Realized something about the SS debate & "your money"

Okay, Bush & Co. always say "Well, if you control your money, you can do better than SS." (Something to that effect).

Well, the taxpayers have always had the option to "control their money", if I understand correctly.

Now, the "automatic deduction" of your taxes on each paycheck is somewhat new (I forget when it started - 50s, 60s, who knows). But isn't there an option where a person can choose not to withhold their taxes, and then pay their taxes at the end of the year? (I believe that a bunch of small businesspeople do this - and bitch all the time about trying to scrape together the money to pay their taxes by 4/15).

Now, you refuse to have the amount withheld from your paycheck. Or, you take all the deductions that allow you to "take home more money" in your paycheck each pay period.

Most likely what happens to people who have to do this to survive end up at the end of the year trying to figure out how they're going to scrape together the money before 4/15 to pay their taxes.

Now, imagine the same people who look at their "personal" (privatized) account and say, "gee, I'd like to save my money for retirement, but my kids gotta eat" . . . There actually was a RW fidgiot a few weeks back on the radio talking about how they could take some of their money out of their "personal" (privatized) account any time and buy a car, if they felt they wanted to.

The people who are really going to get screwed by this are the people who life from paycheck to paycheck, scraping together change from the sofa cushions and collecting aluminum cans just to make sure they can feed themselves and their kids. Imagine how much money is going to be left in their "personal" (privatized) accounts when they are "retirement age" - which will end up as NEVER.

They're having to weigh the balances between eating to stay alive and buying their high cost, necessary medicines to stay alive. They're in a Catch-22 and stess everyday about this.

I'd rather be responsible for paying my taxes on 4/15 (although mine are auto deducted) and saving & investing my own money, where I can keep an eye on it, move it when there are threats to any specific stock and REmove it if I feel really, really threatened by an economic collapse. Remember during the Depression all the banks and savings co's who just closed their doors, and customers money just vanished into thin air? We're headed down the same path and only the rich and powerful can do anything to protect themselves.

I say we all cash it in and go live in the mountains.

the gusto that they investigated "WhiteWater" - GWB would have to work hard to have two nickles to rub together . . .

We also pay both halves of FICA, so that quarterly tax check can be pretty damn big.