"In 2017 we will begin paying more in benefits than we collect in taxes. Without changes, by 2041 the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted and there will be enough money to pay only about 78 cents for each dollar of scheduled benefits."
These estimations are based on the intermediate assumptions from the Social Security Trustees' Annual Report to Congress. I wonder if the estimate took into account the next three and half years under a certain administration, but I digress...
How can an agency that collects money out of people's pay checks reach a point where it pays out more than it collects?!
When I hear about the corruption and outrageous stupidity in our national entities it makes me wish that I knew more about what the problems were, how they got that way, what the solution is, and how to put it into action. It seems like such a mess that it overwhelms me to even want to think about it, but I think I do need to think about it. And I think all of us need to think about it. There comes a point where it isn't enough to be complacently ignorant and try and go about our lives minding our own business.
"...All experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." -The Declaration of Independence.
Our representatives seem to have forgotten that they work for us, we don't work for them. I don't pretend to have all of the answers and remedies, but I do think we need to study the Constitution; be more aware of the bills and legislature that are being proposed and passed; make the most informed voting decisions we can make (beginning on a local level and expanding from there); become more educated about what is going on (from a variety of biases); and as Latter Day Saints, do everything we can to fortify our personal righteousness and share those values and principles that bring peace and happiness with the rest of the world.
American citizens have a great responsibility. Brigham Young stated, “Will the Constitution be destroyed? No: it will be held inviolate by this people; and, as Joseph Smith said, 'The time will come when the destiny of this nation will hang upon a single thread. At that critical juncture, this people will step forth and save it from the threatened destruction.' It will be so.” (Journal of Discourses, 7:15.)
I want to do whatever is in my power to "step forth" -- I love my country, and I hope for its future to be more commendable than its present. My sentiments are that of these lines from "America the Beautiful"
"America! America! God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law."
Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law."
