Diane Rufino Responds to her Liberal Detractors | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: With apologies to Diane Rufino, I have modified her response (to better fit within the context of a universal one) to some fairly severe critics of her commentary, Grandma is okay with the Tea Party.

    How nice it is for some people to declare that other people should continue to pay more and more in taxes to support a reckless and corrupt government. Why should people pay more when the government already turns a blind eye to those who haven't paid at all - such as a large number of members of the current administration, including the Czars. And why was Al Sharpton, a huge tax cheat, given a "sweetheart" deal so that he wasn't required to pay the federal income tax burden he was supposed to?

    It's the mindset of people like that which caused the Tea Party to form in the first place. Maybe you should go back and listen to Rick Santelli's rant. Social Security should be protected from the government's reaches for those individuals who have paid into the system. It should be privatized because it is the people's money. It is property that people have earned and dutifully (forcibly) paid into the program during the course of their employment. It is money that has been squirreled away by the government to give back at the age of retirement, but which otherwise could have been taken home to be used for that person's home and family. With respect to such contributors, it is not an entitlement program. It's a property right. For those who haven't contributed, it is an entitlement. The plundering of Social Security is not the problem.. it's the symptom. The problem is the mindset of the government and the unwillingness to operate within the limits of Article I of the U.S. Constitution. Go back and read Roman history. The mightiest empire of the ancient world crumbled because of a corrupt government which became oppressive with respect to the people. Taxation and regulations were so burdensome that landowners began to flee to barbarian territories to avoid them (where they were treated more fairly!) Government needed increasingly more tax revenue to pay its debts. Government was spending more money than it could raise. To pacify the growing discontent of the Roman people, Emperor Diocletian started offering entertainment and freebies to keep the people happy and preoccupied. They called the ploy "bread and circuses." To calm the people, the Emperor would feed them and distract them, and maybe in that way, they wouldn't realize what the government had done to them. In the end, Rome wasn't defeated because the Germanic tribes invaded and deposed Emperor Romulus Augustus. The Roman people had become apathetic. They no longer cared enough about their way of life to defend it. It just wasn't worth it.

    The Social Security program instituted by FDR was fully funded by employers and employees and didn't need any government subsidy. The program's operating funds were deducted from an employee's salary and matched by the employer. Those funds were then invested in a general fund that was able to earn interest so that the program would be able to remain solvent. Then LBJ expanded the program, included Medicare and Medicaid, and expanded the "Temporary Assistance for Needy Families" or "Aid to Families with Dependent Children" (the welfare fiasco that we are burdened with today,) The "Head Start" program, and more. Then he further fundamentally changed Social Security. All Social Security collected in that calendar year, over and above what had to actually be paid out as benefits, would be considered "a surplus" and would be moved from the independent "Trust Fund" and put into the General Fund so they could be used as a Congressional slush fund.

    Actually, the funds were to be used in the form of "repayable loans" so that, technically, the money would have to be repaid (and perhaps with interest.) The fact is that money has been taken out since the 60's to pay for wars, other entitlement programs, and national security, but funds are never returned. That is why it is referred to as a Ponzi scheme (like a Bernie Madoff scam.) Our government is, in effect, mortgaging the Social Security - to pay for things they want now, leaving us, or our kids and our grandkids, to repay the trillions they have siphoned off.

    Remember, the Social Security Act was started during the Depression. It was started by FDR to provide aid to the elderly in their retirement years, and the various subtitles to the program were intended to provide temporary assistance only (a "safety net," if you will) when times are tough. Medicare was supposed to provide health benefits for our seniors. LBJ officially started the current mentality of "entitlements as a way of life." He did it to buy votes for the Democrats, and that isn't my statement, that is HIS. After the passage of welfare, he told fellow politicians: "I just bought the Democratic party millions of votes," or "I predict a massive exodus from the Republican Party because of this." Or something to that effect. Ironically, the welfare program was started to help those "buried in illiteracy" and "mired in slums and ghettos" to overcome and become educated and move forward.

    Some liberals' solution is to modify the Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security programs, cut our national defense programs, and tax the wealthy. What a dangerous thinker he or she is. Often Liberals willfully choose to ignore the root cause of our problems... and that is that the government runs up the bills and then forces some of us pay it. And then, because of their recklessness and their overindulgence of those who don't contribute to the government's funds, the government has to resort to a cost-benefit analysis (in certain services.) God forbid the government should think of "conditioning" welfare payments so that recipients discontinue destructive conduct.

    The federal government's credit rating is poor. Social Security is listed in our 'debt' portfolio. At what point do you look at our current administration's policy of spend, spend, spend and exempt, exempt, exempt and not think it is to blame. Social Security is going insolvent. It's not because the Federal government has to fund it in any sense (SS is funded by the investments of mandatory contributions by working Americans;) it's because the Federal government has stolen so much money from the fund and then sold special treasury securities on those stolen funds to countries like China to finance the massive debt. Yes, that's right .... the federal government doesn't fund Social Security. Social Security has been funding the federal government!! Well, that is up until SS was listed in our debt portfolio. So now, since Social Security is going insolvent and there is no chance the national debt can ever be repaid, you look at those Americans who you deem most capable of bailing a reckless government out - wealthy ones. Shame on all those who think the solution lies with "someone else." The government should put those who sit around and do nothing and breed like rabbits to work and force them to pay back to society and help pay down the debt instead of continuing to run it up.

    Others like me are not "unreasonable" people. We are the reasonable ones here. We have common sense and objectivity. Pirate1973 may not call a fiscal advisory board a "death panel," but when math teacher and I see a panel that severely limits funding for medical treatment for our senior citizens and therefore has to deny life-extending options for our parents, we're not feeling the same warm fuzzies you do. We are well-educated and well-informed, and unlike some Liberals do not resort to calling anyone names. I, for one, have four degrees, including two Masters and a doctorate, and I'm a lawyer. So, I don't think "unreasonable" is the proper term. "Realistic" is the better term.

    Diane Rufino has her own blog For Love of God and Country. Come and visit her. She'd love your company.