Factcheck - on Tax Cut, Social Security and the General Fund.

[freshwest]

13. I understand the fear of changing the assets from 'SS' to the General Fund.

We've seen the way corporates have fiddled with their input to the tax base, and stolen from the taxpayers with their own form of welfare. At the same time, human needs, under GOP rule, offer 'grants' that are temporary, one-time solutions to long-term issues.

I think this is the main fear of trusting the General Fund, and the other part, sadly enough, is economic class. Some people get a lot more out of SS programs which are not means tested, and don't want to be lumped in with the ones they consider lower or less hard working.

The GOP take everyone's tax funds out of the General Fund while they dismantle the safety net and entire systems state by state. And they've made no bones about getting rid of all things they term socialist, such as *ding ding* Social Security. Hey, the private sector has done such a great job on private pensioning, huh?

The media is the GOP's tool, generating support or opposition to government programs that were the mainstay of many people's survival when the private sector finds no profit there. Once the people are out of the public eye and into private schemes, they are dismissed, and many do not survive when the profits are taken out.

What we need to do is to reframe the argument about what the General Fund and General Welfare means in this country. I know Europeans who tell me, yes, they pay higher taxes into their General Fund. But they consider themselves to all be citizens, have made the commitments required to be citizens, and don't worry about getting their fair share in return. At least, in those countries who haven't surrendered to the GOP, 'everything must be private' meme.

People holding on the Social Security 'lockbox' theory have reasons to fear the lessening of payroll taxes within the compartments of the system as it was set up. I support that system, and all the New Deal programs. But, things are being re-defined now. After decades of wingnut propaganda, they are struggling to make the arguments for progressive government.

During this same period of time, the GOP has been pillaging of the US Treasury and 'starving the beast.' What a laugh, they are the BEAST.

We've got to get to the basics, like OWS says.

Time to end the construct of 'I paid in this much, thus I should get this much' while the next door neighbor lives in terror from month to month because their SS payment is so much lower. Time to end the arguments of 'welfare queens, maybe they're not really disabled and immigrants and minorities are stealing my SS.'

Time to go back to the General Welfare clause and realize why Thomas Paine wrote Agrarian Justice. The same thing he wrote, enshrined in the SS website, remains true today. And it's way past time to recognize that if you are alive, you deserve the means to LIVE and a place to EXIST.

Interesting times we live in, much wailing and gnashing of teeth now, and even more to come.