Taxes and the AARP
Last night I heard a report that the AARP was starting up it's campaign to crush support for Bush's Social Security Reforms. I have mixed feelings about his reforms, so I didn't really care one way or the other about their position. What really bugged me was in financing the propaganda that supports their agenda, they draw on a budget that is larger than the entire budget of the US CHAMBER OF COMMERCE!!! It seems that all I hear about on the news is how our government doesn't have enough money. First off, most people complain that we pay too much in taxes, and that's despite all the loophole's and tax breaks that people take advantage of. I hear that social security is flawed and will be unable to support itself in 10 to 20 years. I hear that we have to keep cutting school programs. And then there is the AARP, probably one of dozens, that has a far smaller population base than the US chamber of commerce, and yet it has a larger budget. Why? Here is an example of why special interest groups are detrimental to our society. If for just one year, all the special interest groups like the AARP donated money to the US treasury, the government would have 5 to 10 times the budget that we currently have. It would be possible to get ahead of social security, and instead of the current workforce paying for the currently retired, the current workforce would be paying for their own retirement. Instead of trimming programs from schools we would be able to add them back in. Instead of worrying endlessly about how much we spent on the Big Dig and similar programs, we could look to fix and update our electricity grids, and our other aging and ailing infrastructures. Just one year. The worst case scenario is that we would squander the money... just as we do now.