Instead of working for a living, some people vote for a living

To The Daily Sun,

In my last letter (https://www.laconiadailysun.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/changes-to-ss-medicare-structure-could-balance-the-budget/article_ad977b76-9688-11e9-be85-f7bbfab6518e.html) I said I’d provide information on why Social Security and Medicare are the major cause of debt in this country. I’ll use my wife and I as an example and start with the assumption we will retire at our full retirement age of 66 years and 4 months, which is not far away.

I went to the SSI website and downloaded our SSI statements. I looked at the total we have paid into SSI over our lifetime as well as what our employers have paid and added what we expect to pay over the next few years. Then I divided that total by what we will receive in monthly payments according to our SSI statements. The results were, we will consume every dollar in 91 months, or 7.6 years. I was shocked and I think you will be also if you do the same calculations for yourselves.

I then thought, wait a minute, we pay a lot in federal income taxes every year, that surely should carry us through to 90. So, I added up all the federal income taxes we paid over our lifetime and divided that by what we will receive in SSI. The results were an additional 153 months or 12.7 years. So, now we will have consumed every penny we paid to the federal government by age 66.4 + 7.6 + 12.7 = 86.7. Well, we almost made it right? Well again the answer is no! I, like a relatively small percentage of Americans, served in the military for 21 years and now receive a pension paid by the federal government. If I add that monthly check to what we will receive in SSI the money we paid will run out at age 80.3.

This is an over simplification of a complex problem but the reality is that less than 20 percent of people who are retired for more than about eight years have paid more than they get back.

This is only 1/3 of the elephant in the room that no one wants to even acknowledge. The other is Medicare and Medicaid. If you look at this link (https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/policy-basics-where-do-our-federal-tax-dollars-go) Medicare and Medicaid is 26 percent of the federal budget which is even larger than the 24 percent for Social Security. It’s also compounded by the fact that only 2.9 percent of what you earn goes into Medicare, whereas 12.4 percent goes to SSI. This is the other two-thirds of the elephant.

You don’t have to be a math genius to realize that the system is out of balance. You most likely vote Democrat if you “believe” it’s not. That brings me right back to the point of this letter: “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.”

President Trump’s platform when he ran for office was to give people the “opportunity” to contribute to the good of the country by bringing back good-paying jobs that left under the previous administration. By all economic indicators he has. Yet the Democrats and left-leaning media continuously deny that it’s true. They spend the majority of time tearing down our president instead of addressing the most pressing issues, which in my opinion are illegal immigration, drug addiction, homelessness and suicide. You can’t turn on cable news without hearing another accusation that President Trump and his supporters are racists, bigots, homophobes, anti-Semitic, etc. It’s garbage! What it does, however, is distract your attention away from the real progress being made in this country and the issues above.

I’ll close this letter by making the point yet again, that even though our unemployment rate is at a record low of 3.7 percent, our workforce participation rate is still at a dismal 63.2 percent. There are plenty of good paying jobs in this country for those willing to work. The Democrats insistence that everyone is entitled to free health care, college, housing, food, cell phones, etc. in my opinion disincentivizes people from making the effort to learn a skill and “contribute” to the U.S. economy.

I’ll probably get blowback for the bluntness of this letter but it needs to be said. The 2018 election was an awakening for me. We are now at the point in this country where instead of working for a living people are voting for a living. Wealth redistribution is the hallmark of socialism and now the Democratic Party.

Bruce Jenket

Moultonborough