Entitlements

Of all the entitlements, Social Security is the important one for now.  Grandmas are housing their families and paying for it with their paid-off house and their Social Security checks.

 

Granted, Social Security is a Ponzie scheme and needs to be privatized, but for current retirees, it is critical to preserve it. No other entitlements are as necessary as this.

 

Younger citizens should be given a path to escape it and the federal government will need to use the general fund to pay for the wind-down as payers diminish and receivers increase.

 

Entitlement “unfunded liabilities” are quoted to be $124 trillion.  The Social Security part of this expense should be easier to project and should be widely published, but it’s not.

I estimate that about 10% pay in and die before they are age 60. Another 25% die in their 60s.  Another 50% die in their 70s. The last 15% live past age 80. I suspect that over half of recipients don’t receive what they put in and only 10% receive more than they put in. Social Security waste includes those paid after they died and identity fraud.

 

We put in $500,000 and would have had $1,500,000 if we had been able to invest it in Vanguard 500 Index and TIAA.

We support the elimination of the Death Tax to benefit family businesses. Social Security payments are not invested and do not have “earnings”. 

 

Younger folks should be allowed to have their social security balances transferred to their own self-directed accounts with no limits to invest their retirement contributions.

 

Projections of the future costs of other entitlements are overblown, just like the cost estimates that got these unconstitutional monstrosities passed were idiotically low.

 

Healthcare, housing, food and education are not Constitutional Rights.  They were all handled by the private sector before government got involved and quadrupled the cost. 

 

All of these industries need to be returned to the private sector beginning now. The “social safety net” is primarily the responsibility of the family and the community in some cases, but not the State or federal government.

 

Healthcare is not a right.  Healthcare should be sent to the free market for repair, so I would begin to restrict spending on Medicare and Medicaid and Veterans and certainly repeal Obamacare.  Healthcare is essentially a rescue and repair industry.  It should be concentrated on that. Obamacare’s expansion of “preventive”, counseling and other “treatments” that are not “rescue and repair” should be coverage optional with insurance or paid for by the patient.  Healthcare is now doled out if it is paid for rather than because it is necessary.  Healthcare is a bottomless pit. Healthcare should be ruled by the price /demand curve

 

Hospitals are adjusting to “home care” with visiting nurses who come to the patients’ homes.

 

Housing is not a right. HUD should be closed and its enabling laws abolished and no State should try to mimic it. Cities and Counties should leave it to families and charities.

 

Free Food is not a right.  Food Stamps are the “soup kitchens” of this 2^nd Great Depression, but feeding the starving is the job of the family and the community.

 

Education is not a right. Eliminating government subsidized education could return us to higher literacy rates. It should be easier now with the internet, homeschooling, tutors and parent choice, focusing on the child’s interests. Trade and Craft Apprenticeships could be used again. Trade schools could be engineered to be more efficient and less expensive. The best education is self-education. Less time is wasted when you are looking up things you are interested in.

 

Higher Education needs to reduce costs or be replaced

by internet-based education.

 

States need to review their licensing requirement and remove unnecessary “bars to entry” and corruption and emphasize enabling cost reduction for a change.

 

Charity belongs at home.  Families are responsible for family members.  Beyond that, charities and neighbors and friends have helped and will help.  It is not the job of any elected official or legislature or city or county or state.

 

Churches have atrophied since the 1960s. They need to reinter education with affordable options and concentrate on feeding the poor within parish boundaries. They should enlist the families of the poor to help their own family members. Beyond that, they can sponsor shelters and addiction treatment AA groups wherever the homeless hang out. 

 

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader