Walker Kyle

# 7. Social Security is a government program supported by a dedicated tax, like highway maintenance. You can say that assigning a particular tax to a particular program is a waist of time, but in fact such assignments have both legal and political force. The purpose of that tax increase was to maintain the dedicated tax system into the future, by having Social Security’s assigned tax take in more money than the system paid out while the baby boomers were still working, then use the trust fund built up by those surpluses to pay future bills. That strategy was highly successful. The date at which the trust fund will run out, according to Social Security Administration projections, has receded steadily into the future: 10 years ago it was 2029, now it’s 2042. As people high up, and others have pointed out, the SSA estimates are very conservative, and moderate projections of economic growth push the end date into the indefinite future. It is primarily funded through a dedicated payroll tax. During 2011, total benefits of $736 billion were paid out versus income (taxes and interest) of $805 billion, a $69 billion annual surplus. An estimated 158 million people paid into the program and 55 million received benefits, roughly 2.87 workers per beneficiary. Reform proposals continue to circulate, due to a long-term funding challenge faced by the program. Starting in 2011 and continuing after, program expenses are expected to exceed cash revenues. This is due to the aging of the babyboom generation, expected continuing low birth rate (compared to the baby-boom period), and increasing life. Further, the government has borrowed and spent the accumulated surplus funds, called the Social Security Trust fund. At the end of 2011, the Trust Fund was valued at $2.7 trillion, up $69 billion from 2010. The Trust Fund consists of the accumulated surplus of program revenues minus expenditures. The fund contains non-marketable Treasury securities backed "by the full faith and credit of the government". The funds borrowed from the program are part of the total national debt of $15.7 trillion as of April 2012.Program payments exceeded program revenues not including the interest in 2011, this is expected to continue indefinitely under current law. Due to interest, the Trust Fund will continue increasing through the end of 2021, reaching a max of approximately $3.0 trillion. Social Security has the legal authority to draw amounts from other government revenue sources besides the payroll tax, to fully fund the program, but this will liquidate the Trust Fund by 2033, meaning that only the ongoing payroll tax collections after will be available to fund the program. There are certain key implications to understand under current law, if no reforms are implemented:
#6. Education reform is the process of improving education. It is very clear. There are severe gaps in the Opportunity to Learn across the country. These problems not only affect issues such as high school graduation rates and college-going rates, they also affect every aspect of the lives of our communities, our economy, and our nation. By failing to provide all students an equally high Opportunity to Learn, there is major damage to our nation’s economy. If we close the opportunity gap, we will have a tremendous impact on the education, health and welfare of our nation. Unfortunately, with school, kids don't receive any sort of (relevant) education. Explain how when you last needed to find the volume of a rectangular prism in your everyday life. Better yet, when was the last time you were reading through a book, trying to pick out useless stuff that you know you don’t need in life? Please explain why students are required to know the full structure of a plant cell. These are a few examples of the number of useless facts that students are forced to memorize in a school year.
Many people try to insist that basic necessities are taught most effectively in school. Basic math, reading, and spelling are some useful things that are taught in public schools, and yet they teach very little, if anything at all, about buying/renting a house/apartment, financing, driving, setting up a savings account, paying taxes, etc. Even the useful subjects that are taught can be effectively learned outside of school, when the information isn't being shoved down the throats of the students. After around the 5th grade, schools in this country cease to teach anything useful anyway. They break students down into the mindset that they need to listen to their superiors. They promote the fact that students need to listen to the teachers, and not question what they say. Some teachers teach as if the students were robots. As a result of this, many questions go unanswered, and many answers go unquestioned. One important answer to this question is more opportunity. As opposed to generations of the past, high school graduates today are unable to obtain the number of high-paying jobs that were once available. The U.S. has been transformed from a manufacturing-based economy to an economy based on knowledge, and the importance of a college education today can be compared to a high school education forty years ago. It serves as the gateway to better options and more opportunity. There are additional reasons as to why it is important to go to college. When students experience a post secondary education, they have the opportunity to read books and listen to the lectures of top experts in their fields. This stimulation encourages students to think, ask questions, and explore new ideas, which allows for additional growth and development and provides college graduates with an edge in the job market over those who have not experienced a higher education. The importance of a college education is also accentuated because of the opportunity to gain valuable resources during your tenure. The more connections which are collected during your college career, the more options you will have when you begin your job search. Once you have ended your job search and have started your career, however, the importance of a college education has not been exhausted. Having a college degree often provides for greater promotion opportunity.
#2. Poverty is a challenge to a person's survival anywhere in the world. The experience of poverty is difficult whether you are in the "first world" or the "third world". For example if a person is resourceful they can go from door to door or bus stop to bus stop selling something to eat or something they have made without penalty in say Mexico and I think India...but in the U.S. for instance a person will get into trouble for such innovation because they don't have the proper license or the food has not been "approved" etc.
Also, in other countries you can "camp out" in the wild or on the roadside you can build your tin hut but in the U.S. they destroy any homeless shelters they find. So poverty is very hard for Westerners too. Because of Hollywood people think that Americans are all middle class or that we all have access to the opportunities but in fact it is the opposite, it is difficult for a poor person who has no car, no address and no proper clothes to compete in the job market against those who do. Out of all the developed countries in the world America has the most poverty followed by Australia, UK, Saudi Arabia, France, Japan, South Korea. Out of all the other countries in the world America is doing well America is only 11% poverty but it's not extreme poverty like in most developing countries. India has 38%- 45% in poverty, 10% are in extreme poverty. Africa if you average poverty of all countries there is at 42%-60% in poverty, 20% are in extreme poverty.
#5.Illegal immigration and how to deal with it is a major problem in this nation. It generates highly-charged, emotional responses that often destroy any attempts to create a rational solution. For decades, through the years of many administrations both Republican and Democrat, the United States has failed to properly address immigration issues. It has only made token efforts to control illegal immigration. We are now paying the price for that neglect. People from around the world want to come to this country to reside but we cannot just open our borders to the masses of the world. Americans are worried about our national security, about our jobs, about crime in our communities, about overcrowding in our schools, about emergency room chaos in our hospitals, about increases in our taxes, all of which can be attributed in some degree to illegal immigration. We should first address the concerns of our own people before expending time and treasure on resolving other nations’ problems with our immigration policies. Immigration reform can be truly be equitable. The only way this could happen is if the proper steps were taking to ensure reform such as to first secure our borders. Increase the force of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents devoted to immigration enforcement. Only a small portion of the total number of ICE agents enforce immigration laws, enforce existing laws and use exsiting tools, prevent fraud by Issuing a secure, tamper-resistant Social Security card as the sole evidence of eligibility for employment in the U.S. and also a temporary workers program. TWP may only be implemented after demonstration of a secure border and proof of a meaningful employer sanctions program. With these steps taken, it can help reform take place.
#3. The health care reform legislation passed this year introduced sweeping changes to health insurance. But many of those changes do not go into effect for several years. A few key reforms, however, have just become law. Effective September 23, 2010, several key features of the reform legislation went into effect. Hear are example of whats expected from this newly changed health care plan. For children younger than age 19, health plans can no longer limit or deny coverage simply because the child has a pre-existing health condition. This provision does not mean that such coverage will be inexpensive, but at least coverage will be available. Currently, health plans can and will cancel coverage retroactively if you failed to accurately disclose required information on the insurance application. Under the new law, the insurance carrier must prove that the information was left off the application by reason of fraud before canceling the policy. For new health plans, you can now have the right to ask the insurance company to reconsider any denial of coverage. And if they still deny the claim, you have the right to appeal the decision to an independent reviewer. Under existing plans, you can often pay significantly more if you visit an emergency room that is not in your insurance company’s provider network. With new health plans, you won’t be required to get prior approval before seeking emergency room services from a facility that is outside of your plan’s network. In addition, you won’t have to pay higher co-payments. Some other proposals are as follows, Allow insurers to sell policies across state lines. Currently health insurance is regulated by the states and consumers in one state cannot purchase a policy sold in another state. Republicans argue that the current restriction locks people into expensive plans in states with high minimum-coverage requirements. Critics argue the proposal could spark a race to the bottom for coverage and consumer protections. The Senate-passed Democratic healthcare bill included a version of this proposal. Create new state high-risk pools or reinsurance programs to provide insured people access to health insurance. Republican backers argue this would give everyone access to insurance coverage. Critics argue that most of the millions of uninsured people are between jobs and would not be able to afford the premiums that, at least in one proposal put forward by Representative Dave Camp, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, would be capped at 150 percent of the average premiums within a state. These are just a few of the proposals that were made. Both approaches have good ideas and some seem to be beneficial for the American people.