Why Don't Politicians Tell the Truth About Social Security?

Star Parker / Townhall Columnist

The boards of trustees of our Social Security and Medicare programs just issued their annual report, and we learn, once again, that both programs are fiscally insolvent.

 

The trustees project there will be insufficient funds from the Social Security program to pay its obligations beginning in 2034, 18 years from now, and Medicare will fall short in 2028, 12 years from now.

Given that both of these programs play outsized roles both in the federal budget -- combined they represent 41 percent of federal spending in 2015 -- and in the personal lives of just about every American citizen, you'd think there would be a big uproar about this.

But the silence is deafening.

In a recent Gallup poll listing 17 issues "extremely/very important" to voters in their considerations for the presidential race, neither Social Security nor Medicare are even on the list, which may be the reason why neither of the presumptive presidential candidates seem to be too serious about this.

AARP asked the Clinton and Trump campaigns how both plan to deal with Social Security.

Hillary Clinton is so unconcerned about the massive projected shortfalls that she actually wants to expand the program. She wants to transform Social Security into another huge welfare program by expanding benefits for lower-income earners and raising taxes on higher earners.

Like Clinton, Others Were ‘Extremely Careless’ Regarding Handling Classified Information–But They Got Pinched

Matt Vespa / Toownhall Tipsheet

 

Katie wrote about the FBI’s decision recommending charges not be brought forward against Hillary Clinton after the prolonged investigation into her email use. This is what was said by FBI Director Comey during the briefing this morning:

From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified” to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent. 

The FBI also discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not in the group of 30,000 that were returned by Secretary Clinton to State in 2014. We found those additional e-mails in a variety of ways. Some had been deleted over the years and we found traces of them on devices that supported or were connected to the private e-mail domain. Others we found by reviewing the archived government e-mail accounts of people who had been government employees at the same time as Secretary Clinton, including high-ranking officials at other agencies, people with whom a Secretary of State might naturally correspond.

State Department: ISIS jihad attacks are signs of US success against ISIS
By Robert Spencer / Jihad Watch

 

When the Islamic State jihadis lose they lose, and when they win, they lose, also — as long as the American people don’t catch on to how they’re being played for fools. The blinkered Blinken, and the Obama administration in general, almost certainly know better. They just hope you don’t. If Blinken is correct, the […]

Read in browser »

 

Former MUSLIM NATIONAL GUARDSMAN ARRESTED FOR plotting ISIS attacks in America

Pamela Geller  Atlas Shrugs


The National Guard, no less.

Mohamad Bailor Jalloh later said he would like to carry out an attack in the style of Fort Hood mass murdering Muslim Nidal Hasan. He also praised Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, who killed five U.S. service members in Chattanooga, Tenn., last year. And Jalloh wanted to assassinate “someone known for organizing contests for cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.”

“Former National Guardsman accused of plotting attack to support ISIS,” By Joe Heim, Washington Post, July 5:

A former member of the Army National Guard living in Sterling, Va., is accused of trying to plan a domestic terrorist attack on behalf of the Islamic State. Bailor Jalloh was arrested Sunday and charged with attempting to...

Read the whole entry »

     

• Email to a friend •