I am not going to rant and rave
about a Congress that can’t even show up for work on a daily basis. I will not
rant and rave about the hundreds of billions of dollars we pay for these “no
show” jobs through our tax donations. I will not rant and rave about a
Citizenry that refuses to hold their elected Official’s feet to the fire when
it comes to honoring contracts.
I will, instead, rant and rave
about the fact that our Federal Government will be in serious breach of
contract, if anything small, or large, is cut from these two programs. Beside
the fact that there will shortly be a slew of additional folks on the Social
Security and Medicare “rolls”, there is the flip side of that equation. There
will be vastly more potential job opportunities opening up as hundreds of
thousands of “baby boomers” come to the end of their careers, and slide into
retirement.
The mechanisms designed to aid our
Senior Citizens through their remaining years are Social Security and Medicare.
These two Programs are run by the Federal Government, but they are in no way
paid for by the Federal Government. How can this be, you may ask? This can
be solely for the reason that these two Programs are legal contracts between
the working Public and the Federal Government. These Contracts are identical to
the Contract you might encounter when signing up for Life Insurance. The deal
is that you pay a certain amount of money over a certain amount of time into a
fund that in turn promises to pay you a certain amount of money at a certain,
predetermined time. This is assistance in connection with your expendable
income, once you have hit that predetermined point in time (retirement age).
How does all this relate to our
Nation’s Treasury and our current financial situation? In a nut shell, it doesn’t
relate to our fiscal crisis one bit. Are there some much needed reforms for
each of these two Programs? Yes, most definitely there are reforms that can and
should be implemented, and very soon. I don’t think too many people can
effectively argue against either of these questions. The question that is
arguable is that of how the Federal Government treats these two Funds. Are they
going to honor their Contract with the American People, or will they continue
to be in breach of said Contracts? That’s correct. They are currently in breach
of both contracts. Social Security has been “borrowed” against in past years to
shore up other, not so well funded, Programs, and Medicare has been grossly
mismanaged and defrauded.
Where does leave the U.S. Citizen transitioning
from the working days into their retirement days? It leaves that sector of our
Society in a very precarious position. Luckily the money is still there in
sufficient amount to fulfill the Contracts. However, if any looting occurs to
either one of the Programs, the American Public has every right to file a Civil
Law suit against the Federal Government on a myriad of grounds.
Two of those “grounds”, as
mentioned, would be “BREACH OF CONTRACT” and “MISMANAGEMENT
OF FUNDS” (fraud) (embezzlement), etc. The scary part of this situation
is that we are upon it right now, and no one seems to be going to bat for the common,
working folk of this Country. And, in a sense, why should anyone stick his/her
neck out for us? We don’t seem to be able to do that for ourselves, now, do we?
If this Problem goes unaddressed too much longer, there are going to be some Senior
Citizens with very short fuses. That, my friends, could get ugly.
Hutch Dubosque is a retired Manufacturing Engineer who has
taken up writing Socio-Political commentary using social media. He has a B.A.
in Journalism and an AAS in Energy Technology, and is a current member of the
Academy of Political Science, among other pertinent organizations. Mr. Dubosque
is also the Vice President of the PTSD Alumni Association of Northport, NY,
Inc.( a non-profit organization assisting Veterans).
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