Op-ed: 

Americans First...No Ifs, Ands, or Buts

By: Diane Sori / The Patriot Factor / Right Side Patriots / Right Side Patriots Radio

The Op-ed posted here is this authors opinion alone, and does not necessarily represent the views of blogspot.com or Google.

..But know that when said deportations do come to an end so too will the monies being spent to feed, house, clothe, educate, and medically take care of those who had no business coming here in the first place. A good thing indeed for the monies spent on those crossing our border illegally can now, if properly managed, be returned to the American people, most especially our seniors and our military veterans who seem to get the monetary shaft every time there is a “monetary crisis.”

Simply, a “monetary crisis“ was what we had been facing when Joe Biden was in office, what with the federal government giving out more dollars and cents than it took in. But now with DOGE exposing what is a truly massive amount of governmental monetary waste, the only fair thing to do is take the monies that will be saved when the deportations are complete and either put those monies back into the programs that saw Biden putting American citizens last or simply give it back to we taxpayers...call it “personal stimulus checks“ if need be. But either way a fair amount of those saved monies should also be used to aid our veterans in need for it's shameful that there are close to 33,000 homeless veterans in our country today...veterans who served our country well. It's way past time that the federal government...as well as state and local governments...start spending more monetarily to help serve our veterans and their needs instead of serving those who...and I cannot say this enough...should never have been allowed to come here in the first place... Read entire article here.

Op-ed: 

Americans First...No Ifs, Ands, or Buts

By: Diane Sori / The Patriot Factor / Right Side Patriots / Right Side Patriots Radio

The Op-ed posted here is this authors opinion alone, and does not necessarily represent the views of blogspot.com or Google.

Whether some like it or not the deportation of illegals is well under way thanks to President Trump. And while it currently involves only those with criminal records, eventually it will expand to encompass what I call the “rank and file” illegals, as in those who came here solely for their promised “free stuff”...”stuff” which in reality is anything but “free.” Why so...because it's our taxpayer dollars that help to fund all the programs and goodies the illegals receive while Americans are hurting financially due to the four disastrous Biden/Harris years.

But know that when said deportations do come to an end so too will the monies being spent to feed, house, clothe, educate, and medically take care of those who had no business coming here in the first place. A good thing indeed for the monies spent on those crossing our border illegally can now, if properly managed, be returned to the American people, most especially our seniors and our military veterans who seem to get the monetary shaft every time there is a “monetary crisis.”

Simply, a “monetary crisis“ was what we had been facing when Joe Biden was in office, what with the federal government giving out more dollars and cents than it took in. But now with DOGE exposing what is a truly massive amount of governmental monetary waste, the only fair thing to do is take the monies that will be saved when the deportations are complete and either put those monies back into the programs that saw Biden putting American citizens last or simply give it back to we taxpayers...call it “personal stimulus checks“ if need be. But either way a fair amount of those saved monies should also be used to aid our veterans in need for it's shameful that there are close to 33,000 homeless veterans in our country today...veterans who served our country well. It's way past time that the federal government...as well as state and local governments...start spending more monetarily to help serve our veterans and their needs instead of serving those who...and I cannot say this enough...should never have been allowed to come here in the first place.

So what are some of the programs and services that our federal taxpayer dollars are being spent on to aid those entering our country illegally? To start with know that, in general, most of the welfare programs that are focused on illegals, costs us billions of dollars each year...billions of dollars that should be going to help struggling middle and lower class American citizens. And also know that in many cases the particular benefits in question sometimes sees illegals receiving cash payments or “direct deposit checks” courtesy of our currently written “Tax Code” laws. Maybe the DOGE needs to start looking into these codes for who wouldn't want to come here knowing that “Uncle Sam” seems more than willing to “foot the bill,” and in return all that's asked is to always vote the Democrat party line.

And while we all tend to laugh at the political bureaucracy and their “rub-it-into-our-faces” shenanigans, if truth be told those who are part and parcel of said bureaucracy are smart enough to know that few, if any, illegals will ever bite the hand of those who seemingly attend to their every need, want, and wish..

Now, here are but three of the specific federal programs catering to illegals along with the sums of monies having been laid out in each case. Those three federal programs are welfare, Medicare, and Medicaid, the program where illegals receive medical benefits for emergency services. 

In fact, in 2023...the year I've based most of this article's figures on because it was one of the busiest years ever for illegal crossings...our federal government did spend almost $66.5 billion on these folks. This includes the more than $23 billion in federal medical expenditures spent on illegals...spent while many Americans, even to this day, still cannot afford health insurance...along with $11.6 billion in welfare benefits ranging from food stamps to, in some cases, SSI (Supplemental Security Income) additions, while many Americans continued living from paycheck to paycheck.

And dare not forget that our Social Security system... what was originally set up to be “ensured income” security for retired older American replete with “inflation-adjusted payments”...still finds fraud being committed by illegals as well, which when added into the cost of Medicare and Medicaid fraud, sees we taxpayers being forced, in one way or another, to bear that monetary burden as well. In fact, when you add in all “improper payments” issued by Social Security...including the cost incurred when illegals either steal a Social Security card or create a false identity to obtain said card and corresponding benefits...said monies equate to about $3 billion per year. And when you then add together all the above stated numbers, you'll see that close to $70 billion dollars of our taxpayer funded monies went to illegals in 2023 not to “We the American People” who in many cases are still economically hurting. Remember, even a change in presidency for the better does not always mean that the changes promised can be achieved within the first “one hundred” days.

Now here's something interesting regarding Social Security fraud itself for while the fraud committed by illegals might not be that big in number, illegals in general do affect Social Security, and hence its monthly payouts. How so...because illegals not only take jobs away from American citizens but by their getting paid less than citizens do, and with Social Security being funded by “dedicated payroll taxes” paid by both employees and their employers as well as by income taxes paid by some beneficiaries...less monies go into the “Social Security Trust Fund” then normally would. Simple math then dictates that less monies coming in proportionately translates into less monies proportionately being paid out to legal beneficiaries.

And this you, dear reader, might also find interesting, In 2024 alone...as per the Social Security Administration (SSA)...about 68 million Americans received Social Security benefits each month which resulted in about $1.5 trillion in benefits being paid out last year, So how were those monies being divvied out? The average monthly benefit for retired workers in 2024 was estimated at $1,927, which included a 3.2% cost-of-living (COLA) adjustment with the benefit rising to to $1,976 at the beginning of 2025, which equates to roughly a $50 increase per month per beneficiary.

Wow! A whopping extra $50 per month per beneficiary... now retirees, the disabled (who also do receive Social Security benefits), and America's elderly can either go buy an extra carton of eggs and an extra loaf of bread or maybe turn up the heat in their homes...while illegals (in NYC for example) relax in luxury hotels with their bodies warm and bellies full...sarcastically and very angrily said of course.

And approximately how much does “each” illegal border crosser cost us for their anything but “free stuff”...in 2024, how about $8,776. And when you multiply that number by the number of persons in an illegal family...lets say a mother, father, and two children...that number equals $35,104 annually which divided by 12 months equals $2,925 per month which is more than the average monthly Social Security check is for one who has paid into the system their entire working life.

But this monetary disaster is not only being committed on the federal level, but on the state and local levels as well, especially in “blue” states and cities. Here are but a few examples with the first being, as per DOGE, that in 2023 alone, the Biden/Harris administration saw both inflation and the cost of food staples rising...saw $150.7 billion of our hard earned taxpayer dollars being spent on giving illegals a continuation of their “free ride”...with said cost inching even higher in 2024. And to make a bad situation even worse, many major blue state liberal cities were catering to illegals as well while turning their backs on needy Americans, our homeless veterans included.

Here are but three examples:

1. Since 2022, New York City has spent over $5.22 billion to provide shelter, food, and other so deemed “essential” services on the almost quarter of a million illegals now still overwhelming the city. 

2. The sanctuary city of Chicago...a city currently facing a budget shortfall of $1 billion...saw its mayor spending over $574.5 million on the 51,643 illegals that Texas Gov. Abbott rightfully bused to them. 

3. The city of Denver...yet another sanctuary city...has spent $356+ million to “accommodate” the needs of the the 42,911 illegals also bused there from Texas.

And all the examples I just stated are but the tip of the illegals monetary “free stuff” iceberg... an iceberg where “Peter is being robbed to pay Paul,” with “Peter” in many cases being we taxpayers pocketbooks. Simply, these are monies that would be better spent on programs for elderly American citizens, our homeless veterans in need, and on those of “We the People” who still do live paycheck to paycheck, and who collectively still see no end in sight to the illegal nightmare we might never wake up from. Let the deportations continue on...let the monies saved be used to help American citizens...American citizens alone. Case closed.

Copyright © 2025 / Diane Sori / The Patriot Factor / All rights reserved.

 

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For more political commentary please visit my RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS partner Craig Andresen's blog The National Patriot to read his latest article, The Second American Revolution 2.0.

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RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS...LIVE!                                           

Tomorrow, Tuesday, February 25th  from 7pm to 8:30pm EST, RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS Craig Andresen and Diane Sori discuss 'Americans First...No Ifs, Ands, or Buts'; 'The Second American Revolution 2.0'; and important news of the day. Hope you can tune in to RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS on https://rspradio1.com Click 'LISTEN LIVE' starting at 6:50pm EST, show begins at 7pm EST.

 

Op-ed: 

The Social Security Conundrum 

By: Diane Sori / The Patriot Factor / Right Side Patriots / Right Side Patriots Radio

"How can I in good conscience vote for a bill that proposes massive expansion of social programs when vital programs like Social Security and Medicare face insolvency and benefits can start being reduced as soon as 2026 for Medicare and in 2033 for Social Security?" - Senator Joe Manchin (WV-D)

Seems that Sen. Manchin has proven the old adage that even a broken clock is right twice a day.

How sad that in this case the broken clock is not Social Security...which I will focus on in this article... per se, but is once again the federal government for it's the federal government that is the one who seems to be deliberately bankrupting this program. And while some economists now claim that Social Security's “quickly-accelerating insolvency” is primarily due to COVID-19 (isn't everything Covid related these days) along with the growing number of seniors now receiving benefits due to having left the workforce by retiring early...retiring before they had originally planned to...the truth is that this is but a very small part of why Social Security is in trouble.

So what exactly is the main reason for Social Security troubles? Simply, it's because the federal government has been transferring monies out of the Social Security Trust Fund since 1935 when FDR signed the Social Security Act into law. Created as a social insurance program...a federal “safety net” if you will for general welfare for the unemployed and the disadvantaged...the programs main purpose, however, was to make sure that retired workers age 65 and older had a continuing source of income based upon their lifetime of payroll tax contributions.

And yet over the years Congress has transferred upwards of $17.5 billion out of this trust fund...with no president to date having vetoed said transfers...and gone instead to help fund things like roads and bridges, foreign aid, the Iraq war, and now the left's social issues agenda.

Nothing like stabbing seniors and the American worker in the back. And it's worse now than ever before no matter that beneficiaries are now set to see their monthly checks increasing in 2022, via a 5.9% cost of living increase...an increase that equates to but a nominal monthly increase dollars and cents wise...while inflation continues to rise to a 30-year high basically wiping out said 5.9% increase.

A catch 22 situation if ever there was one.

Now here let's delve just a bit more into the basics of how Social Security works. First, the money you currently pay through taxes is not the same money you will receive upon your reaching eligibility age. Remember, Social Security is really what's known as a “pay-as-you-go system,” meaning that the funds you and your employer now pay into is actually being used to fund payments to folks who are currently receiving benefits. And while beneficiary numbers are growing, America's workforce is shrinking due to our population aging, retiring earlier, and living longer...what economists call a “declining worker-to-beneficiary ratio.” 

And it's here where mere logic alone should dictate that a shrinking workforce translates into less monies going into the Social Security Trust Fund, which in turn means less monies will be available for when the next generation of American workers reaches retirement age.

However, while most folks agree that Social Security is in trouble, I don't think that Social Security will go “belly-up” as some leading economists continue to predict, because the fact remains that as long as workers and employers continue to pay payroll taxes, Social Security will not actually run out of money. But yet I do agree with other economists who are saying that those receiving Social Security will see their benefits being cut by a minimum of 20% as another way to help keep the program solvent.

But no matter which outcome you personally see as happening, all economists seem to agree that one of these two scenarios will occur within the next 10-years or so with the second scenario, if it happens, then basically negating any additional monies the recipients had been receiving to date. 

And why...because simple math dictates that said beneficiaries would then only be receiving about 78% of their usually received monthly benefits check. And while Congress is currently working to prevent this benefit cut by introducing a new bill...Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust...this bill is nothing but a band-aid measure, so to speak, as all it does is move the date Social Security will need to cut benefits back to 2038, while allowing the current (socialist-leaning) administration more time to find a more permanent yet, I'm sure, not ideal solution.

And, know that besides the aforementioned transferring of funds from Social Security into other areas, there is another key reason for this “doomsday” scenario...as some call it... and it's not just because the funds needed for future Social Security payments are not being “monetarily replenished” via the “dedicated payroll tax,” but because the federal government is investing Social Security funds in securities...securities supposedly used to fund both Social Security's principal and interest...securities that are, however, not yielding the amounts of monies that had been projected.

In more simplistic terms, the federal government has not invested our Social Security monies wisely nor in a timely manner.

Now to put all this information into a more consolidated and dedicated form, know that while the Social Security Trust Fund currently has $2.9 trillion on hand...which might seem like a lot of money but in reality is not what with, as previously mentioned, more and more folks now reaching both retirement age and living and thus receiving benefits longer than ever before...the extra monies currently being allotted to try and negate any future inflation increases won't matter at all for reality itself dictates that benefits will indeed have to be cut in order to keep the Social Security Trust Fund solvent. But also know that any and all monies remaining in the trust fund will then see those monies being dispersed only in relation to whatever funding is still available for the government to actually disperse.

And while it is inevitable that those deserving of what is rightfully theirs...after all they've earned it...will sadly see their monthly Social Security checks getting smaller and smaller, they will also continue to bear witness to the “element's” ongoing call for monetary “equity” continuing to trump “equality” and “fairness.” And this simply means that unless the bleeding heart liberals wake up to the fact that the current Social Security system itself will continue treading on tenuous grounds, benefits will continue to be paid out, but that eventually even the monies coming in will not be enough to meet the increasing Social Security demands.

But you must be wondering why I say that “equity” still trumps “equality” and “fairness” in regards to Social Security? I say it because while we know that while Social Security derives most of its revenue from monies collecting from those currently working and who willingly pay into the system to monetarily protect them in their so-called “golden years,” we continue to see government investments...stock market investments included...investments which supposedly help to sustain the program...the fact remains that even Social Security has not been exempt from the ire of a growing number of folks who think that “the wealth”...the “equity” so to be speak...must be shared “equally” by all whether they paid into Social Security or not. “I want what you have and I want it without having to work for it,” has sadly become the battle cry of certain minority folks of both the legal (as in the BLM sorts) and the illegal kind...folks who know well how to bilk the system and who see their minority status as the means by which they're entitled to do so.

So with America's changing racial demographics coupled with more and more Baby Boomers reaching retirement age, we see the number of those actually paying into the Social Security system becoming a smaller percentage of America's population, which allows for overtly partisan political posturing of the very worst kind. And this partisan posturing is at the expense of those who are truly entitled to Social Security...as in older Americans and also the disabled...folks who will now be forced out of necessity to get by on whatever amount the government decides to pay them.

So what is a possible solution to Social Securities woes? Simply, make those in Congress be forced to live on a per monthly sum of money even less than what Social Security currently pays beneficiaries, what with inflation now and in the near future continuing to drive up the cost of goods and services even higher with each passing day...thanks of course to Joe Biden's and the Democrats dangerously foolish economic policies. Only then might things be different for those relying on Social Security to meet their daily living expenses, but than again with behind the scenes shenanigans and payoffs always going on maybe it won't be.

Preparing for the worst and hoping for the best might sadly be all that is left for those forced to live on Social Security...a true conundrum indeed. Case closed.

Copyright © 2021 Diane Sori / The Patriot Factor / All rights reserved. 

                                                       

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RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS...LIVE!

RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS will hopefully return either tomorrow (12/14) or this Friday (12/18) if Craig is feeling better from his having Covid-19.