

Let me give you the solution.  The prudent thing to do and the prudent thing that people of young Eric’s age ought to be demanding, and I will demand on behalf of my teenage daughters and son, is that a grand deal and bargain should be struck in the federal legislature.  Of course it’s not, but I’m just telling you what ought to happen.  I hold out no hope that this is going to happen.  Again, this is yet another reason why the only way to stop this is to stop participating in it.  That means withdrawing as a state in the compact known as the Union.  Stop giving it the force of your recognition.  By your remaining, you make it valid.

Here’s what ought to be done: The program ought to be eliminated.  There ought to be a grandfather and date set that in 2042 this program will cease to exist, whatever the date may be.  Anyone currently on course, if you’re of retirement age and you paid in and haven’t made any alternative plans, here’s the cutoff date.  Say your birthday is on or before January 1st, 1960 or whatever the case may be, you can get some of what the benefit is that you were allegedly to collect because it was promised to you.  Anyone born after that date, you’re poop out of luck; you’re not getting anything.  You have to continue paying into it until such time so we can fund the Ponzi scheme which now will not be a Ponzi scheme.  We’re going to then end the program.  No one is going to be compelled to be in it.  Basically you’re going to be paying a tax.  You say: Here’s my fee to get out of it.

That’s not a perfect solution, but it’s probably one that has a chance of being politically viable.  Ladies and gentlemen, anything short of that is just plain suicidal and stupid.  It is evident, and it ought to be evident to any reasoned, logical, intelligent observer, that this scheme was never going to work in the long run because it can’t.  It always promises to pay more than it takes in.  Imagine that that’s a business.  You can’t run a business long term like that.  You can’t run a government that’s providing a service long term like that either.  We find ourselves at the crossroads.  What to do about it?  The only thing you can do about it, as I said, is to end it.

I don’t think with young people it’s a difficult proposition at all.  Do you and your friends think you’re ever going to get this?  No one asked you whether or not you wanted to contribute to Social Security when you took your job at Sirius XM or wherever you took it did they?  I ask Andrew Gruss this all the time.  Did you ever fill the form out where they asked you whether or not you wanted in or out of Social Security?  Were you ever presented with that form?

Eric:  I was not.

Mike:  When I was your age, I wasn’t either.  The game is up.  It’s over.  [mocking] “Mike, we’ve got to preserve the Union, God and country.”  Then this is one of the things that’s going to kill the Union of States.  Certainly continuing Social Security is the action of a desperate, reckless, irresponsible people.  You get these politicians, [mocking] “We’ve got to continue Social Security.  We have to provide for the children’s future.”  For 70 years, we’ve been pretending as though we can’t provide for people’s future by forcing them to put something on the side.  We now know that the evil, designing, corrupt men are not able to actually keep that money on the side, in the so-called trust fund, and that the political class is always going to spend it, and they have spent it and the money is gone.  Why would you want to continue that?  This is as corrupt a scheme as anything Bernie Madoff ever dreamed up.  The only difference is that this has the sanction of what is supposed to be our legitimate government, even though this was never a legitimate function of the government.

Remember, Social Security, in order to survive constitutional challenges in 1938, had to be presented as a tax, not as a welfare program or benefit program.  Everyone knew it was a tax, yet it’s still promoted as some sort of “It’s such great things to this person and that person.  It provides this and that.”  No, it doesn’t.  If anything, because of the percent of confiscation, which is almost 15 percent of the workers’ wages, you are depriving them of funds that if they knew there was no Social Security and they knew someday they’d like to have some money to eat and live and have a heater turned on in their old age, that responsible people would have stuff on the side for themselves.

By the way, please don’t send me your silly hate mail with, [mocking] “Mike, the Social Security tax is on 7.875 percent.  You don’t know what you’re talking about.  The employer pays the other half.  The employer pays it, you idiot.”  Actually, sir, the employer does not pay it.  The employer remits it to the state.  He’s not paying a nickel of it.  He or she had every intention of paying that money to you.  That money was deducted from the funds that were available to be used to compensate you.  That’s your money that he’s paying them.  There’s no other way to look at this.  You people in business, you know this.  The scheme of Social Security continues on.  Why, oh why, does it?  I cannot fathom.

End Mike Church Show Transcript