Some words carry meanings far beyond the confines of dictionaries, words like democracy, freedom, liberty and others hold personal meanings that surpass their formal definitions. They symbolize the right to think, economic opportunity, assembly, choice of residency, minimum wage, privacy, free travel, to read whatever, to love whomever, to be one’s self, a free education, to worship as you please, control over your own body, to select your representation, a safe environment, clean water, retirement, affordable health care, safe from unjust confinement, and many other diverse personal privileges and desires.

In the current political landscape of the United States, there are forces that view these words and many of these personal meanings inconsistent with their governance objectives. If they gain control of governance, those forces may change or eliminate many of these esoteric concepts and the personal interpretation associated with them. It matters not whether you are a Republican, Democratic, or Independent, conservative or progressive, the loss may be immeasurable and yours personally. There is more to lose than an election. On November 5th, the course of future history will be written, with the outcome of governance and your own future in your hands.

VOTE AND CHOOSE CAREFULLY TO PROTECT THESE ESOTERIC WORDS AND THE PERSONAL CONCEPTS THEY SIGNIFY!

THE FUTURE BEGINS TODAY!

GIL EISNER 2/25/2024 DOLLARBILLBRIGADE.COM

The Plot to Kill Social Security, Medicare, and Other Social Contracts

Some six years ago I penned the following paper when I was a candidate for Congress (2018). With a few minor updates, I have revised the text to update the material to reflect the current political theater.

“ I would like to discuss what I believe to be important political issues and what is my take. In this paper, I believe that middle-class America is about to become the victim of the greatest robbery in history. It is only a matter of time until the [Republican] government will substantially change or eliminate social contract programs like Social Security, Medicare, 401K, etc.

Many of these programs we have invested in since earning our first dollar. For years, since the creation of these social contracts, it has been a wet dream of the Republican Party to eliminate these programs. There have been various proposed methods to achieve that objective, such as reducing the size of government (budget), privatization, net-zero budgeting, tax 401K contributions, and forcing the purchase of government debt, just to name a few. But, under a current scheme of “Tax Reform,” the Republicans have designed a program that will immediately require the cut of hundreds of billions of Medicare dollars under a sequestration clause of a previous budget bill. This “Tax Scheme” creates an “unanticipated” debt, a Republican government will have to change/reduce/eliminate social contract programs.
An analysis I did several years ago regarding the size of government resulted in rather obvious results. In that study, reducing government size by over 20% resulted in spending or deficit reductions in the order of magnitude of over a trillion dollars. This 20% type of reduction can only be achieved in one manner — that is, to reduce or cut one or more of three major budget lines: Defense, Social Security, and/or Medicare.
You have to ask why this objective is so important to the Republican Party. In my estimation, it is the anticipation of over 60 million Baby Boomers who will reach retirement age in the next decade, increasing the retired community to approximately 90 million. The unfunded liability of these programs will require a substantive increase in taxes and, since the taxable base will be decreased by those 60 million Boomer retirees, the burden of higher taxes will fall on the 10% of the wealthy and/or the remaining 90% of the population, or both.
When these programs were created, there was a large population base supporting those receiving the program’s benefits, much like a pyramid. What has been happening is that the pyramid has been inverted and there are fewer contributing to a larger group entitled to benefits. In addition, those receiving benefits are living longer. To amplify the problem, the Republicans desire to limit immigration, spend more on defense, engage in deporting guests and undocumented who pay into the system, and to reduce income and business taxes further to increase the deficit. Other ways to solve the problem of funding are to assure the earlier death of recipients, so they will not collect their benefits, or to increase the qualifying retirement age. Some possible measures which shorten life spans are denial of health care to those in need (unfund CHIP, Aid abandonment, cut Medicaid, eliminate SNAP, kill the EPA, permit high insurance costs and unaffordable life-saving drug costs, kill Obamacare, etc.). All of which are designed to affect the mortality tables, reducing longevity of a major portion of the population.
Everyone wants lower taxes and that became the public discussion, but the real purposes are to impact the social contract programs, pay back to businesses and contributors, and a couple of possible additional goodies. There may be a requirement that if you set up an IRA Retirement account, it must contain a percentage of U.S. sovereign debt. By doing this clever trick, you force the people to buy the debt created by the tax cut to fund the tax cuts…clever, huh?! Oh yes, just one more little possible benefit…if Social Security (SS) and/or Medicare are cut back or eliminated, the employer contribution of 6.2% for SS and 1.45% for Medicare is adjusted lower or even eliminated and that will go to the bottom profit line. Nice bonus for billionaires, owners, management and stockholders!”

LOOK UNDER THE ROCKS TO DISCOVER WHAT REALLY LIES BENEATH THE POLITICAL RHETORIC!

THE FUTURE BEGINS TODAY!!!

GIL EISNER DOLLARBILLBRIGADE.COM 2/21/2024