Neither Democrats or Republicans are ready for when Trump passes away

 

This touches on being a follow up to a post I made a few weeks ago, but this focuses more on what happens with each party after Trump.

Or what lack of policy will not be enacted.

The Democrats still have their one page word salad and their pandering to different interest groups. They say things like universal healthcare, raise the minimum wage, tax the billionaires, etc, but never flesh it out to see how they are going to accomplish it all. I post more in this blog with more substance to some of my ideas than the Democratic party does across it’s entire spectrum of representatives and candidates. They love their message. They have no idea how to enact it.

Do they have a post Trump plan? Hard to say when half their messaging is Trump is bad and Trump is stupid and Trump gotcha posts. If Trump were to peacefully pass in his sleep tonight the Democrats wouldn’t know what to do. And would have a good chance of losing in 2026 and 2028 if any Republicans figured anything out.

Now the Republicans aren’t ahead of the game either. The infamous RINOs will try and retake the party, yet how successful will they be? And what happens to MAGA? Does it splinter into multiple factions? Or do they get lucky and someone rises to the top and takes the mantle? And this seems very unlikely. Vance isn’t as popular as the people around Vance would like him to be. Will a normal power play between Vance and Rubio break out and one of them starts spewing something close to rational political speak?

Or will the whole house of cards come tumbling down and all the extremists carve out different audiences fracturing the whole country even more? Imagine ten different Fuentes all vying for attention. Will they offset each other or create more monsters?

All this and more is possible. Somebody in the Republican party needs to start building coalitions or all hades will break loose.

And the rest of Trump’s cabinet, staffers, aides, hangers on and Congressional allies will have nowhere to go but low. Miller, Noem, Bondi, Kennedy, Johnson will lose standing quick once Trump is gone. My fear is Andrew Vought will find a way to survive since his real goal is Project 2025, not Trump, so he probably has some post Trump plans. The rest of the lot, not so much. 

Trump’s economic agenda will lose steam faster than ice thrown into boiling water. So what happens to fightfest 2025 at club MAGA? What sycophant will survive? Bessent? Pulte? Lutnick? Or?

And think about the “influencers” or whatever they want to be called. Bannon? Jones? Fuentes? Rogan? Who else? Do they still garner millions of views? Or do they fade away also?

And with all this Republican mess, who gets all the worthless crypto in the divorce?

Will the Democrats fill a void when the Republicans implode? Or will they continue to talk down to America, lecture us, and demean the MAGA population in general, completely forgetting that these are Americans also. (which they claim Trump does with their groups).

The hypocrisy of both parties is completely different, yet it is so bad that both parties have huge holes to climb out of if we ever want to get this country back on track. They finger point, say votes are wasted if you vote independent or third party, the parties run the primaries based on messaging only, not allowing fresh voices to arise, and all the while claim everything else is evil, yet doing nothing about the evil and incompetency that permeates their own party.

Now I am not a fan of either party so my hope is that when Trumpism fades, independents finally realize they need to get going and rebuild both parties or create new ones because the current leadership in both parties is a complete failure when it comes to representing the people and by the looks of it, aren’t ready for a post Trump world.

And let us hope that all this happens before July 04, 2026 so we can have a real independence day birthday celebration and welcome the world when it comes for FIFA’s World Cup in North America. Am I asking too much?

 

And since the world is coming next summer, let’s learn a bit.

Salud!

Cin Cin! Saluti!

Sante´!

Prost!

Saude!

Kanpai!

Geonbae!

Gan bei!

Nuo nke oma!

Fi-sih-tik!

Serefe!

And so much more

Cheers!

Fighting another paranoid post

You know how it is.  A thought creeps into your brain, you hear something, then it finds a neuron to latch onto, a synopsis lights up, it finds another connection, the electrical impulses bouncing around gray matter find a path and the next thing you know your whole being is consumed by an ugly thought. One that won’t go away. It dominates every part of your brain, growing worse than weeds throughout every cortex it can find. You drink a glass of wine more like a shot of tequila and it is still racing within and throughout that part of your body you rely on for reasonable action.

Your eyes turn so white you belong in a Paul Ryan selfie, your heart races along at a clip to blow two or three valves, your nerves are so on edge just the slightest sound makes you jump; everything in your being is consumed.

Yeah, sure, the reality is happening: The Republicans are actually going to nominate Donald Trump for President. Surely this one fact alone can’t be causing all this anxiety. No, it isn’t. You hear things, read things and it just starts to add up in this hyper vigilant state your brain is functioning.

And all your worse fears start to play out at a rapid fire pace. You can’t keep up, but overall one theme dominates the process. All day long you fight it. Every waking moment is put to the effort to keep your worst fears pushed aside, yet they grow back stronger and stronger, now to the point where rational reflection of what you are thinking is buried under the rubble of too many brain cells fried from long ago. What you actually fear is coming true is more dynamic than any fiction you try to create.  The panting, the wide eyed stare at nothing is only some symptoms of the raging paranoia completely engulfing the space behind my eyes. Is there even a soul to look into at this point?

My God you scream, what are we doing? How on Earth can a rational well positioned country with the best well written idea of government ever devised by man be nominating, much less electing the most narcissistic, irrational, pseudo fascist, completely devoid of any idea of how he would run this country once elected individual for the highest office in the land? How did we come to this?

And oh by the way his competition is the biggest most dangerous corrupt politician ever conceived of in this country. She makes Richard Milhous Nixon look like a boy scout. Yes, she hides it well and the Democrats will be nominating her next week.

Oh, but, don’t let me stress you out. This is just a moment that the history books will never mention. Whomever wins will get to write their interpretation and all will be copasetic. So do not fret over me, once November comes and goes, people like me will disappear into the wild blue yonder never to be heard from again. Can’t be upsetting the apple cart now, can we?

And heck, this is the mild version of what I wanted to write. I glanced at a story this morning stating where one delegate from Virginia was in a situation with one of Mr. Trump’s campaign workers and had to ask: are you threatening me or my State?” Just who exactly is working for Mr. Trump?

And in the end, people like me are labeled the bad guys. Wake up America,     please.

There is blindness to a cause,….

And then there is blindness

As you know I am a Mavericks and basketball fan and with free agency about to start I fear the Mavericks are about to blow it again. As a fan I have high hopes. I can turn my eyes away from the past and hope somehow Cuban and the gang finally find the elusive top free agent(s) and the Mavericks become relevant again. As a fan I can believe.

And as a fan I can be rational and be mad at Cuban for blowing the last five years. He has a coach who is a great team coach. Coach Carlisle is probably better coaching a really good team up than having one superstar and a team trying to compliment the superstar. You may say he did that with Dirk in 2011. Really though that was a very good team with a superstar that focused on being a team. This is Carlisle’s strength. Too bad Mr. Cuban seems to be unaware of what he has in his Coach and how he should be finding players for him.

And there again I can believe. I can turn a blind eye to the rational and cheer when free agency starts hoping that somehow this is the magical year and we get Whiteside and Conley. We find all the right complementary players and Dirk and Dallas acquire another championship. Go Mavs.

I can do this because it is sports. Yes, if it doesn’t happen all us MFFLs will be disappointed, mad, frustrated etc, but the world goes on. There will be next year and the next year and sooner or later Dirk will retire and we will wait years for a team to hopefully rebuild. We lived through the nineties.

When you are so blind to the cause that you have lost complete rational thinking, when you believe only what the cause wants you to believe without ever looking at the whole picture that is a dangerous blindness. And this is especially dangerous when your blindness prevents you from realizing that the cause you are supporting is death to much more than a sports team or some other secondary entertainment in life. This is the problem both Trump and Clinton supporters own.

Our country is in trouble. Yes, we have had bad or non-descript Presidents before. Pretty much anyone after Lincoln till 1900 doesn’t make the radar for great American Presidents. We lived through it. Now though our Country and the world are a different place. And what both of these candidates represent is the worse in America and American politics. They are horrible for different reasons, yet they are both horrible.

You cannot tell their supporters anything. They both have a core group that is blind to the truth of either one. And add onto this the group of people who have such hate for one of the candidates they are willing to be blind and vote for the other candidate. Another dangerous blindness: hate.

And here we are about to enter into the general election to choose one of these individuals to lead our country. And if we were just some third world country who has suffered through horrible dictator after dictator maybe this would only continue our personal misery. No, this is the United States and whether you like it or not, we are way too involved in the world for this to be good for us or the world.

If you tell a supporter of one of the candidates we need someone else, you get overrun with an unconscious vitriol about how you know nothing and that if we do not elect their candidate horrible things are going to happen.  And when I say someone else I mean telling them someone other than the opposite candidate, they still ramble on about it is their candidate only who has the answer. Now to be honest and fair, the Trump supporters do possess a bit more emotional rhetoric, yet the Clinton supporters spout off in the same blind way as to the greatness of their candidate and there is no need to look at anyone else.

And while both candidates offer at the very least nothing of substance to the Country, both in their worst actions could do potentially irreversible harm to our country. And add on that Mr. Trump is probably doing irreversible harm to the Republican party. I wouldn’t mind so much since I am not a fan of either party except the fallout from the Republican demise may create a somewhat viable true right wing party that could be dangerous and even obtain some power in our country. This is not what the world needs now.

Anyway being blind to one of your favorite sports teams is well maybe not good and does only harm to your expectations. It plays out in the game and you can pick up the pieces of your emotions at the end of the year and hope for better next year.

Blindness at the level of the Trump and Clinton supporters is something ugly, scary, and dangerous. There could be no next year.

With basketball or any sport or hobby at least you can admit the truth in the back of your mind and still hope for the best.     And yes I am hooked for the Mavericks and I love basketball and sometimes this song says it all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1er9jyCJI_E

Part four of the story will be coming shortly

And voter angst goes where?

So Mr. Trump doesn’t win the Presidency, nor Mr. Sanders overcomes Ms. Clinton and Ms. Clinton wins. What happens next?

Will this be the high water mark for populism in this century? After their runs for office falter do voters pick up the pieces and find new people to run? Or do they settle back and feel like nothing they do matters?

If Ms. Clinton wins, will she be supported by the establishment of both parties in their attempt to consolidate even more power? And in doing so, how much of our rights are trampled upon (probably subtlety) as they make sure people like Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders would have an even more difficult time trying to overcome the establishments?

Or do the extremes on both sides actually create new parties to pick up where these candidacies left off?  And if it is the extreme right and a young and mobilized social democrat party do we become Italy in the 20’s and 30’s?  And if this happens, does it fuel the establishment in the two major parties clamping down even more on our rights and our future abilities to create a true populist movement that benefits the middle and working classes.

Funny how the extremes always create the movements, yet the groups that most need a populist movement will revert to the status quo which only does more harm to them by supporting the group-present leadership that has been holding them back all along.

Will this change here after 2016 if Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders fail in their bid to be President? Would the what was once known as the silent majority wake up and apply what was learned from the two mentioned candidates and move forward? Or will it slip away and become a footnote in history smaller than the last real attempt at a populist movement 100+ years ago?

Voter angst could be a great benefit to our country and maybe even other democracies or similar governments now if applied by the right people. In the hands of the wrong people, we head backwards as a society which leaves the door open to very similar, but probably more dangerous than what happened in the 1930’s. Now I have to admit defining who are the right and wrong people will depend on your view point. So let’s say we are talking about a true reform movement that consolidates the wealth gap, improves the economic status of the whole of the country, gives us true tax reform, improves education, reduces our reliance on a nanny state government, yet at the same time works to move technology and innovation forward, defines what our government can or should do and what it shouldn’t and hopefully helps us all become a country unified in values. We do not have to agree on everything, just have our disagreements be civil, discussed, so the best ideas for the whole in general move forward. Well to me, that is a few of the ideas of what I call the right people.

To a fascist or communist, well there may be a different idea of what is a “right” person.  

The winds of change are blowing, but is it just a spring thunderstorm and will die out in a moment. Or has the winds truly changed direction and, even if Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders do not become President, their energy spawns a whole new political and hopefully beneficial movement? I would hate to see the opposite occur and the middle class goes running back to the establishment out of fear of the unknown.

Social Security Part 3 continued

Part of the Preamble discussed the need to take care of aged, crippled children, blind, child welfare, and unemployment compensation. Pretty much everything that is anathema to the Republican party, well at least that is the way the Democrats feel about it.

And a side note question here, why just the blind, what about the deaf or other disabilities. Who knows right now, the times were different then.

And like the medical aspect (which led to Medicare and Medicaid) these programs are a cost to the government. Okay Medicaid is, technically your salary is contributing to you having Medicare.

We need to look at the big picture though. Since we accept we live in a society where people can make money we have to understand there will be so called winners and losers. Much as we want it to happen, not everyone can be the richest person on the planet. And that is okay as long as we also realize if we allow for people to be successful there will be others that have a need. The goal then is to allow for both; people to be successful without leaving anyone behind. The immediate example of this would be unemployment compensation for people who might be laid off due to a company struggling etc.

Why should the workers be hurt because management either mismanaged the business or the industry or times are changing and the company is losing business?  People should be allowed to continue with their lives. Yet is just giving them checks for 6 months the answer. Sometimes it might be. Many workers or even managers may be able to find jobs within that time frame. Other times they may not be able. So what happens when they cannot find a job within 6 months, does the government keep extending benefits like what happened post the 2008 recession? At what point do they stop?

This is where there has to be a transition plan, not just help. If we believe that all people are created equal then we need to make sure all have equal opportunity, but this should never be an ongoing cost to the people via the taxes we pay to the government.

So now look at the big picture of all welfare programs. One criticism my so called conservative brethren say is that we can’t hand out entitlements all the time. The “other side” create programs that help people such as food stamps, but it creates a need to continue on food stamps if you do not help people move on in life. And this has created what is now being called generational welfare. Children growing up with this expectation in their lives and no one willing to step in and help them learn to be self-sufficient.

Last week there was an article by Rachel Sheffield about Kansas and Maine creating work requirements to get food stamps found on a site called CNSNEWS. And I do know you always have to be careful about news sources nowadays since so many are so biased they mix facts/news with opinion very liberally. Yet if the statistics mentioned in the article are even somewhat close to real fact then this is a good example of what I am looking to get people to understand. Quoting from their example from Maine: “Within the first three months after Maine’s work policy went into effect, its caseload of able-bodied adults receiving food stamps plunged by 80 percent, falling from 13.332 recipients in December 2014 to 2678 in March 2015.” Honestly this is a very large decrease in a short amount of time so I wonder if there were other factors involved. Finding ways to institute more of this to see if it could be duplicated would have benefited the premise of the article. Only two states were mentioned and one was Kansas which right now I would be dubious of any facts coming from the Right in Kansas right now. So why do I quote from this article.  One reason is because they mention something I do feel is needed and that is work programs provide opportunities such as job training and employment search services. These would have to be mandatory for any work program to reduce welfare to be successful.

In implementing the work programs though I feel there will be a need to increase spending at first. One business axiom is you need to spend money to make money. In my opinion it works backwards in the welfare situation using work programs. You are going to need to spend money to save money/reduce the budget in the long run. The trade-off being once people are able to remove themselves from food stamps and welfare they become tax payers hence reducing the cost while increasing revenue. The key is you are going to have to really make the commitment to the job training and other education aspects including basics like teaching people how to manage money, run a budget, and make proactive health decisions. People who have grown up on welfare do not have the education level, not just of high school etc, but off making healthy life decisions some of us take for granted.

It sounds so basic to some of us about eating healthy and seeing a doctor regularly. Many on welfare have never been given the opportunity to plan ahead or even understand what it means to save. Some of us take for granted to do comparison shopping or know how to make informed shopping decisions. Welfare recipients, especially generational recipients, by and large have no idea what we do on a daily basis.

Also we would actually need to raise food stamp levels and at the same time limit what can be bought with food stamps. The problem poor people and apparently my conservative brethren do not see is eating healthy takes more money and time. And yet if they can be taught better nutrition they end up having less medical costs. Hate to be a food big brother, yet it is not against the concept of helping people if we lead them in a better direction. It is taxpayers’ money we are using for welfare so using it wisely for the government budget and more importantly for the recipients is the right thing to do. I hate using the word entitlement because the right wing throws it around as a four letter word, but when the government is helping people through welfare programs current recipients tend to take advantage of the system. Holding them accountable for their actions is a reasonable criterion to receiving benefits.  This leads me back to the article I mentioned. How do we make this an actual reality throughout the country?

This is one primary goal. Welfare should be temporary. And at the same time we have to accept it is going to be needed. In a system that relies on a division of wealth, there will be poor people. They are not inherently bad because they are poor so we need to make sure they retain their dignity. Helping them get back on their feet with what is now called welfare should be the primary goal. We should not expect this to be the answer for them though.

The next item is we help those who cannot help themselves. This is where the Medicaid disability help comes into play. Sometimes the cost of taking care of someone or the mental illness issues of someone are so extreme that a family or even extended family cannot take care of the person by themselves. It is not a burden to the taxpayers via the government to have programs to help families in these situations. As a people who believe in the dignity of life it does become our responsibility to have programs in place either directly from the government or the government supporting programs for these people.  We all contribute either through taxes or the current social security payments to support this need.  And we need to make sure we understand the problems so we give the proper care. When you deny people this support you are taking a step backwards in social evolution. Bad things can happen and it is no one’s fault so we cannot judge a person with a disability as someone less than us. We create better judgment for ourselves when we help them.

And going back to my original ideas of helping the retirement aspect of social security we do need to start consolidating the various acts, government procedures, the number of departments involved etc so we can better utilize the money for the people who need it. This is whether it is work programs; food and medical for children; disability, programs that help those with disabilities participate in society where they can; high school, trade school, or other education to help people become better prepared for jobs (and we can support people being trained in jobs that are needed and this does not take away anyone’s rights); and even life education for people who especially now have spent a lifetime on welfare learning how to take care of themselves, their money and their health. 

These are just some ideas to show you what can be done to turn the current welfare situation into a more manageable service program that benefits the recipient and society at large.  

Going back to the preamble, does this all need to fall under the social security administration? Maybe. We do need as mentioned above really sit down and define what help we can and should give and consolidate the bureaucracies to better manage the programs, learn what works and what doesn’t (being flexible is a good thing), keep costs down, and a better understanding of who we are as a people.

Rant against the Machine

Okay so I am not a leftist heavy metal rap band, but every now and then your brain explodes.

It seems the people most needing to do something for themselves is the people doing the least and still accepting the Democrat and Republican party machinery dictating to them what is best for them. And this is done with a helpful dose of media befuddlement. Yep the media is just now starting to understand why Mr. Donald Trump is so popular and Bernie Sanders is capturing second fiddle honors

It isn’t his platform, it isn’t his experience, it isn’t the money, it isn’t anything they want us to believe, because if it was something they would be able to figure him out. Nope it is because he is throwing up one large middle finger at the establishment of DC, the two parties, the media, and a host of other institutions the country is tired of lying to them. I really do not think he is what his fans think of him, however, he has convinced many he is the anti-establishment candidate. Mr. Sanders is making the same noise and has a platform which will continue to appeal to a wide host of liberal idealists.

And after all this time you are starting to see articles in the press that admit to this idea. Vox.com had an article that the Republican party is broken. The Tea Party knew this years ago they just couldn’t get the party to recognize it. The right and the far right are more engaged so they are responding to what Mr. Trump is offering. They do not care that he does not have a viable platform. The more the establishment winces at Mr. Trump the more they adore him.

I am not a fan of either and am jealous of both. I still hold out hope the middle class and the middle of the country will recognize what the machines of both parties have done and remove the shackles of the two party dominance. The middle class is its own worst enemy. They love life. They love softball games on Sunday, or movies on Saturday, their kids performing in the high school play, fighting for a playoff spot on their basketball team, watching their child in dance competitions, eating dinner with family and friends. The young like hanging out at bars, playing video games, working out, eating at chic restaurants, and doing many other things they cannot afford because they want a good life.

All see living paycheck to paycheck as dangerous and yet watching more each year being deducted from their paycheck for health insurance and their copays going up also. Rent goes up every time they renew their lease. After 7 years of people trying to convince us to buy a house again, many are skeptical or are hoping things are getting better like they are being told. They scream: Please do not confuse me with multi trillion dollar government debt, or ISIS, or trade balance, or what kind of job I may never have or a host of other problems that if not solved will be the end of the idea of middle class living in a democracy. No please tell me things will be good so I do not have to worry about my future.

Things aren’t going to be good with politicians telling you they are going to be good, and yet the middle class will not open their ears and minds to reality. The politicians, the press, wall street  etc are lying to you. And as long as you buy the lies; things will not get truly better. The machine thought they won years ago and put their message on a recording that the middle class will not tune out. And as long as that message is playing the middle class will wither away.  

Time to wake up and realize the reason Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders are popular because they found an audience that is tuning out the machine. Unfortunately, neither is going to benefit the middle class. Mr. Sanders cannot expect the federal government to continue to solve all our problems, it is too daunting of a task, yet he is convincing his followers it can. Mr. Trump is awakening an ugly giant of right wing fanaticism that could roll over Mr. Trump unless he continues to take on even more extremist verbiage and then at some point he may actually have to act. If he does or doesn’t the resulting fall out will be ugly.

And the middle class will look to the machine and say what happened. And will be lied to again. Unfortunately, it may be too late for our country. 

We do not need a revolution, we do not need a new government, we do not need extremism; we just need to pay attention to the quiet voices in our heads that say when things are not what they seem; we need to make them right.  We can keep softball games, our children’s activities, our lunches, our families, our friends, we just need to spend some time with each other to right this ship before it breaks into three pieces with the middle sinking to the bottom of the ocean and the two sides branching off into hysterical pseudo populism.

The machine has failed; only you and I can rebuild our dreams

I still plan on finishing up the Social Security thoughts because if we ever get it together we got some work to do.

Cheers

It is absolutely maddening

Well at least to me.

I will get back to more practical posts like continuing my thoughts on Social Security later,…

However, I cannot sit here and read about the current Presidential candidates and have my sanity survive any longer. This seems like a bad dream.

There are so many people doing extraordinary things every day in this country, people going above and beyond for others yet we have a kindergarten class running for President. And please do not say it isn’t my party’s candidates that is the problem. And throw in a Congress that no one approves of and what will happen,,,,,,  they all get reelected.

It is maddening maddening and more maddening,

Please go look at yourself in the mirror, ask yourself am I really proud of the people running, do I think they are anywhere close to the best we can offer ourselves and if you answer yes, then please go somewhere completely away from the noise, no phone, no computer, no news, no Kanye west and Kardashian family, no fantasy leagues, no TV …. just relax your brain for 24-36 hours. Just get away

Then come back and look at the candidates. Are you really sure about these characters???????

Everyone is telling us how bad the other party is; no one is taking a close look at what their party is offering. I am serious. How can we be proud of this group?!  I am not saying they are evil people. Some may be pulling stupid stunts, yet no one is evil.  I am just saying you have to get away from all the name calling, hate, and bashing of the other side to get some perspective. Too much noise and no substance.

Can you really tell me what any of these individuals is going to do as President….not their slogan, not their sound bites, but really tell me what they are going to do.  Seriously

I am really impressed by the people who came up with the movie title “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” unfortunately it just seems to apply to our whole political process right now.

We have people who do better day in and day out including you,,, so why is it so impossible for people to realize how bad it is in politics. Think about this, how much better of a job could you do in your state legislature, your city, in Congress then please tell me why you accept people doing so much worse. Even if you do not want to participate, there are better choices out there. Time to give them a nudge.

Okay now you can go back to your regularly scheduled sanity since I seem to be losing mind. 

Tackling Social Security

Don’t you hate it when someone makes an absolute comment like social security is one of the top five issues facing the middle class in the United States. Oh yeah I did that in my last post. Subjective comments are so wonderful. Yet I think most people would agree that trying to address Social Security and the subsets of Social Security is something many Americans would agree would be beneficial.

Actually coming up with a solution to make it what we all want it to be….. well,   I am known to dream.

I still want to at least put on paper some ideas of what potentially can be done, or at least offer some discussion points for moving forward with social security.

Social Security Act of 1935   Preamble:

An act to provide for the general welfare by establishing a system of Federal old-age benefits, and by enabling the several States to make more adequate provision for aged persons, blind person, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, public health, and the administration of their unemployment compensation laws; to establish a Social Security Board; to raise revenue; and for other purposes.

Quite a monstrous task they created for good ole social security. And from this preamble we have come to a behemoth legislative juggernaut, tax and budget sucking, and is it worth it all; government program.

And everyone wants something done to “preserve it”; “rid ourselves of it”; “fix it”; or “make it better”, yeah you know completely reorganize one of the largest institutionalized programs in the world with a Congress that for decades cannot pass a reasonable two-year budget.  Or heck even agrees to try.

Actually the reorganize statement is my wording. I am not quite sure how everyone else wants to address Social Security since probably everyone else has a different opinion. Somewhere down the line we need to start discussing what we want and what we want Social Security to look like now and in the future.

Where do we start?

And there are many ways to start. Some major decisions need to be made before we can start and that is answering what do we want it to look like going forward.

So I will start by proposing a few ideas as to what it can become.  At some point we, the middle class, want our retirement. I do not think people want to be forced working till they die. Yes, there are some people who like to work or would have no idea what they would do once they quit working, but I feel comfortable stating most of us want some sort of retirement. And I will leave the what I am going to do in retirement up to you.

The issue is how do I afford to retire. Over time the concept has gone through many changes, I would have said evolve, but that connotes improvement and I am not sure the process to retire is improving. At some point it had.  Many workers could look forward to a small pension, social security and by the 1980’s even 401ks that gave people an opportunity to create savings not just income for retirement.

Alas pensions are drying up or facing shortfalls, 401ks are in the market and Wall Street is effectively making this a dangerous retirement plan. (On a side note mutual fund companies should be better advocates for their customers when it comes to Wall Street excessiveness.  Whether they force better behavior in business models or support government programs that manage Wall Street behavior I do not know (I have one tax plan as part of a solution), yet they should do something. The middle class to upper middle class best option for savings were the traditional mutual funds where managers made good long term investing decisions. Sad to say with all the volatility in the markets partially caused by dynamic trading this isn’t a strong long term solution anymore. And of course my beef about Wall Street is that it only supports itself not business in American which is another problem.)

The third part of a potential sound retirement plan should be social security. If all three parts are working in tandem, it is a bit easier to work with modifying social security for the future.  Unfortunately, like when social security began, social security is the only retirement income for many Americans. This will not work going forward.

One reason it doesn’t work by itself is cost of living and the second is life expectancy.  And even though social security is supposed to help us with medical benefits; the growth of the medical field and the cost is far outstripping the average person in the middle class to keep up. One note here and I will come back to it is the high cost of living with the medical field. This will need to be addressed either in tandem with social security reform or on its own. Obamacare was supposed to address this and is one of the reasons I feel Obamacare has failed the people it was supposed to help.  Let me put that aside for the moment.

The first problems to address are income for social security, what do we do to either protect 401k investing or strengthen pensions. I can try but I do not think we will get back to having all three as viable combinations for everyone. And when I say 401k I mean all workplace savings plans like 457 and 403bs.

Since we are talking about social security I will mainly discuss ideas for increasing revenue to continue offer a reasonable check to retirees. Some of the reforms for the pensions and 401ks will seep into the conversation.

The first statement I want to make about improving Social Security is we need to pull it completely out of the rest of our government’s budget. This has to be a stand-alone identity. Every aspect of how it is administered could be directed by Congress (and should), but the actual administration and budget has to be separate. One reason is because it has become so cumbersome that we need to find ways to streamline it and also make the numbers better accountable to the people.

The first priority is determining how we are going to increase income into social security or find ways to decrease need for social security ie better pensions or some new program.

I bring up the pension vs social security for many reasons. We first need to consider is whether employers have to pay into either or both.  An employer must pay social security taxes that matches what the worker is putting in. This is somewhat backwards in the visual, however, I feel more people will have a better idea of the problem if they realize the employer is contributing an amount alongside what they withhold from your check to send to the government. The obvious problem is when they do this they have less money to add to a pension.

So where do we start? Make Social Security private, increase taxes, have a social security lotto, invest the funds like a pension fund, or place your own thoughts here. Actually there are some options, however, they take away from something else. This is the push me pull me of taxation and having government programs that work or benefit the people they are intended.

And increasing social security taxes could work in different ways. First and probably one of the ideas regularly done is to increase the income level for taxation purposes. Basically it includes higher and higher levels of income being taxed. And this increase affects you and your employer. So know you have businesses arguing well you can increase for the worker, but not for me since I cannot afford increased taxes on what I pay people. And in a reasonable world this argument has some merit especially if the company is offering pensions or 401k matches etc… Is it possible to find a balance of lowering the employer portion of the taxes so they can offer more to their employees? This is a possible discussion point, but not all companies may take advantage of this so now are we going to tier social security payments based on what different employers contribute. I am going to leave this on the table and come back to it.

Another idea is to find ways for social security to increase income besides wage withholding or what I have been calling taxes. The term social security taxes is common, but actually it is wage withholding to go to a trust to be paid. Part of the reason to make social security stand alone is so there is better accountability to the wages being withheld and used for social security. I will continue to use the word taxes because we see it on our paychecks as a tax.

To increase revenue becomes interesting and that is where some people say we can make it private. Making it private, by itself, would not increase revenue, but offers individuals a chance to increase a balance. And of course this has not faired well when presented as an option mainly because no one would trust those put in charge of it. We already do not trust our government with it, but we do have, if we would exercise it, better control of the people in charge: Congress.  Handing it over to private interests to manage creates a nightmare of liability issues if money was lost. Yet being able to find revenue by investing is a possibility. Who manages these decisions and how are they held accountable are very serious questions that need to be answered to offer this in a solution mix. I have proposed in other posts an investment plan that incorporates certain types of investments only and gives the economy a secondary boost.

As you can start to see we do have options, it is actually putting together a plan and a combination of resources together that can move us forward for our retirement. And yet the next obstacle is getting all the divergent groups together or incorporating them in the plan that will be tricky. It can be done. As I mentioned us, the people, holding Congress accountable is how we will get something done.

To start putting some pieces together and by no means do I feel I have all the right answers, but I am going to propose some thoughts so you can decide what you think works, what needs either improvement, elimination, or can take some of what I am proposing and add your own ideas to drive home the idea that we still can make social security a continued viable option to help us out in our retirement and in other areas. Social Security still needs to be a foundation for us, not the whole answer, but since we created social security it might just behoove us to make it the best we can.

So without number crunching:

We need income from sources beyond wage withholding.  I have previously suggested municipal and utility bond investing. Use some of the proceeds from the trust (remember it is now separate) to increase in well vetted revenue or other high quality bonds that cities or other localities and utilities can use to improve infrastructure. Also this could be in some other areas since infrastructure is a highly discussed need. Why does this always have to be addressed through higher taxes? This will not be for every need. You can argue a great many areas of development (not necessarily private development and there is more to discuss there, but separate from social security) could benefit with resources a Social Security trust fund could offer. And with everything there are downsides, but they are manageable with some well thought out guidelines in place. Basically you increase revenue through high quality bonds’ interest income. Will this be a superlative increase of income? No. yet it gives the trust fund continuous income from a well developed bond stream that possibly benefits other areas of our country’s needs.

Second we make a decision about how much we expect an employer to contribute to the employee’s retirement. This is some serious legislating and very specific reward for action idea. And it goes back to my comment earlier do we have tiered payments for employees of employers who take on more of the expense of retirement. And how do we manage if the employer plan fails or the company fails? Do we end up telling the employer their funds will still be given over to the social security trust and the employee manages it? Ends up being one of the same problems people have with the 401k type plans. Can they manage it successfully? Do we give credit for 401k with matches and profit sharing to lower employer contributions to the original tax withholding wage amounts?

Many details to be worked out, but I do support we create a standard wage withholding plan that all employers/employees contribute and then it is increased for employers that do not provide separate plans and stays at the basic or stair step increases with the size and security of the employer plan(s). This would be difficult to manage and yet it gives an employee multiple options to actually save for retirement. I have not gotten to it yet, but I feel people for retirement need both a steady income stream and a savings to fall back on or use for their pleasure. People need both.  And of course how does all this work with people changing employers on a regular basis? First way is there is a standard wage withholding level and second we either put the money in the trust or let employees take them as they do now such as IRA rollovers from their employer plans. We do not have to change everything, just allow some cohesiveness amongst all the plans for the employee with social security being the base line level of retirement. This is what the preamble attempted to accomplish, it is just that times change so the program needs to change. This portion is the most flexible in regards to discussing how to implement, but I think the most important piece of our retirement discussion.  I can answer some of the questions I brought up, but those would just be my ideas. Think about this yourself and down the road I will come back and do a give and take on this portion of the plan.

Third and I am about 35-65 for this idea. I do not think we privatize social security, but I think we can invest in private or commercial investments. There would have to be some serious guidelines and I would suggest it would not be a large portion of the trust. Yet having a growth component is important. Now do we invest for what I mentioned earlier and that is income stream and savings or just use this investment growth to cover income stream which only maintains the same benefit we have now.  I think the income stream approach is better and use employer plans and IRAs for savings. Yet if some employees do not receive employer plans this might be a way to set aside a very small amount of a social security savings account. You would have to do some excellent accounting work to earmark the higher amounts of employer contributions mentioned above to allocate to these employees’ accounts, but if you set it up right it might be feasible. There is work to be done on this idea. I just feel we need to look at maintaining social security retirement funds for the long term so it will need a growth component to it.

Okay the above is some ideas and not the whole program. I plan on doing a different post for the medical, another for the social welfare aspect, and the conclusion that tries to tie it all together. I do think there is more to the retirement plan. So again I ask you to think about some ideas and I will circle back to some of this at a future date to rehash the ideas and answer some of the questions I asked.

Remember Social Security belongs to you.

College loans are not financial aid. I do not know why they include loans as part of a financial aid package. It is crazy.   Debt is not aid.    (I don’t support Bernie though)

Have a great evening everyone