BY RUSSELL TURNER
GETTING A MULE’S ATTENTION
I can remember my grandfather telling about the way he farmed when he was a young man. He used mules to plow the ground and I would laugh when he would tell about having a mule that didn’t want to work, he said many times he had to slap them across the head to get their attention. Over the past few years we Americans have developed an attitude similar to a mule; if we don’t start changing our attitudes all of us will get the equivalent of a slap across our heads. We Americans live for today and don’t worry about tomorrow, we have developed an attitude where we are content to let someone else run our business and provide for our every need. Several generations of our people have been exposed to countless politicians who promised to provide all of our hearts desire if we would only vote for them. For a while our system could absorb the bad decisions and the misplaced loyalty, but no longer.
In our nation’s short history we have become the richest and most powerful country in the world, but even with all of that wealth we do have limits. Across our nation states and cities are having huge budget problems concerning un-funded government employee pensions plans. Many of the retirees were promised benefits that were unsustainable and to make the problem worse politicians in the past failed to properly budget the money necessary to make the pensions solvent. Too many election year promises have been made and too many Americans don’t educate themselves about the true state of our country’s dilemma.
Recently I read an article from the Heritage Foundation about the condition of the Social Security system. Most people think that the money they pay into the system will be there for their retirement, sadly that isn’t the case. The money you pay into the system goes to pay the benefits of the current retirees. In the future, workers of that day will pay your benefits. In the past, early recipients of Social Security received more than six dollars in benefits for every dollar paid in Social Security taxes. Today and in the future, recipients will receive less than a dollar in benefits for every dollar paid in Social Security taxes.
My generation was raised to save some of our income and to put it into an interest bearing account to be used in later years. Due to the manipulating of the interest rate by the Federal Reserve, many savers are hunting for a better return and are transferring their savings into riskier investments. It amazes me how many people become alarmed with a low return on their savings but fail to see the problem in the Social Security system. It is said that ignorance is bliss, but I feel there is nothing blissful about having a poor return on the money you are forced by law to pay into a failing system.
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