Ask Menendez About Social Security and Medicare

Bob Menendez says there is no looming Social Security and Medicare financial crisis. And of the entitlement funding problems that do exist, he claims they can be solved by increasing taxes on “the wealthy.”

If the federal government confiscated everything the Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans owned, leaving them with absolutely nothing, the government would collect $1.2 trillion, once.

If the federal government seized all the assets and earnings of the wealthiest five percent, the feds would have a one-time haul of $14 trillion.

If the federal government confiscated everything from the American people, the government would rake in $52.1 trillion.

Ask a congressman what the national debt is, and he will say $8.5 trillion. That’s a lot of money, but it completely ignores our two largest and most important government programs, Social Security and Medicare. If you include the promises made by those programs to workers who are already paying Social Security and Medicare taxes, the national debt jumps to $46 trillion.

If you look closely at the annual letter you receive from the Social Security Administration, you will see that the benefits you’ve been buying with your payroll taxes are only “scheduled.” That’s a fancy word for maybe. The federal government can revoke them at will, according to the 1960 U.S. Supreme Court decision of Fleming v. Nestor.

Ask your senator or congressman again about the size of the debt. If they answer anything less than $46 trillion, follow up by asking whose benefits they will cut or whose taxes they will raise.

Written by a Republican trying to “destroy” Social Security? No, written by Congressman Jim Cooper, D-Tenn, a Democrat willing to truthfully discuss the entitlement issue