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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781491861646 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 02/13/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 108 |
| File size: | 195 KB |
Read an Excerpt
Average Joe's State of the Union
By Jon Marshall
AuthorHouse LLC
Copyright © 2014 Jon MarshallAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4918-6166-0
CHAPTER 1
Economy and Social Security
The state of the American economy is not well, we have spent ourselves into debt like a naïve teenager with their parent's credit card. The hopes we once had for our children to have a better life than we've had are fading quickly. Our bond rating has been lowered to double A+ from AAA due to the inability of Washington to get their act together. Each and every American citizen, if given their portion of the national debt would owe over $50,000 each. The average family of four would represent over $200,000 of the national debt. The math simply does not work if you consider the average income and the millions of unemployed or underemployed Americans.
Of the out of work Americans more than 30% of them have discontinued the search for a job. Now ask yourself, how many families, throughout the United States, are sitting on an extra 200 grand? The money simply is not out there. The debt exceeds the ability of the people to pay back and the people aren't considering the national debt as a part of their financial responsibilities.
We, as average Americans are doing well just to keep up with our current tax liabilities and financial obligations. We can no more afford Obama care, then we can the national debt rising. It wouldn't be difficult to make the case that we are living in a time of taxation without representation, ironically, one of the same reasons our forefathers left England.
The discouraged worker syndrome is one of the real characteristics of this slow recovery, economically. 815,000
Americans, which are unemployed, are not currently looking for work because they believe there are no jobs available for them. Also, the underemployed, the people that need full-time jobs, but now have part-time jobs due to Obama care, aren't helping the recovery, if there ever was one.
The American family can no longer stand idly by while our politicians destroy our country and its economy. We must consider fundamental changes, like perhaps taking in the taxes before spending them, like a person who would be receiving a pay check. I would say this concept, of spend, then tax, is one of the more difficult concepts to understand. The government credit card should be cut and thrown in the trash. Even the Wall Street tycoons, who have made great profits off the rise in the stock market over the past year can't spend it until they've earned it.
The Internal Revenue Service which is at the heart of our economy lost $3.6 billion in 2011, based on refund fraud reports from the inspector general's office. Which was down from over 5.2 billion in 2010. Now, if that were a private company with losses of 3 to 5,000,000,000 a year, I could almost guarantee that they would find a way to solve the problem. But the federal government is so inept, they are a huge target for identity thieves, who use the Social Security numbers of the young, old, and deceased individuals, to file for refunds. The IRS actually sent 655 refund checks to the same address, in Lithuania.
The politicians, whom appear to be more interested in becoming wealthy at the expense of the taxpayer, lack fiscal responsibility needed to control their spending and the effects would seem borderline treasonous. After all, if one of their main responsibilities is our country's security and the maintenance of our general welfare, and the country is so broke we can't function because we haven't any resources, money left due to how they've squandered everything for so long, who's going to be responsible then? In a place where no one is ever held accountable and it's simply a free-for-all to promote the personal agendas of the lobbyist and to get rich as quickly as possible.
The affordable healthcare act is one such program. A wonderful concept or idea which is completely unfeasible. What in the world, causes them to believe that a citizen will purchase things they cannot afford and do not want, the law they passed? Giving healthcare to those who are unable to provide it for themselves, is genuinely a good idea, but, isn't the responsibility of our government or the citizen's.
Our government, has spent billions bailing out private companies and thrown hundreds of millions of dollars down the drain with green energy projects. Many of these endeavors, which cost the taxpayers dearly are simply not the responsibility of our government. The stories of waste and corruption in Washington are endless, and at the end of the day and with all of their brilliance, they pay off the minimum amount due, the interest, on our debt.
If you are one of the millions of American families raising children, I would suggest you use our government as a template of what not to do. Anymore it's difficult to find anything good or righteous in what Washington is doing.
Repairing the damage to our economy would have to begin with spending less than is received. This could only be done, not by spending the money prior to its receipt, but after. Considering the government's spending habits just to flip to the backside of the equation would cost trillions. Trillions, they obviously don't have Without borrowing or printing it. They have been playing shell games with the money for so long, stealing from Peter to pay Paul that it would seem as though they have lost touch with what it means to be fiscally responsible. At what point well they be putting the brakes on their spending. When we reach 40 trillion and each individual citizen's share is around a hundred thousand, because every electrician I know is sitting around with that money, just waiting to send it to the government so they can be of help. Wrong, with our current situation I'd bet 20 percent of the population couldn't come up with their share which is currently about fifty grand.
The state of Social Security, like everything else is riddled with fraud and corruption. While the average taxpayer goes to work to pay into their Social Security retirement, there's a growing number of people trying to fake claims to get benefits. A few stories I'm aware of showing how widespread the abuse of Social Security, has become.
The first is a story about a man who spends much of his time on methamphetamines and on one particular occasion put out one of his eyes, when his meth pipe exploded in his face. His eye injury caused his disability and he now receives the Social Security payment each month.
Secondly, a story about a guy with a bad back, he's unable to work due to his lower back pain, so he receives a Social Security check each month. But, if the truth be known he spends most of his evenings playing in a band and stays up at night partying.
And lastly, a very sad story about two young girls who lost their father, they are sisters with different mothers. Well, a few months ago the girl's father passed away. He had broken out of a minimum detention facility after being told by his most current wife that she wanted a divorce, and here's the pickle, he doesn't have any children with his current wife and one mother is apparently unable to have custody of her child, and for one reason or another, neither can her parents, the child's grandparents. So, that child is living with another family and the other child and her mother live together, with her new husband. I couldn't know what his death well cost us, as taxpayers, but, with checks from the social security system going out to the current wife and both the girls individually, it won't be cheap. Social Security is not designed to handle payments to so many noncontributing factors.
So, in each story the Social Security administration steps up to the plate and mails a check, but there's absolutely no correlation between what someone has paid into Social Security and what they may receive back out of the system, as a recipient. Moreover, I can't quit figure out how they pay all these additional payments. In one case I'm aware of the people were entering into divorce when the self-inflected gunshot took the life of the man, but still being married the social security system stepped up and started sending checks to the would have been ex-wife.
No one takes any personal responsibility for their wellbeing or their actions. But, if you can manage to disable yourself without killing yourselves, you're just as eligible for benefits as if you were hurt by someone else, which hypothetically would make you a victim.
At the same time these fraudulent claims are being processed and paid, using up billions of dollars to pay claimants that didn't have much money invested, they are raising the retirement age, for the recipients, who are actually out working hard to survive on their own. The system should be insolvent about the same time I'm due to start receiving benefits in 15 years, or so. Frankly, I would be pleased as punch just to have back the money I've personally contributed over the past 35 years and I'd even be willing to let the government keep the interest.
Social Security, apparently is also socialism and wealth redistribution, after all if you're going to send a check to someone who didn't do anything to earn it, and at the same time extend the point at which a recipient, who's been saving for retirement can receive benefits is messed up to say the least.
It might have been a good idea, to have in trusted the government with our money, on behalf of our retirement, but obviously they couldn't handle the responsibility. They overspent, rolled the Social Security funds into the general fund, so they could keep spending and then started borrowing. Oh, As well as printing more money and devaluing the dollar, which is still a current policy to this day, and does little more than make whatever money we do have worth less.
The Social Security system should be overhauled completely. Questionable claims should be investigated and re-examined and personal responsibility should be reinstated at every level and in everything.
If our lawmakers would quit considering that one person's problems should be shared and resolved by all the rest of us, they would be doing us all a great service.
The United States Constitution starts out with the statement; "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America".
Our representation in Washington is responsible for the problems America is addressing. They have been wasting money on frivolous things and have caused these situations, unnecessarily, hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars lost on non-sense and fraud.
If you are anything like me and you've spent the past 35 years breaking your back to earn a living and struggling to keep up with the rising cost of being, an American, you're getting a little tired, exhausted actually, of the government waste and exhausted from watching Washington turn us into a bunch of socialist. It's the "it takes a village to raise a child" mentality, well today's kids are proof that it's not working to well. Parent's rights and personal responsibility are being eradicated from our society, but, need to be restored. Parents should be completely responsible for their children, not the government.
America, is like a ship on the ocean and we the people are all up on the promenade deck having margaritas around the pool while our government, is down in the hull drilling little holes. Were all up laughing in the sun as they throw our future away, by sinking us in a sea of debt. Now, how's that looking out for the welfare of our posterity? It's time we forget about saving the world and start thinking about saving America.
CHAPTER 2Family
The state of America's family is changing and due to the divorce rate and the fact, that there is no continuity from one generation to the next and family traditions and values aren't being passed down from generation to generation, is creating a disconnection among families. The current divorce rate is so high that most children have multiple sets of parent's and very few values.
The glamorizing of adultery by Hollywood has had a negative effect on our families. For the past 50 years the daytime soap operas on television have portrayed and created an environment, which not only tolerates adultery, but glamorizes it. Today's soaps have literally, everyone sleeping with everyone.
The breakdown, of our American families is causing the government to become more involved in our lives, which is exactly what they want, more control and more taxpayers. It's hard to believe that life could have been so different, just a few years ago.
Today's children are raised at day cares and being taught their values by people other than their parents, raised by others while the parents are at work struggling to keep up with their responsibilities.
When a child, who has come from a broken home, finds themselves in relationships it's more difficult for them to trust. The family has already been disrupted, and they resort to a self-survival mode, using whatever means necessary to insure their survival. I always thought I was born into what had to be one of the best families in the world, It was a lot like an episode of "Leave it to Beaver", a television show from the sixties. But, when my family changed and we all struggled to adapt to the decision of our parents, we became dysfunctional. I figured this out one day when my brother, whom I have all the respect in the world for, referred to our family as one that was dysfunctional. So, if divorce is the breeding ground for dysfunctional children, I'd suggest we work towards strengthening the family by taxing families as a whole, and not taxing the individuals of the family unit, individually. After all does the bible not say that when two, are joined in marriage, they become one. It also gives them that wonderful ability to become three, through God's Blessing's they are able to have a posterity. As the Constitution directs we should hold these things in reverence in fear of losing our blessing of Liberty, which is exactly what I believe is happening in America today.
As the bonds and relationships change with the changing American family, so to, does the way we express love for each other. People these days don't know how long they will be married, or weather, any partner can be trusted. So, a society of self-centered, self-absorbed people have been raised protecting themselves from the possibilities of something going wrong. The government at one time supported the idea of a strong family and the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, but lately, our politicians have other agenda's. Agenda's that are sponsored by lobbyist, and are in complete opposition to Christianity.
I would conclude that the state of our American families are in trouble. While the government works daily to destroy our American traditions, values and families for some political correctness they seek to embrace, America loses its identity, our economy weakens, our families and our citizens struggle to survive. Parents are raising their children's children, and sometimes their parents, as well. Survival, is a personal matter, and a family matter.
Visiting friends a few years ago, I had mentioned that the only thing left for the government to charge us for, was air. My friend's and I laughed, and all thought at the time that they, the government, would average out how many breaths of oxygen we consumed and from that, they could figure a way to charge us for our oxygen consumption. Because, you know they own all the natural resources. Only to learn about Obama care and the affordable care act, which requires all citizens to purchase and maintain health insurance or be fined and persecuted. Which you could say was a tax on being alive in America 2014.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Average Joe's State of the Union by Jon Marshall. Copyright © 2014 Jon Marshall. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse LLC.
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