What Big Government’s all About

In a recent scare tactic made towards Social Security recipients, the President made the statement that if our country’s debt ceiling is not raised per his request by August 2^nd that he cannot guarantee that Social Security checks will be sent. The obvious point of this statement was to obtain support for his position of raising the debt ceiling in return for some unspecified number of budget cuts (and therefore may be assumed to be no budget cuts) from those who receive these checks. Besides the President’s statement’s goal he provided evidence for criticism of both the Social Security program and big government “entitlements” as a whole.

Since its inception, Social Security has been sold to the public as a savings account created on behalf of and collected for and from citizens apparently too stupid to save for themselves for the purposes of old age. Every future recipient is given a statement each year detailing what they have paid in and based on what was paid in, what they should expect to receive in terms of “benefits” depending on receiving benefits starting at different ages. Interestingly enough, these “benefits” are not directly tied to what was paid into the program and if the recipient does not live to either see them or only collects a limited amount before leaving the living, they are not entitled to a full accounting based on what was paid in. And in fact, there is no bank or deposit account for these funds. They are pooled and used to pay current beneficiaries with anything left over used to purchase government bonds that are used to spend on other government programs based on the promise to be paid back by some future government revenues, with interest. Despite this being common knowledge, political advocates of Social Security have peddled the myth for many years of a Social Security “lock box”, the idea that Social Security funds are in effect saved, in government bonds. The President’s statement mentioning his personal guarantee demolishes the myth from two points. First, if there really was a “lock box”, if these government bonds were as good as any deposit account the checks would be guaranteed because the money would be there. Second, as an advocate of the Social Security program as designed the President’s acknowledgment of reality cannot be demonized as readily as opponents who are decried when they point out the fact that Social Security is no better than a mulit-generational ponzi scheme.

Basically government “entitlements”, the idea of taking money from some in the form of taxation and giving it to others directly, become unsustainable because demand for something ostensively costing nothing (as advertised by democrat politicians) will always grow much faster than supply. Another danger is that when government becomes the sole source of income for someone, that person is wholly dependent on that government for their very existence. Because of this situation, that person is very likely to support that government and any of that government’s proposals for fear of losing any of what that government deems they shall receive. The President’s statement makes clear that he isn’t above threatening those dependent on Social Security payments. Allowing the debt limit to not increase doesn’t mean that the government has no money, just that it cannot borrow anymore. Because this government spends much more than it can collect in taxes, decisions have to be made. Because prioritization of payments is made by the executive branch and because there is no real Social Security fund, the President can indeed make the threat to coerce recipients into supporting his expansion of government.

This only works because government has made too many citizens dependent on it and because for some reason there are some still willing to lend to our government. One day, there won’t be any more lenders but there will still be too many people dependent on government. Threats won’t work then but this President’s plan is to no longer be around when that day comes. And that’s leadership as defined by democrat community organizers.