Hard work, sacrifice, and the freedom to rise

     I had to endure listening to a “liberal” coworker endlessly lament the shrinking of America’s middle class because the rich were too rich. I finally had to intervene and correct his ill-conceived thoughts. I began by discussing America’s last wave of immigrants circa the 1900’s. We both agreed that they were incredibly hard working. Our grandparents were incredibly hardworking and frugal. Their parents even more so which continues with each previous generation. Hard work, sacrifice, and the freedom to rise created the middle class and hard work, sacrifice, and the freedom to rise created this nation, its wealth and power. What is destroying the middle class, I explained, is not the rich creating too much of the pie. Rather, it is an ever growing percentage of the population creating too little of the pie. 

     They are becoming ever more dependent on entitlements, hooked on government-provided services, and have to work less and less and less because our nation’s massive and growing safety nets now provide a cradle to grave decent living. A large percentage of our population expects a materialistically high standard of living yet doesn’t want to do the backbreaking labor, rigorous studies, penny pinching, or sacrifice earlier generations had to do to acquire it. We are succumbing to the warm feel-good of socialism and because of this an ever growing percentage of the population no longer saves for their children’s education, their own retirement or retirement healthcare, they no longer have to worry about where the food on their table comes from, who’ll pay their utility bills, or even the roof over their head. The audaciously aloof attitudes within our massive and exponentially growing low income neighborhoods is all the proof you’ll need to see that this is, in fact, a very real phenomenon. 

     As the horsepower of our nation’s workforce dwindles and they become more entitled, our nation will decline, government spending will continue to rise, and we will continue to veer wildly off our founding path by over-burdening and over taxing our shrinking pool productive workers, violating their Constitutional right to equal protection under the law and their right to own and keep their own property. As this phenomenon continues to spread unabated, we face a mortal threat when the unproductive dependents produce socialist electoral landslides who’ll use their unchecked power to turn the page of our nation’s history into something rotten. Much to my surprise, my “liberal” coworker agreed.

 CB

@WashingtonDC It's the ---ENTITLEMENT SPENDING---

@WashingtonDC It's the ---ENTITLEMENT SPENDING--- That is what this is all about. Any other explanation out of you signals dishonesty, ideologically-driven blindness, and/or ignorance. Entitlement spending is eclipsing ALL tax revenues RIGHT NOW. That's why we are borrowing so much (you can easily research this yourself with your own government's data). Entitlement spending keeps exponentially exploding upwards as our society ages and collects their Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and soon Obamacare. Our entitlement recipients paid a tiny fraction in taxes compared to what they'll receive. They are getting a free lunch. Entitlement spending keeps going up and up and up and up so high that NO AMOUNT of taxes on ANYBODY can ever pay for it. There is not even enough productive capacity within the entire United States to pay for it. The unfunded entitlement liability owed is ***$211 Trillion***. You cannot pay out that much free money forever. We will run out of money no matter what we do and we are simply seeing seeing the beginning of that right now. Just like Greece. A nation living on the free lunch will eventually fiscally collapse. Borrowing another 2 or 3 trillion (!!!) just to get through the next 1.5 yrs (!!!) is simply delaying the inevitable and making the future even more painful. We are condemning our future generations to MISERY. Say it out loud 1,000 times: It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING. It's the ENTITLEMENT SPENDING.....X 37.037037037037037037037

CB

A Happy Letter From CB

Scott,

     Did you know that to maintain our current spending trajectory and to keep our entitlements as they are the middle to upper middle class would have to pay 60-85% income tax rates (source: IMF). That the entitlement programs which the democrats created during the New Deal and the Great Society (which have expanded ever since their creation) have a ***$211 trillion*** unfunded liability!!! 

     Did you know we could eliminate ALL discretionary spending right now and we would still need to borrow. We could eliminate the ENTIRE military and we would still need to borrow. In about 20 years we could eliminate both -the ENTIRE military and ALL discretionary- that is to say the ENTIRE federal government and we still couldn't pay the entitlements? 

     That we could confiscate all income, assets, savings, property -everything- of all people making over $100,000 per year and we STILL couldn't pay the entitlements? We still couldn't pay the HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of people deemed by our federal government to be entitled to millions of dollars of free lifetime benefits? And if we did such a confiscation it would be ***ONE TIME ONLY*** and the economy would completely collapse into something like North Korea or Cuba with almost zero economic activity replete with mass famine and repression?

     Then the far-left fundamentalist extremists would finally have satisfied their radical obsession of single party iron fisted rule (to save life on this planet as we know it, of course) and we all skip off into the sunset holding hands singing kum baye ya with no one person having a single penny more than the other. Except for the socialist vanguard overseeing and managing the utopia right here on earth, of course.

 

CB