It is Time For McConnell to Leave the Senate

This should now be obvious to everyone. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is a clear and present danger to the survival of the Republic. He wants to dismantle Social Security and Medicare which will have a devastating effect upon one-third of the American people.

This is not surprising.

Would you like to know why the Republicans hate Social Security so much?

In 2018, the Social Security Administration collected $885 billion($885,000,000,000.)That represents 12.4% of all personal income earned in the U.S. in 2018. Therefore, in 2018, American citizens earned $7,137,096,774,194 or around $7.1 trillion.

As much as $443 billion of that $885 billion came out of the pockets of American corporation’s an lot of money, and the Republicans want that money backtrack they are willing to settle for not having to pay out any more money going forward.

 Now, of course, some of that money is actually being paid into the Social Security fund by self-employed persons because self-employed people have to pay the entire 12.4% of the Social Security tax…and they don’t like it.

 On the other hand, however, very few self-employed people pay much in the way of income taxes because, as self-employed people, they get tax write-offs that W2 employees don’t get.  (Correction: In a previous version of this post, the second part of this paragraph incorrectly asserted that self-employed people paid taxes on their gross “salary” since self-employed people don’t receive salaries, which clearly contradicted the first half of the paragraph, which is correct.)

In the end, when you have averaged everything out, corporations and wealthy entrepreneurs are shelling out almost half a TRILLION dollars a year, while that money goes into their employees’ social security trust accounts. Over the past decade, that has mounted up to around $7 TRILLION.

Over the next few months, you are going to hear a lot of whining and moaning from the Republicans about how unfair this is…to corporations, entrepreneurs, and self-employed people.

They will claim that the Social Security Fund is bankrupt, or going bankrupt, or going to be bankrupt someday and therefore that it is a hoax against the American people.

They will call it an entitlement, as if being entitled to something is a bad thing. When you put in a day’s work, you are entitled to a day’s wages. When you put in a lifetime’s work, you are entitled to a lifetime’s wages, and 6.2% of each worker’s lifetime wages is being banked for them by the federal government.

If the corporations and the entrepreneurs didn’t have to pay their half of the 12.4% Social Security Tax, you wouldn’t be hearing about how unfair it is to the American people because, as long as they paying half of the tax, they wouldn’t give a shit, and that’s just the way it is.

They will claim that this money should be going into the pockets of the business owners and shareholders rather than into the pockets of the ne’er-do-wells who haven’t been able to feather their own nests well enough to provide for their retirement needs…and that makes perfect sense, if you are shareholder or an entrepreneur.

What does all this have to do with Mitch McConnell?

He’s the one who is leading the charge against Social Security and Medicare.

Of course, he’s just posturing because no bill cutting benefits for social security recipients now so as to keep more money in the fund for the future will ever pass a Democratic controlled House of Representatives….but that doesn’t mean that Donald Trump couldn’t cut Social Security payments to current recipients or obliterate the employer’s share of the Social Security tax….because he can.

No, really, yes, he can…with an executive order, which could circumvent the entire legislative system of checks and balances because Trump also controls the Supreme Court and is within one heartbeat (of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s heart) of appointing a third Justice, which will give the Republicans a lock on the Supreme Court for the next TWO generations.

Don’t think it can happen? The Supreme Court just overturned a lower court decision setting aside a Michigan redistricting plan that was unfairly favorable to Republicans. They could easily overturn lower court rulings against a Trump executive order destroying the economic foundations of Social Security and Medicare.

Right now, Donald Trump and his henchmen in the Senate can do just about anything they want to do…and they are doing it.

All that is standing between them and their dreams of conquest and subjugation are two feisty old women, Nancy Pelosi, who is 79, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is 86.

Note two things:

Michigan, where Donald Trump quite literally won the presidency, will be going to the polls next year under a redistricting plan designed by Republicans. Michigan is now a battleground state for 2020.

In order to offset that advantage, the Democratic party has to find a superstar to run against Mitch McConnell, and put up around $100 million to deprive him of his seat in the Senate.

If you live in Kentucky, ask yourself if this man – who has grown a multi-million dollar fortune on a Senator’s salary – really represents you and your family.  If you don’t live in Kentucky, think about moving there just to vote against him.