Now is the time, better than ever, for the American people
to awaken to the inauspicious reality their country holds, despite the great
trepidation it may cause for many people. Now is the time, better than ever, to repudiate the two-party system, because both have evidently
allowed the American people to fall through the cracks. Why should the American
people continue hanging onto every word coming from the mouths of both Romney
and Obama when neither of them on their campaign trails, in their public
advertisements, or during their debates this year have uttered a word about the onerous
tax increases that will be imposed upon 160 million American workers in January
2013? Many reports say these tax burdens are set to increase indubitably with
no potential way of avoidance available regardless of who wins the presidency
in November. Any American with an annual salary of $50,000 will see their
monthly paychecks be reduced by $80. According to the Tax Policy Center most
Americans will experience a tax increase of up to $3,500. The report can be
read from the Huffingtonpost here. > http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/01/payroll-tax-cut-2013_n_1929638.html
Other reports say
that middle-income earners making $40,000 to $60,000 annually will see a tax
increase of about $2,000, having the average federal tax rate, including all
taxes, increase 5 percentage points up to 24.3% total. In a lame-duck session scheduled
to take place after the November presidential election, Congressmen will debate
about automatic spending cuts and tax increases. According to Bloomberg.com, if
Congressmen do not reach a consensus by the end of the year, the top rate on
capital gains taxes will increase from 15% to 23.8%. Also, the top statutory
tax rate on ordinary income will increase from 35% to 39.6% and taxes on dividends
and estates will increase with the alternative minimum tax diffusing to 21.7
million households, up from 4 million this year.
Nearly 88% of the nation’s households will experience tax
increases. Those who will be unaffected are the people without wage income subject
to the payroll tax and an income too exiguous to pay taxes in general. This group is the
low-income senior citizens depending on Social Security. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-01/u-s-households-face-tax-increase-from-2013-fiscal-cliff.html
The payroll tax cut was putting an extra $1,000 in the
pockets of Americans. In the beginning the public was told that extending the
Bush-era tax cuts would help to galvanize the economy, but American citizens have
not seen enough robust activity nor does any research agency on economics and
finance have any data to account for there being any veritable and reliable
economic restoration to support us in weathering the storm that is about to come.
Americans have been and are still suffering despite the Congressional Budget
Office’s report earlier this month saying the unemployment rate has decreased
from 8.1% to 7.8% and Gross Domestic Product has grown by 1.9%. Obama on
February 14th 2010 said, “Allowing this tax cut to expire would make people’s
lives harder right now. It would make their choices more difficult.” During
2010 Obama bestirred public support and pressured Congress to lengthen the
payroll tax cut through 2012. While Democrats and Republicans wrangled about
the tax cuts through 2011 and 2012, Obama accredited himself for supporting the
tax cut, making it appear as though he won quite a feat for the American people
to amass support from his audiences. Since the end of the beginning of 2012,
Obama has not at all expostulated with the Congressmen who are leaning towards voting for the
expiration of the payroll tax cuts nor has he given any explanations as to what should be
done with the provision at the end of 2012.
Economists have argued in favor of extending the payroll tax
cuts indicating that the expiration of these tax cuts would bring Americans
closer to the edge of the fiscal cliff. With all tax breaks, the money must
come from somewhere, and when it comes to the payroll tax cut it comes from
Social Security. To compensate for the loss in tax revenue flowing into the
Social Security’s trust fund this year, the government has borrowed from the
general fund. This is where the central problem exists. In their
divergent opinions on the issue, Republicans and Democrats both equally express reluctance for supporting further payroll
tax cut extensions, articulating that such a thing could jeopardize the Social
Security trust fund. In the words of Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky,
some Democrats are uneasy about extending the payroll tax cut because of it
being dedicated to the Social Security trust fund as a “kind of ATM machine”. The politicians are not so much worried about
Social Security beneficiaries continuing to receive their benefits,
but in fact are instead more worried about being able to further raid the trust
fund as they have historically done.
The Real Issue is the Raid on the Social Security Trust Fund
Why are the politicians so concerned about Social Security
being jeopardized when the trust fund already is not successfully surviving
with the number of retirees and senior citizens in America increasing while the
number of people in the work force contributing to the trust fund is decreasing?
Social Security cannot be successfully surviving when the surplus money going
into the trust fund, made from Social Security receipts exceeding the amount
needed to pay out benefits, is prodigally expended by the federal government in the miscellaneous ways the government so un-conscientiously chooses, usually on things utterly
unrelated to the Social Security program. Some of
the money transfers from the contributors’ pockets directly to Social Security
recipients while other money immediately is used for federal government expenditures. The money is not earmarked for individuals
or even for general retirement payments and is not productively invested and accumulating interest, ergo it is not truly sitting there waiting to be
reimbursed to the Social Security contributors upon their retirement.
To conceal its foray on the trust fund, the government deposits special-issue nonmarketable Treasury bonds labeling them as assets and having them counterfeit as the precise
amount of money the government took.
These assets are dubious since they are special-issue bonds
unable to be sold on the open market. To see the bigger picture and the
ulterior graveness of this fraudulence, it must be seen this way: If
the trust fund ever becomes emptied, devoid of any bonds, and the Social
Security administration has a deficit with tax receipts coming up, say
hypothetically, $63 billion short of the amount needed to disburse the benefits
to the beneficiaries. The federal government must fill in the holes by either
raising taxes by $63 billion, cutting federal spending by $63 billion, or
borrowing $63 billion and deepening the national debt. The American taxpayers, either
way, suffer in having to pay for the shortfall, and this scenario (excluding the hypothetical number) is what we are experiencing now. In another scenario, when Social Security falls short, say hypothetically
again, $63 billion, but the trust fund has $63 billion in bonds the federal
government deposited, the bonds would suffice to compensate for the deficiency. But this time, after the Social Security Administration cashes in the bonds and the
government must pay them, the government will pay them through either raising taxes by $63 billion, cutting
spending by $63 billion, or borrowing $63 billion and, again, deepening the
national debt again. The bonds, the trust fund, or the "big pot" all Americans
have been told to envisage the Social Security trust fund as, are, as far as the American people should be
concerned, a fictitious invention. Neither the bonds or the trust fund should even nominally exist.
The bonds will need to be redeemed in the trust fund when
the receipts are inadequate to compensate for the benefits owed to
recipients. General Hugh Johnson, who had once headed Franklin Delano
Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration, deprecatorily characterized it as “a paper IOU” saying, “When the time comes to pay,
there won’t be any more value there than if the workers had paid nothing in taxes
all over these years.” Instead of a
trust fund containing money waiting to be taken once the beneficiary reaches retirement,
the people are receiving something other than what they are told: A system of
taxation feigned as an insurance program with people precariously entitled to premiums and
benefits wherein its true underlying cause and inner workings are deliberately
made abstruse in every aspect so no one will ever be able to figure out how the American people are being defrauded.
Source of information: 33 Questions About American History
You’re Not Supposed to Ask-Question #13 pg. 111-112
