Train Wreck

"The very people it is meant to help are rejecting it in favor of the current regime." - Uncle Ken

Assuming, for the sake of discussion, that the above statement is true, why do you suppose that is?

I am reminded of a local Cheboygan legend that may or may not be true, but it's a good story regardless. Back in the lumbering days, there was a lumber baron named M.D. Olds. He was a bit of an eccentric, known for firing an employee when he was mad at him, and hiring him back on the same day after his anger had cooled. Olds' operation included a small steam locomotive that hauled logs out of the woods on a narrow gauge track that had been laid for that express purpose. One day the locomotive operator, who felt that he had been fired by Olds once too often, deliberately drove the train off the end of the track and mired it in the swamp. The engine was never recovered and people reported seeing it rusting away out there for decades. Back in the 70s, one of our local newsmen wanted to do a story about this historical event. He talked to several old timers who claimed to know exactly where the derelict locomotive was located. He went out with them one at a time, each old timer taking him to a different location, and none of them leading him to the actual locomotive. "I can't understand it", they would say, "It was here 20 years ago." The reporter spent the rest of his long career searching for the elusive engine, and never found it. His fruitless quest became a legend in its own right. So it is said, even unto this day, "You're wasting your time, just like Gordon Turner with his lost locomotive."

That disgruntled locomotive operator is just like those people who turned against the liberal agenda. Maybe it was meant to help them but, in their perception, it wasn't actually helping them. To avenge their perceived betrayal, they ran the train off the tracks and mired it in the swamp. Now it's no good to anyone, least of all themselves. Decades from now, when they go looking for it, they won't be able to find it, leading others to doubt that it ever existed.

To my knowledge, Social Security is not funded by the income tax, it's funded by the Social Security tax, that payroll deduction labeled "FICA", which stands for "Federal Insurance Contributions Act". The reason it's running out of money is that people are living longer than they used to, and people are having less kids than they used to. At some point in the near future, if it hasn't already happened, there will be more people drawing out than there are people paying in. At that point, they will have to increase the tax and/or decrease the benefits, or the system will go broke. That's not to say that the current tax "reform" proposal isn't an abomination before the Lord, but it has nothing to do with Social Security. Unless something pertaining to Social Security has been stuck in there somewhere, which is possible because the bill is so long and complex that nobody has ever read the whole thing through. Obamacare was like that, and people are still arguing about it.