In an open letter to Bert Dodson, the Lynchburg Tea Party defends the existence of Social Security as consistent with constitutional values:
So, please tell me Mr. Dodson, and tell all who read this letter, where precisely, and which Tea Party you refer to, that you claim has posted as their goal closing down the Social Security System and leaving those of us on Social Security and receiving checks stranded.
I remind you that Social Security was originally established as a compulsory savings program to ensure that people unable or unwilling to plan and save for their eventual retirement would be forced to contribute funds by FICA that would be saved for them, draw interest to grow the principal, and then be paid out to them when they retire.
That was all changed by a Democrat controlled Congress and a Democrat President named Lyndon Johnson, who broke the promise, and stole all of the money from the Social Security Lock Box, and changed the FICA to a Tax that is paid into the General Fund to be spent at the discretion of Congress.
SS checks are now paid from the General Fund, and we are reaching the point that collections of FICA will be less than what is paid out to SS Recipients. The Lockbox is empty, containing nothing but IOU’s for the money stolen and spent by the Congress and Presidents both Democrat and Republican on anything but Social Security. And, the SS system has been turned into a welfare fund to support all sorts of freeloaders who have never contributed anything to the SS Program!
The Social Security system as presently constituted does in fact resemble in every respect a classic Ponzi scheme!
The letter is worth reading, because the author is absolutely spot-on.
Still, the very notion that the Lynchburg Tea Party has staked out a claim that many other Tea Partiers have asked to have defunded and devolved is a brief glimpse into the inner workings of the movement as a whole — namely that the leaders have about as much control over the movement as anyone else.
Socialism is bad, unless it’s working for you… and then it’s not socialism, but the debt we pay for a civilized society (all debts to Oliver Wendell Holmes aside).
