Let's All Pay For Illegal Immigrants Social Security Benefits
Two years ago today, June 29th, 2004, is a date you'll want to remember. You should also remember the term “Totalization Agreement”. Why are these two things important, you may ask? The date is when Jo Anne Barnhart, commissioner of the Social Security Administration, signed a totalization agreement with Mexican official Dr. Santiago Levy Algazi, Director General, of the Mexican Social Security Institute. Why is that a big deal? It's a big deal because such agreements remove the requirement that citizens of either country contribute to both social security systems if they worked in both countries. According to Barnhart, the deal “promotes equity and fairness for workers who divide their careers between our two countries.”What!!! Who wouldn't want to promote equity and fairness? In this case, no U.S. citizen that's not interested in giving a huge chunk of our (already overburdened) Social Security budget to Mexican citizens, that's who. One problem lies in the fact that there are far more Mexican workers working here, both legally and illegally, than the reverse. In addition, there is a huge economic disparity between our two countries. This agreement lets illegal Mexican immigrants working here qualify for U.S. Social Security benefits when they retire, either here, or in Mexico. If you're not good and pissed off enough yet, this next item might get you a bit more riled up. The illegal immigrants that are potentially getting these benefits can now qualify for them with only 6 quarters of work, vs. 40 quarters before the agreement was signed. Oh, and their spouses and dependents are eligible for benefits too. Wouldn't want to leave anyone out in the cold, you know.
To be fair, we already have such totalization agreements with 20 other countries, including England, South Korea, Canada and Germany. Why is the same type of agreement with Mexico such an outrage? For one thing, we don't have many Germans or Koreans wading across the Rio Grande to pick lettuce. The same can't be said for citizens from our neighbor to the south. Another key difference with the Mexican agreement is that Mexicans make up a far greater proportion of our illegal immigrant population than citizens from any other country.
Will this agreement cost us anything? What do you think? According to official Social Security Administration estimates, we'll spend an extra $650 million by 2050. Naturally, these estimates were provided by the agency that cooked up the whole scheme, so you may take them with a grain of salt. Here's why. According to the U.S. General Accounting Office, the oversight office of the federal government, The SSA's numbers fail to account for illegal Mexican immigrants that will be eligible for benefits. To make the numbers even more suspect, they make no allowance for the fact that, once details of this gold mine come to light, Mexicans will come racing over the borders in even greater numbers than they do now.
Are there any good things at all to come from this agreement? Sure, there are. About 3,000 U.S. workers will save their employers about $140 million in Mexican Social Security taxes in the first years after the agreement takes effect. Wowee!! It's lookin' better all the time!
About the only good news is that this agreement hasn't taken effect yet. After the Bush Administration submits the agreement to Congress, there will be a 60 day window, after which the agreement becomes binding. Congress must adopt a counter agreement to deny the totalization agreement or you can kiss goodbye the meager Social Security benefits you stand to get at this point. Contact your congressional representative before it's too late.
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We all love spending money. Face it, it's a lot of fun. You can buy cool, new stuff, go fun places and generally feel good about yourself. That's exactly how those in the federal government act too. They have to appease the thousands of constituent groups that can get them back to the promised land inside the beltway. Toward this end, they buy cool, new stuff, go fun places, and generally feel good about themselves. A quick look back at the administrations of the past 40 years reveals that there were precious few years that there was actually a federal budget surplus. According to the United States Office of Management and Budget, there have been only 5 years since 1966 that there was a budget surplus. These years are 1969 and 1998 – 2001. Ouch!
Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Belgium, Cambodia, Croatia, Mexico, South Africa and Britain. What do these countries have in common? They may have a say in your constitutional rights as an American citizen. All the above are either signatories or have ratified the UN Firearms Protocol. As the UN meets in New York to move this proposal forward, you have to ask yourself “I may like some of these countries, but do I want them having a say in my constitutional rights as an American citizen?” This protocol would give the UN broad powers to regulate private firearms ownership in signatory nations. As a smokescreen, the U.N. Has stated they have no designs on private firearms ownership in individual member states.
Americans are lucky. Face it. America is the only country in the world where poor people are fat. We’re not talking a few over, either. We’re talking way overweight. In most countries around the world, the poor are lucky to get something to eat, much less enough to make them obese. Something else to differentiate the poor in America from the poverty stricken around the globe is the TVs, and the cars, and the DVD players, and the satellite dishes, and the furniture, and the cigarettes, and the….well, you get the picture. Even the poor in America seem to have an awful lot of stuff. They eat at restaurants, for god’s sake. So what if it’s only the two tacos for $.99 at Jack in the Box. 
There are many mistakes people make when aiming for that laudable goal of becoming debt free. Here are some of the more common ones.
It’s ironic that the extremist, militant, Islamic leaders scream for their followers to “resist the invaders” as they put it, because the foreigners have a history of denigrating Islam. As Al-Qaeda’s number two man, Ayman al-Zawahri, called for such resistance in his latest video, the irony of such a position apparently escaped him. Al-Zawahri, and others of his ilk, derives their power by denigrating every other religion and philosophical belief system except for their very fundamental version of Islam. As extremist Islamic groups continue to poison the well of ideology with their amorality and complete disregard for human life, the rest of the world, and especially the Islamic faith, must unite to banish such repugnants and their doctrine of violent intolerance. If we fail in this regard, we will be sentenced to a future of violence and unrest. 
You can get debt free, but if you truly want to stay debt free, there are many things you can do to ensure that you live a financially healthy lifestyle. Some of the most important ways you can stay financially healthy are these:
Quick, say “the Economic Growth and Tax Relief and Reconciliation Act of 2001”. It's quite a mouth full, which is why most people say either “the Bush tax cuts” or “the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans”, depending on which side of the isle you sit on. Notice “the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans” is still quite a mouthful. That's really not important right now. What is important is that the economy has actually grown in the intervening 5 years to the point that, even as tax rates have fallen, total tax revenue has actually risen. According to the Congressional Budget Office, in 2003 individual income taxes brought in $793.7B to federal coffers. That figure increased to $927.2B last year.
The year was 1969. There was Free Love, the Hait, cheap gas, cars with big V-8s, and a growing unrest in America. Lurking in the background was what became one of the most insidious pieces of legislation ever to be perpetrated upon the American people. The country was focused on the war in Vietnam, and apparently, the 155 Americans that made over $200,000 in 1966, but paid no income taxes. Dutifully, our Congress decided that the injustice must be fixed.
Tech and other hyper growth stocks are kind of like those friends you used to have before you got older and more responsible. They could be a blast to hang out with, but you never knew when they were going to get you in a heap of trouble. Now, you presumably don't have the desire to be in the back of that crazy guy's Camaro drinking Bud talls, taking bong hits, and speeding around town in search of the next party any more. As the smoke from the burning BF Goodrich T/As clears a bit, you're probably looking for something with a good bit of upside without the hair raising element of being inebriated in the back of Spike's muscle car, bouncing through the desert. As we look back on it, many of us made it through the dot bomb era with the same sense of relief we got after getting through our high school and college years. We may have had the crap scared out of us a few times, but at least we made it through in more or less one piece.
Competition for your dollars these days is fierce. It feels like every time you want make a purchase, you're running a gauntlet of merchants and service providers with their meaty paws out, trying to rip your wallet from your sweaty digits. Obviously, you want to make the most of every purchase. One of the keys to long term financial freedom is to control your spending. Given you are probably making at least an attempt to live a life of relative financial responsibility, you're going to try and maximize your purchasing power. A key component of this is customer satisfaction. After all, if your experience with a vendor was total crap, either because the product didn't meet your needs or they had poor customer service, you'll have to either purchase a different product, or contact customer service in a (possibly futile) attempt to rectify the situation. This means you are wasting two of your most precious resources; money and your valuable time.
Most people dread it, and with good reason; you’re at a big disadvantage. It can feel like you’re a new fish in the yard. I’m talking about making a trip to a new car dealer to pick up your latest 300hp, depreciating asset. Although some may enjoy the witty banter and glib one liners provided by the typical automobile sales consultant, most find the whole procedure about as distasteful as explaining to your boss why you were having a party with his wife in his office. Ah, but there are ways to arm yourself, so you can shut them down when they try to perpetrate one of their many scams on you. Not to say all car dealers are dishonest, on the contrary, there are many reputable dealerships out there. But on the (not too small) chance you saunter into one of the others, here are some of the tricks you can find yourself up against. 
What? The Terminator is blanching at the thought of actually arming our National Guard forces on the border? California Governor Schwarzenegger said he didn't want to militarize our borders. Excuse me, but isn't that the point? Why have the military on our borders if they can't act like the military. It's reported that National Guard commanders will be able to request the troops be armed with the standard issue Baretta 9mm handguns if the situation warrants it. Well, it does! In addition, even if they are so equipped, they will still be woefully under armed. NATO is even looking at replacing the 9mm as the standard issue handgun and going back to something like the .45 it replaced. This situation calls for the Guard troops to have at least the standard issue M-16 rifle. After all, the drug gangs, alien smugglers and the Mexican Army, all of which illegally cross our borders on regular occasions, are equipped with such weapons. Why should we condemn our troops to less?