Part Two Of Vote For Karlos: The Moats Plan

PART 5: MOATSCARE

My friends, we are a nation divided. Not by race, sexual orientation or class, but by age. Our senior citizens paid their dues and now look to our younger, working generations to support their social welfare. Our younger citizens are frustrated. They tire of seeing their paychecks shrink every year with more in Social Security. Many protest in the streets, angry of paying into a century-old system they did not ask for, afraid of a bankrupt system they may not see the benefits of.

But, my friends, we are a nation that always looks after its own. Americans have built and supported a modern social safety net dating back to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Social Security programs over a century ago. To President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Medicare programs of the 1960s, who didn’t want young families’ dreams and incomes eaten away out of loyalty to their parents, their uncles, and their aunts. To President Barack Obama’s “ObamaCare” health care reform. He fought for reform not because it was politically convenient–he lost the House for it—but because it was the right thing to do. He fought for reform because barring insurance companies from dropping a sick mother or husband for a pre-existing medical condition was the right thing to do!

We are 410 million strong now. Whites are no longer the racial majority. We are more urban. And we are grayer. Ten thousand Baby Boomers began retiring every day starting on January 1, 2011. And we see the impact of the aging Baby Boomers’ Golden Years everywhere. The Baby Boomers still use voicemail and struggle with the Internet. Dentures enjoys record quarterly earnings. Nursing homes visits are the obligatory campaign photo-op. Florida morning commutes are interminable. [Careful. Seniors still have the highest voter turn-out.]

Look, America’s safety net has supported our great nation for our entire lives. But every net has holes. And ours is stretched to the brink. The very fabric of our social safety net is tearing under the weight of our massive entitlement programs.

We’ve seen this day coming for decades. Social Security ran cash-flow negative–-when annual benefit payments outpaced annual payroll tax revenue–from 2016 on. Three years ago, in 2037, the Social Security Trust Fund dried up. Social Security could no longer make good on its promises to our senior citizens. Now, our seniors are living longer but with less. Social Security benefits have been slashed by a quarter. Payroll taxes are projected to rise by 31 percent next year if we do not act.

So read my mind, mega-rich, there’s gonna be a little more taxes. Social Security taxes are paid on only the first $110,100 of income. And not a dime thereafter. I think it’s only fair to ask a virtual telepath company or a lunar jet owner that’s doing so well to give up that tax break….I don’t think that’s real radical. What is a rounding error to a few billionaires is years of peace of mind and financial security to millions of grandparents.