Social Security and its misfit sons-in-law Medicare and Medicaid have always been broke. They are by nature not what they’ve been purported to be – trust funds, or insurance policies, with monies set aside. No. *There have never been monies set aside.

LBJ Signing Medicare Bill, 1965

The “Government insures it” should be translated “the American people will pay for it. They’ll be good for it (note the future tense).” We’re referring to the American people in 2010-2080. But the public’s ability to pay 20, 40 years down the road doesn’t effect the next election cycle. So politicians talk of these plans as if they are created by geniuses who really care for you. Bernie Madoff may have been a genius of sorts as well. Greedy as sin though.

Like any good Ponzi scheme, and this one has been a doozy, it seems to make sense for awhile. Participants get their Social Security checks each month and it seems legitimate. Friends and family (i.e. fiscal conservatives) issue words of caution, but what do they really know? The money is coming in every month as promised for Grandma and Grandpa.

Oh, and there have been promises. As Mark Levin pointed out in Liberty and Tyranny, (Threshold Editions, 2009), Medicare has been seen as a political force to be used to gain and keep power. For one thing, it’s a little too confusing for most people to understand including Medicare’s “founder” LBJ, and politicians have been all too quick to take advantage ever since FDR saddled us with Social Security.

On March 23, 1965 the breakthrough finally comes. In a phone call at 4:54 in the afternoon Cohen joins (Wilbur) Mills, Speaker of the House John McCormack, and House Majority Leader Carl Albert, in a conference call to Johnson. They inform him that Medicare has just passed out of the Ways and Means Committee by a vote of 17 to 8. In this remarkable conversation, Cohen informs the President, apparently for the first time, just what he has agreed to in the President’s name. This is the moment that Lyndon Johnson realizes that Medicare is destined to pass, and he learns for the first time just what his Medicare program will and will not include.

Mills: We wound up and I got instructions, we’ll introduce the bill at noon tomorrow and will report it at 12:15. . . . I think we’ve got you something that we won’t only run on in ‘66 but we’ll run on from here after. http://www.larrydewitt.net/Essays/MedicareDaddy.htm

“In 2007 trustees estimated that Medicare’s unfunded obligation is more than $36 trillion.” (Liberty and Tyranny, p. 104)

Well, why don’t we just withdraw the money from that secret trust fund we have, eh? There’s no stinkin’ trust fund! American people, the land of the gullible, have been lied to repeatedly so that politicians can get re-elected. What party has championed the Medicare and Social Security cause? From the get go and repeatedly? Democrats.

Does saying this make me the enemy of Democrats? Or lacking compassion for poor people and the elderly? Far from it. What party cares more for you, the one that lies to you repeatedly in order to get re-elected and ends up spending us all into oblivion? (The party of spend.) Or the “party of no,” that keeps trying to raise the caution flag?  Poor people, elderly, and minorities would be far better served by a country that was fiscally healthy. Smart, sound, stable economic practices are good for everyone! All of you. But Democrats have to sell its constituents on the lie that they care so much, which is why they force taxpayers to pay for a health care system that puts us so far in debt that we can’t even afford to pay for the interest. Democrats want to get re-elected and have determined that Medicare and Social Security is their re-election gold mine, that you can’t fight against. If the government goes broke (circa 2009) we’ll just borrow more money, or print more.

I hope that all voters will pause for a moment, and stop letting powermongers push their buttons. Are healthy companies evil? Sounds plausible when Obama is trying to get elected, but now that he is President, and he has demoralized many businesses into utter failure, the concept of a “healthy company” is sounding far better even to liberals, because we can’t ALL work for the government.

What I’d watch out for is the move to blame Bush for this crisis. These Federal programs have been created by, and championed by Democrats since the Great Depression, and Obama has rushed to pick up where “the great FDR” left off, saddling future generations with massive obligations. Guess what? WE are FDR’s future generations. And Truman, and LBJ. Now we can learn first hand what conservatives mean when they warn against spending the money of future generations. We’re feeling it now! But we’re just getting warmed up (think cap and trade, and the enviro-market, the next ruse intended to keep Democrats in power for another 40 years.)

Hat tip Mark Levin. His book Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto
is worth it, just to read chapter 7, The Welfare State. It’s a well researched book. I recommend it.

Other references:
“Suddenly”, Social Security Is In Trouble

Status of the Social Security and Medicare Programs

Recession cuts into Social Security and Medicare finances

*The trust funds — which exist in paper form in a filing cabinet in Parkersburg, W.Va. — are bonds that are backed by the government’s “full faith and credit” but not by any actual assets. That money has been spent over the years to fund other parts of government. To redeem the trust fund bonds, the government would have to borrow in public debt markets or raise taxes. – Boston Herald