I know I’m going to regret this story, but here goes anyway. First let me say that I am a capitalist. My belief is that the harder and smarter you work, the more you should be paid, generally speaking. I also believe that if you’ve lost your job due to no fault of your own and you’ve paid into unemployment insurance, then you’re entitled to appropriate unemployment benefits. (In the same way if you’ve paid into Social Security and Medicare and you meet the requirements, you’re entitled to those benefits.) Naturally there are exceptions to any belief system. An example, hard working scam artists, especially the ones who call you from the IRS but have yet to garner command of the English language. Contrary to a new belief that’s becoming popular, Fraud is not an acceptable pillar of capitalism or the American way.
Side Note: I seriously believe that anyone about to collect Unemployment, Social Security, or Medicare should be required to listen to an hour long Fraud Alert seminar from AARP. Just like wearing seat belts is mandatory, in desperate times, we need to protect the most vulnerable people in our communities.
One of the valid concerns that one of our political parties has been touting is, “We’ve been spending like drunken sailors. We need to cut back.” A volatile area they seem to be chomping at the bit to steal from are the financial wells that fund Social Security and Medicare. The same wells that many experts are saying will have completely evaporated in the not too distant future. If I were a Doubting Thomas, I’d say that these folks are desperate to find additional funding to allow for a larger tax break for the wealthy. But that’s just crazy talk. I don’t have any facts to back up this thought and unfortunately when I do, it’ll be too late. But this is a delicate operation for said party. God forbid they wake up the sleeping political giant otherwise known as the Baby Boomers. Instead, in the vein of “there’s more than one way to skin a…” they’ve decided to slowly, for now, defund necessary workers to run the social security administration. So as much as you may qualify for benefits, you’ll never be able to get them because the remedial AI system in place is years away from a first grade education. (P.S. the people I have recently spoken to from the Social Security and Medicare teams are very pleasant individuals. You just need to practice your transcendental meditation as you wait to speak with someone. On one occasion I opted to use the automated callback feature. I missed their first callback. During the next call I almost broke a leg diving over a couch trying to get to my cell phone. You become paranoid that, Crap, if I miss this call...pfst, there goes my medical coverage.)
And now the tricky one, the IRS. One of our political parties wants to defund the IRS as a way to balance the budget and potentially save the American taxpayers money. What a noble sentiment. Who couldn’t get behind that? Well, depending on who you talk to, every dollar invested into IRS people and infrastructure yields three to five dollars in return. Call me crazy, but I think we might have found a way out of our massive deficit situation. The IRS says they need the funding to ensure they can perform audits across a wide spectrum of our population. It seems that high value tax returns are rather complex and require more time and resources. So without the additional funding, the IRS will have to concentrate on the middle class. That’s just great…for the 1%ers. Again, I’m being negative, one of our political parties would never do such a thing, right?
I do agree that being fiscally prudent is very important. But when does it become dangerously counter productive? For example, what if banks decided that vaults and security guards just cost too much. Having them in place is really hurting the bottom line – they need to be removed. Or the companies that make our mobile devices and home computers; what if they decided that security features cost too much to support - unfortunately they need teams of people to create code and stay ahead of the NoGoodNicks…no more. And if towns and cities decided that traffic lights and streetlights inhale too much expensive electricity - We’re going to turn them all off and give back to the town folk…the ones that are still alive. Police and Firemen, hmm? But on a more constructive front, we could save a ton if we cut back on the number of congressional lawmakers we currently support. (We do pay their salaries and enhanced benefit packages – no Social Security of Medicare for them.) Montana is the 4th largest state in the union. They have two congressmen supporting that massive state. Texas on the other hand, is the 2nd largest state. They have 38 congressmen. I’ll be generous, we’ll let Texas have four congressmen. That’s right to the bottom line savings of 34 lawmakers who really haven’t been doing anything useful for years.
I await my call from either the IRS or the President’s subcommittee on go-forward budgeting.
