Most Americans, both conservative and liberal realize that this is a capitalistic society. Most Americans also have no desire to change that fact; we all like the idea of having the opportunity to make however much money we’d like to make. The difference between conservatives and liberals is that conservatives portend to hate socialism as liberals accept that some socialistic programs, such as Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare are necessary in a free, capitalistic society. Conservatives like their socialistic programs, even if they’re in denial about them.
But most conservatives seem to buck against socialism, even though without it many of them would have a struggle when they grew old and likely many of them would not survive for long.
What has happened within the last several years is that Republican lawmakers have made socialism out to be some kind of evil that use to be connected with communism and an enemy to capitalism. This is not true in the least; socialism is instead a balance for capitalism and without it, our country would be a cold and uncaring place for many Americans.
Of course, a country which its economy is based on socialism would be a country that didn’t provide opportunity to its citizens and history has proven that kind of economy to be a failure. Our economy on the other hand is based on capitalism and that’s what makes it a land of opportunity. But if our country completely wiped out all forms of socialism and depended its economic structure entirely on capitalism, maybe it would work for a few in our society; those with means, but for the majority of us it would be disastrous and many of us would fall victim to old age without any sort of means of survival.
The real question is, and a fair question would be; how much socialism should we have for a capitalistic society? Right now, do we have too much, too little or just the right balance? Instead we have politicians telling us that we have too much and instead we should turn our social programs into capitalistic programs, such as turning the money we pay into our Social Security into the stock market so that it has a bigger return on it. But what they don’t tell you is that if we had done that when President George W. Bush first proposed it, it would have evaporated as many Americans’ pensions did during the Great Recession of 2008.
The stock market is volatile and putting the nation’s Social Security dollars into it would have put a very important safety net for many poor and middle class Americans when they grow old into the same hands that gambled our money in the deregulated housing market, which in turn caused us taxpayers to bail them out.
I’m not saying that we can’t improve upon how our Social Security is invested and how it’s used, but simply to put it in the hands of freewheeling greedy bankers who have proven to this nation that they’re more interested in turning a profit than they are in protecting the accumulated interests of this country’s people, would be ludicrous. We should first start by protecting our Social Security from future politicians and especially presidents, who would take funds from that so-called lock box and hand out tax cuts to the wealthy, such as President George W. Bush did during his term.
We’ve been told that both Social Security and Medicare has to be fixed or they’ll both run out of money. I understand that, as most Americans I believe do but changing Medicare into a voucher program as Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan would do, would put too much of a limit on seniors to pay for their health care and many would end up unable to afford their health care; is that what we want for our seniors, or even ourselves when we reach our golden years?
There’s also a plan to lift the age of retirement when someone qualifies for Social Security which to me is another bad idea. This would unduly affect the poor who statistically die much younger than those who can afford good health care who live longer. A better plan would be to remove the cap that limits the income level someone pays into Social Security and then raise the amount collected through payroll tax in a way that wouldn’t add too much of a financial burden on lower incomes.
What we need is dialog and politicians willing to work together for solutions. We also don’t need certain groups, such as the Tea Party crowd pushing Republican lawmakers to take uncompromising positions, freezing our Congress into a stalemate. They must understand that we’re all Americans and we’re all in this boat together. To be so arrogant to think that their opinion is all that matters is not only inconsiderate but it is detrimentally disastrous to the country as a whole.
First we need to stop badmouthing socialism and all realize that we need a balance for this nation, otherwise we will find ourselves drowning in capitalism in a way that we begin to turn our backs on the very needy, with excuses that it’s all their own fault. Let us instead realize that we’re a caring people, we Americans and we’re blessed because we are.