By Scott Tibbs, August 25, 2010
When Andrew Breitbart posted a video clip taking remarks by Shirley Sherrod out of context, Leftists complained bitterly. Will Leftists complain about Baron Hill's distortion of a speech by Todd Young?
The Red Baron is running advertisements suggesting that Young will try to end Social Security because he described it as a "Ponzi scheme." But let's examine what Young said less than a 90 seconds later in the same speech:
| We're gonna have to make some hard decisions about taxes, about cutting other areas of government, about returning powers to lower (I hesitate to use "lower") other levels of government (switching power from the federal level to the state level) to try and reduce the amount of expenditures at the federal level of government so that we still have money for these programs like Social Security. |
If you haven't figured it out yet, Baron Hill is lying again.
Baron Hill is running scared. He knows that voters are unhappy with the Obama Administration's agenda, which has had Hill's full support for the last two years. He knows that Republicans are poised to make gains in Congress and that his seat is one of the most vulnerable. He also knows that, even though Obama was the first Democrat to win Indiana since 1964, John McCain won Indiana's Ninth Congressional District.
Hill's dishonest scare tactics aside, everyone already knows that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, "a Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors." How does this not describe Social Security?
Social Security is a Ponzi scheme by definition. It requires more people at the bottom paying taxes so that the people at the top can continue to get benefits. As long as there are more younger people paying into Social Security than older people at the top collecting benefits, the system will be solvent. However, we have known for decades that as the American population ages, there will come a point where Social Security is no longer solvent and will be paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes.
This is one of the reasons that our current budgetary situation is unsustainable. Deficits have exploded since Nancy Pelosi, Baron Hill and the rest of the Democrats took control of Congress in the 2006 election. Young is absolutely correct that we are going to have to reduce spending and devolve federal power in order to maintain the federal government's financial stability.
Baron Hill is not interested in doing what is best for America. He is only interested in hanging on to the political power he gets from being a Congressman. If Hill was truly concerned about the future of this nation, he would recognize that the federal budget is unsustainable and engage Young in a debate about what budgetary choices need to be made so as not to bankrupt the country. Instead, Hill is showing himself to be just another professional politician who is more concerned with his personal ambitions that doing what is right. Shame on Baron Hill.
