I am an American beyond the age of 65 and when I look back on the avenues that were open to me in my earning years, I have some regrets.  I worked in the private sector, paid taxes, and had little beyond what I earned to invest.  I served in the military and spent a year in Vietnam in 1967 and had little to show for it other than love for my country.  I received Jesus as my personal savior and acknowledged the call to preach and began my Christian journey in the late ‘60s and was unaware of some avenues open to me. 

What avenues?  Regarding Social Security as a minister, I could have opted out of the program but was unaware of that option until it was too late.  Would I have invested, or could I have invested as I needed had I done that?  I can only speculate but had I invested one-third of what I paid into Social Security I would be far better off than I am now.  On one hand, I justified my paying Social Security Taxes so that my parents and others like them could continue to receive their meager checks each month.  It was literally all they had to live on and was barely sustainable.  But, they, with occasional help from their children, survived and for that I am grateful.

Social Security is a poorly managed Socialism Program that many of us paid into without any real options.  We do not consider it an “entitlement” as the other so-called entitlements of the federal government.  However, it is something that we are ‘entitled’ to because we paid for it with our hard-earned money.  We earned it!  We paid for it with our lives because time and money are the results of the investment of our lives.  We are offended when someone lumps Social Security into the same basket as Welfare, Food Stamps, and the many other federal programs that are identified as ‘entitlements.’  WE PAID!

I recognize and acknowledge that Social Security is a Socialism Program and a means by which the government and politicians can manipulate the masses of seniors.  That disturbs me.  The mismanagement and ineptitude of our federal government in investing our ‘contributions’ into the program is criminal.  Even a low-skilled investor could have produced a far better result than our supreme federal government has accomplished.  The theft of the funds from that program by politicians has virtually destroyed the program and some in the future will find that what they contributed has been confiscated, wasted, and they are left abandoned.  That is tragic!  No, it is criminal!

I read an article recently that insisted that it is a myth to say that the government raided the Social Security Trust Fund.  The writer’s argument was based on the assertion that there never was any money stashed away in a ‘trust fund’ for politicians to pilfer.  However, to fully ascribe to his argument it would take some incredible mental gymnastics to not see the mismanagement and abuse by the Treasury over the years. 

The Social Security Program, throughout its history, has taken in more revenue than it spent.  Many are unaware that the excess revenue is given by the Social Security Administration to the Treasury, year after year, to ‘meet its current spending and meet other budgetary obligations, even though those funds were specifically ‘earmarked for Social Security.’  That is nothing short of legalized theft and although there may not have been a specific trust fund, the funds were there, and the government spent them for purposes other than their intended purpose.  That is, in my view, Criminal.

The monies that the federal government through the Treasury spent that was earmarked Social Security is not drawing interest as some assert. It has been spent.  How does the Treasury pay the ‘so-called interest’ on the Social Security Funds it spends?  In 2017, the SSA revealed that benefits were financed by $873 Billion in payroll taxes and $85 Billion in ‘interest’ paid by the Treasury.  But the Treasury concluded 2017 with a $666 billion budget deficit. 

So how did the Treasury pay the interest?  The federal government lawfully, not ethically, uses all its revenue sources to pay all its liabilities. They are supposed to do that even if that revenue was designated and promised to another purpose or before taking on new debt.  Neither of those comes into play for the politicians and they play fast and loose with our Social Security funds. 

Those funds were promised to us and were supposedly kept secure. So much for the government telling the truth and not pilfering from us.  In short, there can be no repayment of principal when there are no funds and the government has spent the funds.  Simply, it is fictional math that they use to repay what they have taken or borrowed from the Social Security Program.  That spells doom and disaster for the program.

The Country Group, The Tractors has a song that says, “We may not be broke, but we are badly bent.”  Some argue that Social Security is not going bankrupt it is simply running out of funds.  That sounds a wee-bit deceptive and my view is that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, it is most likely a duck and Social Security are being bankrupted by the politicians who steal our money to buy more votes in other areas.

Congress has no concern about the failing Social Security Program because they have lucrative Congressional Pensions and healthcare to rely on.  Social Security ‘benefits’ are an earned right that those of us who have paid into realize and want protected.  The problem we face is not whether some politician will fix the program but how they will destroy it. 

The Criteria for eligibility for any government benefit (Social Security included) could change on the whims of politicians at any moment.  I am 100% convinced that the pathway the political elite will use to ‘fix’ Social Security is through changes in eligibility and phase people out of the program due to the lack of funds.  Funds that are lacking because they have mismanaged or stolen them.  That is criminal!

There is the projection that only 76% of the current benefits will be available to retirees in 2035.  That may not be ‘bankruptcy’ in the strictest definition, but it will be devastating.  We need to move to a program where younger people can invest in their own retirement rather than trusting the political system to manage it for them.  History reveals how inept the government is in virtually everything, why would money and retirement be different?

I am pro term-limits for Congress just as there is for the President.  I am very pro-tax cuts because it is good for the economy and the Republic.  I am pro-Free Market Capitalism and opposed to Socialism.  In short, I am conservative, a constitutionalist, a Christian, a patriot, and one willing to fight for Faith, Family, and Freedom with my all.

God bless you and let’s keep America Free and stop the Leftists in 2020.