Chicago pm Sunday 5 June 2011
The Wall Street Journal OpEd “The Republican Who Can Win”
of Friday 3 June has Dorothy Rabinowitz opening with “The candidate would know Americans
are more worried about their jobs and their savings than abstractions like 'big government.'”
Big government an abstraction? In the Wall Street Journal? From the pen of Dorothy Rabinowitz?!?
The Journal on Monday 14 June 2010 had an OpEd by Gerald P. O'Driscoll Jr., former vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and vice president at Citigroup, “The Gulf Spill,
the Financial Crisis and Government Failure” opening with “The Gulf oil spill and the global financial crisis both demonstrate the failings of big government.”
Ms. Rabinowitz continues: “From the Republican side comes an incessant barrage of... proclamations that the nation is imperiled by the greatest crisis in a generation...” from “spending on social programs” with a “clamor for boldness—for massive cuts in entitlements....”
No one is proposing taking away SocialSecurity or Medicare from those already receiving them, because there is no need for that. All these people are at least 65 years old, and in 40 years they will all be gone, God rest their souls. What must be done is stop adding people to the taking side of these programs.
And that's completely legal according to the SCOTUS Fleming vs Nestor decision of 1961: “The noncontractual interest of an employee covered by the [Social Security] Act cannot be soundly analogized to that of the holder of an annuity, whose right to benefits are based on his contractual premium payments. To engraft upon the Social Security System a concept of 'accrued property rights' would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustment to ever-changing conditions which it demands and which Congress probably had in mind when it expressly reserved the right to alter, amend or repeal any provision of the Act."
Further, Ms. Rabinowitz refers to “voters of mature age” who have “spent their working lives paying into Social Security....” No wage earner has ever sent in a nickel to Social Security. The actual $ that went to the feds came from the employer bank account, never wage earners'. If the feds don't get the check, the employer goes to jail, never the wage earner.
It has been a tax on employers from the start. Since all employers must pay the tax, there is no competitive advantage for any employer to do any more than add it to the price of their product, thus converting the 'Social Security tax' to a silent, painless national sales tax. In 2009 this tax was 36% of total federal income.
Arnold H Nelson
5056 North Marine Drive Chicago 60640
773-677-3010 ah_nelson@yahoo.com
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