Yeah don't hold your breath Archer. I don't get most of what you say and don't want you turning blue while I try to decipher it. Yes it is all promises and the promise of social security has come true for millions or 100's of millions since its inception in the 1930's. WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR EXCEPT FORGETTING THE PAST AND FAILING TO LET KNOWLEDGE OF IT LEAD US WITH FAITH IN TO THE FUTURE. Obviously you have already forgotten the past and I do not know if you can be revived to faith in the future. Archer it is a matter of public record that people have always hated the income tax since its inception in 1913 or so when it was at 2% and only applied to the richest folk. Likewise employees especially young ones have always felt that they would never collet SS. I know I felt that way. Each and every person with a SS Number can get their annual statement of account which tells them how much they have paid in and what their projected benefit will be. Archer history has shown that that many will starve without SS. What you are advocating is a return to Dickensian England and starving masses. Maybe that is okay but it is a value judgemnt and many have rejected that model in favor of the Social Security System. As far as faith in the future goes have you never educated a kid all the way through college in the hope that he might amount to something. There are no promises there just money to the wind and hope and prayer.

Archer you never cease to amaze. The Fed Budget is say 2 trillion a year. Tax collections are say 1.7 trillion a year so Sam sells 300 billion of bonds. So how can you in good conscience say, "Are you among those that actually believe taxes pay for secure borders, welfare, roads." What do think all of these figures are about? What do you think we have Secretaries of Treasury etceteta for? In your understanding are all of these facts, and figures and potentates just Disneywolrd and Tinseltown Characters without any foundation in reality. I mean really you are far out!

Warren what makes you think people today our any smarter than people in the 1910's or 1920's. These people did not save and in the 1930's when working people were out of work and their old mom's and dad's were starving because they did not save in the earlier years, Roosevelt started SS. Some if not many European countries had such systems much earlier. SS started as "welfare" for these old non savers. I respectfully suggest as studies have shown that just as people do not save today in their 401Ks they also would not save or invest their social security taxes. This is a sad state of affairs but do you want to live in a world of beggars and starving people.

Youin are doing fine Archer, hang in there. Reagan and the rich crowd got tax cuts in the '80's and '90's. Congress raises and lowers taxes all of the time. Do you not remember when Clinton spoke to fat cats and said "Maybe I raised your taxes to much". Your argument that government cannot do this is false. Our nation is rich beyond our wildest dreams. The wealth is in homes, and cars, and yachts, estates, etcetera. It is a matter of public policy how the wealth of the nation (commonwealth) should be allocated between private and public purposes. SS has not been totally raided since the fund is not allowed to be invested in the stock market for example but must be invested into the government in the form of bonds. Thus the bonds are secure as are faith is in our government. Would you perhaps prefer that the SS Fund be invested in World Com, Enron, or Countrywide. The bad news is that the tax cuts received by the rich in the last 20 years must be borne by the rich of the next 20 years, and that just does not seem fair.

Thanks Warren for saying what I was simply to flabergasted and breathless to say, thus I resorted to an epithet. Some quotes just are not worth are time to discuss. Some on this site will fall for any quote that fits there incendiary view of things. These are the guys who see intentionl conspiracies and covert operations around every corner. I think they are not only ill-informed but psychologically or pathologically ill.

I am glad I got y'all's attention. Of course I was being facetious about printing money and getting the US Gov't out of debt. And of course the Fed guy was kidding about creating wealth by printing money. To pay off the Federal Debt and to balance the annual budget we must give up real wealth ourselves. Do with less consumer products etcetera and transfer the saved wealth to the US Government. Economics is the allocation of scarce resources, the guns versus butter argument. We need to decide agaan about whether to have more and continued tax cuts for the rich or to pay off the debt. AS YOU GUYS SEEM TO AGREE CREATING GREENBACKS IS NOT THE ANSWER. So glad to find y'all are awake. It is refreshing.

A** hole.

If this is true why don't they print 10 trillion and get us out of debt. And print another 3 trillion each year to pay the current budget and stop taxing us with income and social security taxes. Obviously this guy is a comedian. Money is a measure of wealth. One persons expense is another persons income. Money just measures the transfer of value from labor to product etcetera. Just printing money devalues all of these transactions and it don't happen. There is only about 500 billion dollars extant in the country and from it a 15 or 20 trillion dollar economey is run.

History and current facts show that people given the opportunity do not save as much as experts say that they should. Companies have created opt out 401K's rather than opt in because people seem not to be able to make the decision. When you attack these programs do you pause to look back at how, when and why they were created. Polls show that when the politicians attack and try to end social security they lose. Why I ask why do all industrialized nations have such systems? I respectfully suggest it is because it is a GOOD THING not a bad thing.

Agreed as long as we have guys like Reagan and Bushes running things. Their is more than enough money to do anything we want to do in this country. All we need is politcal will.

Archer you make some mistakes in your analysis or just have a lack of knowledge of how the thing works. SS payments do yes go into the General Fund and the SS System gets government bonds in return. The General Fund supported by income and other taxes thus gets a boost from the inflow of SS taxes which have been in excess of SS withdrawals for years. The General Fund owes SS several trillions of dollars (along with owing the Chineese trillions also). In 2020 or so when SS starts paying out for than it is taking in then they will call cash their bonds and the General Fund will have to come up with the money. Reagan cut taxes and raised SS Taxes in 1984 and financed his and the Bushes deficit spending partly with Social Securtiy Taxes. It was increased taxes on the poor in the form of SS tax raises and tax cuts for the rich. This policy must be reversed. The rich must now be taxed to pay off the bonds the government issued on money it borrowed from Social Security. In the end it is Americans faith in each other that drives the whole thing.

The quote is true but fails to state what social security is. It is a social contract that insures that old people will not starve due to their inability to work. Virtually every nation, tribe, and people have some mechanism to take care of old folks. In the old days "social security" was having a lot of kids to take care of you and the farm when you got old. Since many families had a lot of kids they over populated the planet for their own selfish interests. I suggest that the social security payments received by Americans generally get immediately spent and thus are a substantial impetus to the economy. Now I will read what y'all have said.

Has got to be a middle ground between living like he describes or living like mice and rats as many are depicted in the literature of industrial England by Charles Dickens.

Mike if Sam fails with 10 trillion dollars of debt we all fail and will be at the hands of the hordes of the world, without any borders to protect. That is what you and Archer are fighting for!

First eliminating Income Tax and replacing it with Sales Tax will not eliminate the IRS it will just transfer audits of individuals to audits of businessess. Have y'all never heard of State Sales Tax Auditors. They are more feared than the Feds and they have less fear of trampling on "taxpayer rights". Progressive income taxes exist in all industrialized countries and are to keep societies out of reverting to feudalism where a few own everything. America will never be free until the citizens are willing to support borders, military, etcetera. This can not be done without money. Read the histroy of 1300 Hungary and how their King was praised upon his death for his raising taxes on rich and poor alike, building up the Army and driving out the Turkish occupiers. The no tax big debt folks are actually working for the demise of our country but are too backward to even know it.

You need new friends Mike. My friends and neighbors have not abandoned the roots of frredom, liberty, and morality. I like your idea of trying.

The UN is a vital adjunct to American policy. If the isolationist Republicans had supported Wilson's League of Nations as did many Europeian countries we would not have had a WWII. Isolationism is an easy policy to adopt when you live in a continental nation like the US. Hell we don't need anybody. But for the nations of Europe and Asia who must cooperate and communicate with each other these international organizations are vital. To ignore the rest of the world as Mr. Langer chose to do is childish.

This quote is stating no opinin but an assessement of the facts on the ground in Morocco as assessed by that government. The government in this quote is not saying this is good or bad but just a fact. There was nothing covert about the founding of the UN, International Monetary Fund, or the WTO. If you read your papers duing any of these eras you would have had an ear full. For once Archer you are correct. There was no conspiracy in founding the Fed either. Welcome to the bright light of day Archer, I am glad you have stepped out of the shadows of covert conspiracy theories. This was a full page add in your hometown paper.

"Peace through law" - Anonymous you have missed the history boat if you don't understand the relationship between peace and law.

I am not all surprised by the thumbs down. Most of the folks are for disunion of the United States, so how can they support even a great "union" or cooperation among the nations of the world?. Some nations of the world are frustrated by Americas go it alone mentality on world wide issues such as envrironmental concerns. Many Americans are concerned about environmental issues in the rain forest, Africa and Asia but if foreigners show concern about the Everglades or our forests some Americans take the attitude that they should mind their own business. Remember "The Ugly American" of the 1960's-1070's. Does he maybe still exist?

Correction: I believe Mr. Peres' name was Shimon and it was not Anwar Sadat but Yasser Arafat that met him and Clinton at the White House.

"Where the people have no vision, the people will perish". Gephardt was speaking at a time progress was being made in the Middle East. Five yars later or so Clinton, Simon Peres, and Anwar Sadat met and shook hands at the White House. There are still many visionary (and many will laugh at them) leaders and statesmen who will (thank goodness) bring peace and a better world tomorrow. The only thing we should fear is that good men will look the other way and do nothing.

Roosevelt was prescient. The goverment went on after him to do just what he said as in voting rights acts, and civil rights acts, clean air and water acts etcetera.. These acts significantly protected the interests of the people. Some of the people on the other hand may not have kept up and informed in the workings of their government and see villains and covert operations on every hand which are just figments of their imagination caused by their failure to inform themselves.

One of Bush's finest hours. And those uneducated in such matters jumped on his "new world order" comment to see something sinister when he only was saying something positive. We have discussed the fact here before that there is always a world order, just like there is always a "state of the union". There is nothing new about a new world order except that it is constantly new and evolving daily with the politics of each and every country and organiziation involved in world politics.

Unity does not have to be bad. Disunion is not necessarily good. Good or bad uses of the things are determined somewhere else. Some political parties talk about the unity of a big tent where disparte opinions are welcome, other parties talk about the unity of a tight nucleus where contrary opinons are disregarde