Where Does Our Federal Spending Go?

July 22, 2025July 21, 2025 / MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

I’m pretty well done with sifting through Federal Spending, Tax Revenue, and all that fun stuff, but I do have one more thing I’d like to share. Trust me, it will be fun (it’s full of numbers) and I’m trying to delve into how the Federal Government spends money. This seems particularly relevant when we’ve heard so much talk of how we need to cut Federal Spending (and where it should be cut) ever since Elon Musk and his team of grifters at DOGE got involved. Even as the net result of the 2025 Congressional Budget Bill is to increase Federal Spending while cutting down on Federal Revenue. It’s like Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan never left us, or they’re still with us in Spirit.

Personally, I think that means we need an Exorcism post haste.

This additional deep dive into Federal Revenue and Spending came about, partially in response to someone on Threads who insisted (despite all evidence to the contrary) that Donor States were still a drain on the Economy because many of them received more in Federal Funds than less populated States that couldn’t hope to contribute as much.

He clearly didn’t comprehend that words have agreed-upon meanings. No matter how much he wished it, he couldn’t arbitrarily change those definitions (not without some sort of consensus involved). It’s disingenuous at best to accuse Donor States of being a drain, when they are contributing more than they are taking. It really doesn’t matter that these states might be receiving more than others (that take more than they contribute). I continued that discussion far longer than I should have, when I simply needed to point out that he was wrong from the beginning, and wasn’t getting any less wrong the more he tried to argue his point.

That’s the problem with the way many people look at things today. They think that their sense of what is correct holds the same value as the reality of the thing, whatever that thing might be. Just because something doesn’t feel right, because it doesn’t correspond with one’s worldview, is not the same as something not being right or accurate. Some people (mostly men, it seems) think everything is up for debate and interpretation, but that simply isn’t how reality works. We don’t get to negotiate with reality the way we do with one another. One’s level of confidence in their being correct does not influence whether they are (even if it makes them seem like they must be), but there’s no convincing some people of that.

This is why, not so long ago, when more than a thousand people were polled, 12% of Men responded that they believed they could score a single point on Serena Williams in Tennis. Of course: 17% of Men also believed they could beat a Chimpanzee in a fight, 8% were confident they could defeat a Gorilla, and 6% suggested they could successfully fight a Bear. Keep in mind that these men are unarmed and the animals are neither infants nor infirm. So, there’s clearly no accounting for human stupidity, or the confidence that goes with it.

But, back to the topic at hand.

In 2023, the Donor States (those that paid out more in Federal Revenue than they received back) produced a combined surplus of $619 Billion. That was such a great surplus in Total Revenue that it offset the total amount consumed by states that received more than they paid out, with more than $105.1 Billion left to spare.

Fully 88% of that Federal Revenue came from Income and Individual Taxes (this includes Social Security and Medicare), with the remaining 10% coming from Business Taxes, Estate Taxes, and so on.

The Federal Government spent a grand total of just below $6.2 Trillion that year (which is more than the total Federal Revenue), which means Donor States provided roughly 10% of the total amount of Federal Spending in just the surplus between what they paid out vs. what they received back from that $6.2 Trillion.

It’s worth referring back to my earlier discussion of Sanctuary States to point out that 11 of the states classified as Sanctuary States, when broken down by Per Capita Revenue, generated more than they received that year. When looking solely at total amount of outgoing versus incoming Revenue at the State Level, it was seven Sanctuary States operating in the black. When we adjust our focus, in terms of total population, we’re looking at 11 Sanctuary States that paid in more than they cost the Federal Government per person. I keep bringing that up because it’s imperative to hammer in the point that people should stop trying to use Sanctuary States as a budgetary talking point as if they’re a drain on the economy. After all, the reality is quite the opposite.

It’s a simple thing to ignore context and simply accept that the Federal Government distributed a grand total of $4.56 Billion back to the various states and their residents. That’s still less than was obtained in Federal Revenue, by a little over $100 Billion. This isn’t entirely painting an accurate portrait, suggesting that the money actually went to the states. Defense Spending is included in this, which was disproportionately redistributed to wherever the largest military bases, contractors, and manufacturing facilities were located. Strangely enough, unlike the U.S. Postal Service, no one seems to expect the U.S. Armed Forces to turn over a profit, even though the U.S. Postal Service doesn’t receive direct Taxpayer funding.

So, to really dig into where Federal Spending is directed, we’re going to have to spend a little more time breaking things down. It doesn’t sound like much fun, but at least I’ll save you the time and effort of doing the math.

Only $2.4 Trillion of the total $6.2 Trillion in Federal Spending returned to the States for purposes of Medicaid, SNAP (Food Stamps), Social Security, Veterans Benefits, Transportation, and Education. That leaves $3.8 Trillion in spending left unaddressed. It’s worth noting that a large portion of the money spent through Medicaid, as well as some of what was spent on Veterans Benefits, went directly to Insurance Companies. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, Federal Subsidies for Insurance Companies in 2023 totaled an estimated $1.8 Trillion (which included Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP, Affordable Care Act Marketplace Subsidies, and more). Referring to that as money that went to residents of the states in question seems disingenuous to me, but we’ll let it stand.

$658.8 Billion went toward payment of Interest on the National Debt (which totaled $34.7 Trillion as of last June), which is 17% of the previously unaccounted for $3.8 Trillion…leaving us with roughly $3.2 Trillion to track down.

Excluding Active Duty Military salaries, the Federal Government spent roughly $336 Billion on payroll for Federal Workers, which translates into approximately 10.5% of the remaining $3.2 Trillion, leaving $2.9 Trillion that we’ve not accounted for.

Foreign Aid seems to be a sticking point for several people lately, as they complain about how the money could (or should) be spent here at home. The reality is that Foreign Aid is a drop in the bucket. In 2023, Foreign Aid added up to a total of $71.9 Billion (which is less than the $74 Billion spent in 2022). I should note that this amount does not factor in sales of arms or transfers of military equipment; mostly because we typically sell materials and equipment without taking a loss. Even this exceptionally small number, compared to our total Federal Spending, turns out to be a grand total of 1.2% of that amount. Data from the United Nations indicates the U.S. still contributes 40% of all International Humanitarian Aid. That’s something we should be proud of. $14.4 Billion of that went to Ukraine in the form of direct monetary support, which (as I’m sure you notice) is not much at all when compared to total Federal Spending. It’s even appreciably less than the $15.6 Billion that went toward Foreign Disaster Relief and other Humanitarian purposes. Even though the current war in Gaza didn’t begin until October 7th of that year, we spent $3.3 Billion on Foreign Aid to Israel.

But, we still have essentially $2.9 Trillion to account for, so let’s keep going.

Defense Spending totaled $820.3 Billion that year. This amount shouldn’t be surprising, since we spent more than twice as much as the other 30 NATO Nations combined between 2014 and 2022. More than a quarter of that Spending went to the Air Force, and only slightly less went towards the Navy. Army and Marine Corps Spending combined to make up roughly another quarter of that total. This is where Active Duty Military salaries factor into the spending.

We now have just a little bit less than $2.1 Trillion to account for.

The $52 Billion we spent on Small Business Loans hardly makes a dent.

Of the $970 Billion in Discretionary Spending that wasn’t Defense-Related, only a portion of it hasn’t already been accounted for in the previous Spending that went back to the individual States. $83 Billion of that was spent on International Affairs, $74 Billion went toward Administration of Justice, $48 Billion to Natural Resources and Environmental Spending, while $40 Billion was dedicated to Science, Space, and Technology. Adding those totals to what was spent on Small Business Loans, we’re only looking at $1.9 Trillion left to go.

Only $31 Billion went toward Pell Grants for the roughly 6.5 Million college students who received them that year, so that hardly registers.

And unfortunately, it only gets more challenging to trace the money at that point.

Tax Refunds for Earned Income Credits, the Federal portion of Unemployment Compensation, and other dispersals factor into the same Mandatory Spending category as SNAP funding, which totals $448 Billion. But some of that has already been accounted for in the money we discussed being distributed to the States. Unfortunately, it’s exceedingly difficult to sift through itemized spending to discern just how much we’ve already considered in our breakdown of Federal Spending.

There’s also $502 Billion that was distributed between Federal Civilian and Military Retirement Benefits, some additional Veterans’ Benefits, and offsetting costs for other previously discussed areas of Mandatory Spending such as Social Security and Medicaid. But, again, a significant portion of that Spending has already been mentioned.

Even if that was all above and beyond what had been previously accounted for, we would still have more than $900 Billion to account for, which is no small amount. And, if I’m being entirely honest, I don’t know how much more we’ve ticked away at the $1.9 Trillion we were looking at before those areas of Mandatory Spending entered the discussion. For the sake of moving this forward, we’ll go ahead and operate under the assumption that we’re looking at $900 Billion to account for.

Some of that was further distributed to States via Nonprofit Programs and Organizations that received grants. Of course, most of the funding for U.S. Nonprofits comes from sources other than the Federal Government. They received more than $550 Billion in Charitable Giving, with $101 Billion of that coming from Charitable Foundations and an estimated $412 Billion or so coming from Individual Donations or Estates. The rest more than likely came from Businesses and Corporations. Naturally, there are tax breaks involved for those entities.

I’d love to imagine our Federal Government shelling out $550 Billion or so toward Nonprofit Organizations and matching those numbers, but that’s a fantasy. The most liberal estimates indicate the Federal Government, in some capacity, spends an average of roughly $303 Billion on U.S. Nonprofits annually. But it’s difficult to find a breakdown of that Spending specifically for 2023. It probably varies significantly by year, so we’ll focus on the $303 Billion as a total, and assume none of it was already tallied in earlier categories.

This leaves us with (we’ll say) $600 Billion that I simply don’t have the Resources or the Time to track down. The best I can do from here is offer some speculation, and suggest aspects of the Federal Budget that weren’t entirely accounted for previously.

I’m sure that some of it falls through the cracks as Black Budget Items and Surveillance or Espionage Spending that doesn’t get mixed in with the usual Defense Spending, to keep it off the books. But I don’t imagine those Budgetary elements come anywhere close to $600 Billion, when the on-the-books Defense Spending is already more than $800 Billion.

We could assume some of it is Government Contract Spending that isn’t accounted for in the Defense Spending totals, Small Business Grants, and the other Funding already considered. Elon Musk’s various companies were recipients of $3 Billion of that Contract Spending, split between several different Federal Agencies, but most of that has already been accounted for.

Government Contracts devoured $759 Billion in Government Spending for 2023. $470 Billion of that was through the Department of Defense. Assuming the rest (which is surely not accurate) has not been part of the earlier Spending we’ve discussed, that would leave $289 Billion.

We would still be looking at more than $300 Billion left at the Table, which is clearly not the case, because our Deficit wouldn’t be as high as it is. The reality is that there’s definitely upwards of $300 Billion that I haven’t accounted for in my research, and that’s certainly no small amount.

Even with that ultimate failure in my capacity to dig through every Bill and piece of Legislation that slipped through Congress in 2023 (or before, because some of them include spending allotments for years to come, which is why we had the recent Recision Bill that took back funds that had previously been approved by Congress), I hope this has helped to explain where Federal Spending is directed. Sadly, I doubt the people who most need to get a firm grasp on what we’re spending (and where) are the least likely to take the time necessary to read this.

Sanctuary States Do NOT Cost Taxpayers Money. That’s Always Been a Lie

July 21, 2025July 19, 2025 / MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

In an entirely predictable return to form, President Trump is again threatening to withhold Federal Funds from Sanctuary Cities and Sanctuary States, as well as cities that have not eradicated Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies. He attempted to do the same thing during his first term, until a Federal Appeals Court ruled in 2018 that the President does not have the authority to do so. Of course, Congress had previously decided the same thing all the way back in 1974, with the passage of the Impoundment Control Act, in response to President Richard Nixon.

It’s not wholly unusual for a President to withhold Federal Grant money as a bargaining tactic, but the Trump Administration has a habit of taking this to extremes. This includes threats to withhold emergency funds from states based on policy disputes. It’s particularly egregious concerning the wildfires in California and windstorms in Washington State. Those are two of the states that receive less in Federal Funding than they contribute to Federal Revenue.

The numbers for 2024 won’t be available until next year, but we do have the final numbers for 2023. Only three states contributed at least $70 Billion more to the Federal Government than they received from it: New Jersey, California, and New York. Texas wasn’t far behind with $67 Billion more paid in Federal Taxes than the state received in all Federal Funding. Washington (where I live) trails behind that, with $55 Billion more contributed to Federal Revenue than received. In 2023, only 19 states gave more than they received.

At the other end of that spectrum, there was only one state that took in more than $70 Billion more than was contributed. That was Virginia, with $79 Billion more Federal dollars going into the state than Federal Taxes collected. The next worst state was Alabama, at $41 Billion.

Four states were less than a billion dollars away from breaking even: Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Wyoming. Pennsylvania was $965 Million shy of what it contributed to Federal Revenue, and Wyoming was just $339 Million away. South Dakota (where I spent most of my life) and Arkansas weren’t far off, at a $1 Billion Federal Deficit each.

The five states with the greatest positive balance contributed enough in their combined positive difference to almost offset the deficit of the ten states at the opposite end of the spectrum. They were only about $2 Billion shy of erasing Michigan’s debt of $21 Billion.

One of the things I find funniest about the anti-immigration discourse is all the talk of Sanctuary States being a drain on our Tax Dollars, when the three states that carried the highest positive balance are all Sanctuary States: New Jersey, California, and New York.

In fact, of the States that have either declared themselves to be Sanctuary States–or have been designated as such by ICE–seven states (beyond the three I just mentioned) maintained a positive balance in Federal Funding for 2023: Rhode Island, Connecticut, Utah, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and Massachusetts. Rhode Island was the least lucrative of these States, with only $3 Billion more paid in than it received.

The Sanctuary States that received more in Federal Funding than they paid into the Federal Government were Maryland, Oregon (where I work), Hawaii, Vermont, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Maryland was the most costly to the Federal Government, sitting at a $35 Billion deficit, and Pennsylvania was the least so, at only $965 Million more going into the State than coming out.

And, as one might guess, just the three Sanctuary States with the largest ratio of Federal Revenue going out vs. coming in provided more than enough to offset the six Sanctuary States that received more than they paid in, with $165.04 Billion still to spare. That means the Sanctuary States of California, New Jersey, and New York not only covered every penny they received from the Federal Government, but also contributed an additional 3.8% to the overall Federal Revenue

So, it should be obvious that the talk of Sanctuary States costing taxpayers money is 100% Fiction. In fact, when we take all of the Sanctuary States and calculate the incoming Federal Spending vs. outgoing Federal Revenue, Sanctuary States were sitting at a positive balance of $367.04 Billion in 2023, more than 8% of the $4.4 Trillion in total Federal Revenue for the year.

So, maybe people should stop worrying so much about how much of a burden Sanctuary States are. They clearly aren’t the problem. And for a “successful businessman” like President Trump, it should be plainly obvious that the denial of Emergency Relief Funds to states like California and Washington is Bad for Business.

There’s one final thing that merits mentioning, while on the topic of Emergency Relief Funds. There was an uproar over an entirely imaginary scenario (and one repeated by Donald Trump) wherein President Joe Biden refused to supply funds for North Carolina in response to the devastating floods from Hurricane Helene, which he did not do. However, President Donald Trump cut partial Funding for a program President Biden had in place to cover the costs of debris removal, along with other protective measures. He also canceled a program designed to protect water, sewer, and other infrastructure services that had been devastated by the flooding, and was subsequently sued by the state’s Attorney General. Of course, there was nowhere near the kind of uproar compared to when it was only happening in the imaginations of people who wanted to demonize Joe Biden for something only Donald Trump would choose to do.

Immigrants Aren’t Stealing Your Social Security…But You Are Stealing From Them

July 20, 2025July 19, 2025 / MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

It’s disturbing that, in the context of discussions regarding Immigration in the U.S., there’s clearly no point in trying to appeal to the humanity, empathy, and compassion of the people who are buying “Alligator Alcatraz” merchandise or cheering on ICE Agents who are breaking the car windows of fathers dropping their children off for school because they refuse to comply with an order to turn themselves in (I mention that because it specifically happened in Portland just a short while ago). It’s a bit of a stretch, but I can hope that breaking everything down to a purely financial consideration will resonate with a small number of those people, though I’m not sure it paints a flattering portrait of them that money speaks louder than morality.

It just so happens that I have an admittedly numbers-heavy argument in opposition to our increasingly draconian Immigration Policy. It happens to correspond with another topic that’s important to me, the failure of our Social Security Program. It dovetails nicely with the conversation surrounding Undocumented Immigrants. I’d like to say this is the last of my long, mind-numbingly tedious, math-intensive arguments, but I would be lying. All I can hope for is that people are learning something from the information I’m taking the time to share.

According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, as of last November, 77% of all Immigrants in America have Documented (Legal) Status of some kind. Naturally, that means only 23% of the Immigrants here would be what people commonly refer to as being “Illegal.”

A 2023 Congressional Report detailed that a total of 365,714 Noncitizens received Social Security in 2021. This constituted only 4.8% of the total recipients of SSI Payments. More than 76% of the Noncitizen recipients were 65 or older, and more than 60% of them were female.

Historically, the largest number of noncitizen recipients of SSI Payments was in 1995, the year before the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was passed. That number was 785,000 people, just slightly more than twice as many as were receiving SSI Payments in 2021.

Exhaustive studies performed by the Social Security Administration have displayed that increased Immigration leads to a decrease in the Social Security Fund Deficit. The inverse, of course, is also true, that decreased Immigration further increases that Deficit. This means that more Immigrants coming to America means there is more money going into the Social Security Fund.

As Ron Popeil would say, “But wait, there’s more!”

According to an Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy analysis, Undocumented Immigrants (those commonly referred to as Illegal) paid an estimated $25.7 Billion into the Social Security Fund in 2022, despite the vast majority of those individuals never obtaining an Immigration Status that would allow them to receive SSI Benefits. To put that in numbers that are easier to digest, it means that more than $2,300 was paid into Social Security for each of the 11 Million Undocumented Immigrants living in America, while only a small percentage of those Immigrants will ever be able to collect on what’s been paid in. We’ll set aside discussions of the immorality and predatory nature of that disparity for now, because that’s a whole different conversation.

This one-way exchange is not new, as actuaries performed a study in 2013 that showed Undocumented Immigrants were responsible for $12 Billion paid into the Social Security Trust in 2010. Some of this, of course, arises from the use of false or stolen Social Security Numbers by Undocumented Workers to obtain employment, which is (as we know) a crime. But how many of us would commit a crime just to work and pay taxes? Most of them are not criminals, though, as it’s estimated that at least half of all Undocumented Immigrant households utilize an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number to file taxes.

Assuming a plateau with no further upward trend since the numbers for 2022 were assessed (as unrealistic as that might be), if we remove all Undocumented Immigrants from America, we will be losing $25.7 Billion every year that would otherwise be paid into the Social Security Trust. This means that it’s likely to lose solvency earlier than the updated 2032 estimate. And that is just from Undocumented Immigrants. Documented (Legal) Immigrants contribute substantially more, but some of them are also eligible to benefit from the program.

Thus, the Trump Administration’s plan to not only remove Undocumented Immigrants, but also strip Documented Immigrants of their legal status to Deport them, is going to cut down on the amount of money going into our Social Security Fund, while only marginally impacting what is paid out.

And, despite what certain people seem to believe, the administration won’t make up that lost revenue by discovering fraud. Despite the literal bullshitting done by Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and all the parrots who couldn’t stop themselves from repeating their claims, there has been no evidence of widespread fraud in the Social Security Administration. In fact, the program has a 99.7% Payment Accuracy Rate. The 0.3% consists not of fraud, but mostly of incorrect payment amounts due to errors or delays in payment. Also, despite the fraudulent nonsense I had to hear from Musk and the people who couldn’t think for themselves if their lives depended on it, only 0.1% of payments go to people 100 and older. This is–as you can probably tell–statistically accurate.

Of course, it’s not just Social Security that’s being financially stripped by these counterproductive policies.

Undocumented Immigrants have contributed close to $100 Billion in Federal, State, and Local Tax Revenue, often paying at higher rates than the Top 1%. Studies have shown that providing Work Authorization to all Undocumented Immigrants would add $40.2 Billion in Tax Revenue. If you care about the conditions for Immigrants living in America, this is what you should be endorsing. Otherwise, hundreds of thousands of people are paying in more than their fair share, while being ineligible to reap the benefits…much the same as it is with Social Security.

Unlike Elon Musk’s fictional claims of Social Security Fraud, none of this is about how I “feel” or some “vibe” I have. Contrary to the talking heads and pundits on Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax, I’m taking the time to read the reports and studies on the topic. What I’m sharing here are facts reinforced by studies, research, and years of data. These aren’t opinions. There aren’t two equal sides to this discussion, and it’s not ambiguous or open to debate.

In the simplest terms, and phrased in a way I trust the intended audience would understand, “The facts don’t give a fuck about your feelings.”

Immigrants Are NOT the Problem, and They Never Were

July 19, 2025July 19, 2025 / MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

There is never a bad time to remind people that being Undocumented in the U.S. is a Civil Offense, not a criminal one. Unless someone has been previously Deported and has returned to the U.S. (which is a Felony) or is caught in the process of (or found Guilty of) Illegal Border Crossing (which is a Misdemeanor), they are not criminals. This should make it obvious that the habit of simply accusing anyone who is here without legal documentation of being a criminal is both legally & factually incorrect.

Unless they’ve committed other crimes while on U.S. soil, they are not criminals and should not be treated as such. And Due Process is required to assert Guilt, which requires honoring the writ of Habeas Corpus.

Of course, none of that matters when the DHS and ICE are allowed to just make up whatever criminal activities, questionable tattoo correlations, supposed gang affiliations, and whatever else they want to claim about any individuals they’ve targeted to pick up off the street, from their homes, from churches, from the classrooms, or in front of the courthouses as they wait for their Immigration Hearings. Because, without Due Process, no one has an opportunity to defend themselves or to prove the lie for what it is.

We currently have more than 46 Million Immigrants living in America, with more than half of that number being Naturalized Citizens. Note that I did not say they were Documented Immigrants, these are Citizens who came here as Immigrants. And that is no simple process. As of last year, it took the average Immigrant seven and a half years as a Permanent Resident to become Naturalized. They undergo a lengthy application process and are tested on their knowledge of the English language as well as their knowledge of U.S. History and Government.

In the 27 years leading up to the moment when President Trump first took office in 2017, a grand total of 305 Denaturalization cases were pursued. It was an exceptionally rare legal process, something reserved for people like War Criminals, Child Predators, and those who Sponsored Terrorists. Obviously, it wasn’t common.

However, one of the first things President Trump did upon taking office in 2017 was to explore options to loosen the standards in place regarding what qualified as a cause for Denaturalization. His Administration’s goal was to expand the rationale and justification required to strip an individual of American Citizenship. There were hurdles he needed to overcome, of course, and questions of constitutionality were involved.

Nevertheless, during Trump’s first year in the White House, 20 Denaturalization cases were filed with the Department Of Justice. By the time he’d been in office for three years, that number had reached 94. The number of Denaturalization cases was only 20 for 2020, but this was largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic having a massive impact on our courts. But, during the four-year interval, the first Trump Administration had filed 104 Denaturalization cases, compared to 305 in the 27 years leading up to that point. You’re reading that correctly: 25% of all Denaturalization cases in 31 years happened in just the four years President Trump was in the White House (or 12% of the time frame).

The beginning of President Biden’s Administration was also impacted by pandemic conditions, but during his four-year term, only 24 Denaturalization cases were filed. So, that still leaves the first Trump Administration responsible for 24% of all Denaturalization cases in a 35-year interval. So far, the President is off to a slow start, with only five Denaturalization cases, but it’s just getting started.

Since he returned to the White House, President Trump’s Administration has (in addition to renewing efforts to lower the standards required to justify Denaturalization) also started pushing to strip Citizenship via Civil Litigation.

This may not mean much to most of us, since we aren’t lawyers. But it’s a truly horrific prospect. It’s important to understand that this means a U.S. Citizen could face losing their Citizenship without being entitled to an attorney and with a diminished Burden of Proof involved in the decision. Sure, they can pay for an Attorney (assuming they can afford it) or they can hope for someone to take on their case pro bono, but they’re not afforded legal counsel as they should.

You see, it’s not just the violation of Due Process regarding Undocumented Immigrants that’s an issue (which Obama was guilty of doing as well). Also, why the hell would any Trump supporter point to Obama as a benchmark? That’s just nonsense. The problem now is the clear intent to strip Due Process from U.S. Citizens on top of violating Due Process for Undocumented and Documented Immigrants.

Even if someone wants to argue the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to Undocumented Immigrants (which it does), it absolutely applies to Citizens. This policy also flies in the face of the Supreme Court Decision that brought an end to McCarthy era bullshit, of using Denaturalization as a political bludgeon, creating “…two levels of citizenship.”

There is a clear and present trend in the objectives put forth by President Trump and his appointees. The Trump Administration has made attempts to rescind Birthright Citizenship, revoke the Legal Status of various groups of Documented Immigrants, increase the number of Undocumented Immigrants removed without Due Process, and strip Citizenship from Naturalized Citizens at an increased rate and without Due Process. All of this is combined with efforts to make it harder to become a Citizen, more difficult to obtain Documented (Legal) Status, and to refuse Asylum Status for more Asylum Seekers.

By April, we had already Deported three children between the ages of two and seven who were U.S. Citizens. This was done even though family members here were prepared to take them in when their Undocumented mothers were being Deported, and made several legal requests to do so. Attorneys were denied access to the women–as were the family members–and they were provided with no alternatives but to take their children with them as they were Deported.

We’re only six months into this Presidency, and he is attempting to reshape the landscape regarding Immigration to make it inhospitable for anyone but those he thinks should be here, and that seems to exclusively consist of White South African “refugees” and people who can pay $5 Million for the privilege.

Of course, to Deport someone is to return them to their Country Of Origin, or to a country with which the individual has strong ties. That is the definition of Deportation. You can imagine this does not mean we get to send them to wherever we see fit. But, less than a month ago, the Supreme Court decided the Trump Administration could continue sending Immigrants to countries that are not their Country Of Origin.

Sending them somewhere they’ve never been, and where they have no social or familial ties, that’s more akin to Human Trafficking. Of course, this is a violation of both International Law and Human Rights, but no one involved with the Trump Administration is concerned with any of that. This should serve as a suitable reminder that what is Legal does not define what is Moral.

It’s wrong to refer to that activity as Deportation. Thankfully, we already have a term that mostly fits with what we’re doing with those Immigrants, it’s called Extraordinary Rendition. Sure, we can’t be certain that there’s a substantial risk of these individuals being tortured when they arrive at this third-party destination, but it doesn’t seem particularly unlikely. Again, no one involved in making these decisions is concerned. They’re similarly unconcerned with the fact that Extraordinary Rendition is illegal in both the U.S. and internationally. The United Nations Convention Against Torture, which was ratified by the U.S. Senate back in 1998, explicitly prohibits Extraordinary Rendition.

Anyone who wants to claim any of this is right or acceptable should take a deep breath and spend some time reflecting on how and why they have so much contempt in their hearts for people who (like their own ancestors) came here for a chance at a better life. I also feel that they should take some time to consider the strong likelihood that these people probably had to go through a hell of a lot more trouble to achieve the American Dream than their families did. I know the various branches of my family tree had it a whole lot easier becoming American citizens.

As an amusing little adendum, I have some useful information to share with the pearl-clutching Anti-Immigration folks who are worried about the criminals and gangs that are coming across our borders. The Mexican Mafia originated in California’s prison system in the 1950s & spread to Mexico via deportation. More recently, MS-13 started on the streets of LA in the 1980s, before members were deported to El Salvador, where they became more powerful & dangerous.

Maybe deportation isn’t the solution people think it is. It might be a good time to stop complaining that these Central and South American nations are sending gangs across the border into the U.S., because it seems to me that we’ve been sending the gangs there more than the other way around. And, of course, that doesn’t even factor in the cartels we supplied, funded, and endorsed as rebels and insurgents.

How Income Taxes Work…and Why The Big Beautiful Bill Isn’t So Beautiful

July 18, 2025July 18, 2025 / MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

It stands to reason that I’m no fan of the Congressional Budget Bill that was recently signed into law. There’s a lot to hate about the contents of that legislation, and I’ve touched on some of those things previously. But it’s worth taking a moment to look at the “good” portions of what we’ve all heard referred to as the “Big Beautiful Bill” as well. This is, after all, the bill that everyone is so proud of and so certain you should be proud of too.

Before I get to all of that, unfortunately, I’m going to have to spend some time on a bit of a tangent. This will be long, tedious, and number-heavy, but I will do my best to make it at least marginally interesting too. It could be beneficial for everyone to read it. It seems like many people don’t understand the basics of how taxes work, so I also want to take some time to delve into that, while discussing how we are shortchanging Social Security and our Federal Revenue by catering to the wealthiest people in America. To do that, a discussion of how Taxes work is sort of imperative.

The 2017 Tax Cuts were set to expire this year, but are now permanent. However, I’m not sure how many people actually comprehend how tax rates are applied or how the brackets work, so it might be worthwhile to dedicate some time to explaining that.

For an individual (I’m not doing this for all statuses, you can do that shit yourself):

We’re going to make this simple; we’re going to pretend you earn $1 Million a year. Yes, I understand that less than 0.5% of Households fall into that category. In America, fewer than one million Households earn at least $1 Million in annual income. Congratulations on becoming part of the Top 1%, you magnificent bastard.

For the first $11,600 you earn, you owe 10% of that in Federal Taxes, which is $1,160. The math on that little bit is simple, just remove a 0 from the end.

For every dollar you earn between that amount and $47,150, you owe 12% in Federal Taxes. This comes out to $4,266. So, if your income were exactly $47,150 per year, you would only owe $5,426 in total. But that’s not you. You’re earning a whole hell of a lot more than that now.

For every dollar between $47,150 and $100,525, you are paying 22% in Federal Taxes, which translates into an additional $11,742.50.

The next bracket takes you all the way up to an income of $191,950. At that point, you are paying 24%, or another $21,942. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll see that our current Tax Burden is sitting at $39,110.50.

From $191,950 to $243,725, we are looking at a rate of 32% paid out to the Federal Government. That adds another $16,568 to your tax bill.

The next bracket is in effect up to $609,350, at a rate of 35%. That tacks on an additional $127,968.75. Your total Tax Burden is now sitting at $183,647.25. I know, that seems like an awful lot. But, come on, you’d be earning more than $600,000, giving up less than a third of that doesn’t seem so bad. Don’t be so greedy.

For every dollar above that, regardless of how much more you earn, we’re looking at a static rate of 37%. So, for the rest of your $1 Million income, it’s only another $144,540.50. See, that really isn’t so bad.

So, on your brand new $1 Million salary, you’d owe the IRS a grand total of $328,187.75 for the year, leaving you with $671,812.25 of your income.

Of course, there’s also Social Security Tax, which is currently 6.2% on everything up to $176,100. If that seems unreasonably low to you, next year the cap will be higher, because it adjusts annually according to the average wage index.

We’re going to stop here for a moment. Consider it the equivalent of a Scenic Overlook on a road trip. Much like a Scenic Overlook, you can take this as an opportunity to relieve your bladder. If you’d like to know one major reason Social Security is going to be depleted by 2032, we just skirted past it. One primary cause is that you (with your $1 Million annual salary) are not paying into Social Security on $823.900 of your earnings. That would have been $51,081.80 that could be contributed in addition to the $10,918.20 you’re paying in. The math on that one is easy, too, because it’s another example of simply removing a 0 or two. Instead of paying $62,000 into the Social Security fund, you only paid $10,918.20. If your salary were $5 Million, you avoided paying $299,081.80. That hardly seems reasonable, does it?

As we discussed (you lucky bastard), fewer than 0.5% of American households had an annual income of more than $1 Million in 2022, according to the World Economic Forum. Somewhere in the vicinity of 400,000 to 500,000 people earn $1 Million or more a year. Assuming they were all capped at exactly $1 Million, and there were 400,000 of them, that would be $20.4 Billion not being collected for Social Security every year because of that cutoff at $176,100. This has been a problem since the 1980s, because earnings for upper-income levels have risen substantially faster than those of the rest of the population.

Despite President Trump’s assurances that the Congressional Budget Bill would remove taxes on Social Security, that is not what happened. Instead, what we received was a temporary Deduction that applies to all income for people 65 and over, though it does include Social Security income.

The final version passed by the Senate makes this a $6,000 Deduction for individuals with adjusted gross income of up to $75,000 annually, or $150,000 for couples filing together.

The deduction will expire after four years and does not apply to all recipients, including those who claim Social Security benefits before they turn 65. So, unless you’re over the age of 61, you won’t be benefiting from this temporary deduction.

This is where we locate yet another major driver behind the failure of our Social Security program. Some estimates suggest this will accelerate the depletion of Social Security by two years, pushing the date up to 2032. All while increasing the federal debt by 7% over the next 30 years. So, suppose you’re under 58 years old as you’re reading this. In that case, you can dispel any assumption that you’ll be able to benefit from the tax-free Social Security (or Social Security at all) when you do turn 65, because the Social Security Trust will more than likely be empty, no matter how much you personally paid into it throughout your employment history. I’ll come back to the depletion of Social Security after I finish going over how your taxes work and take some time to touch on the other “good” things found in the Congressional Budget Bill.

Moving on, there’s the Medicare Tax of 1.45% up to $200,000, and 2.35% on every dollar beyond that, so you’re paying $21,700 into Medicare for the year.

Deductions then factor in, and the odds are that your effective tax burden will be substantially decreased.

First, there are Above-The-Line deductions. These are subtracted from that $1 Million you earned for the year before anything else factors in, decreasing your Tax Burden by formulating your Adjusted Gross Income.

If you paid toward Student Loans, used a Health Savings Account, contributed to a traditional IRA, or any of several other things that contribute to your overall deductions, that’s something you can figure out on your own. Those things are deducted before the Standard Deduction.

The Senate version of the Congressional Budget Bill allows people to deduct income paid as tips (in careers where tips are customary). This amount is capped at a maximum of $25,000. I’m not sure how common it is for someone to earn more than $25,000 in tips over a year, but since most tipped workers are at or below the Federal Poverty Level, it seems unlikely that there are many. This is only in effect through 2028.

The Senate proposal limits that deduction on Overtime Pay to $12,500 per individual. This is also temporary, expiring after 2028.

So, those are some of the “positive” things we can look forward to.

The Standard Deduction was previously $15,000 for an individual or $30,000 for a married couple filing jointly. Once the changes took effect, the Standard Deduction increased to $15,750 and $31,500, respectively.

The new Standard Deduction of $15,750 is a given, but anything else beyond that is specific to the individual. Assuming none of the Above-The-Line deductions apply to you, what that means is that you will only be taxed as if you earned $984,250 instead of $1 Million, which would knock $5,817.50 off of your tax bill. That doesn’t seem like much, but it’s not nothing. Of course, if you have to itemize your deductions, the change in the Standard Deduction is irrelevant.

Non-itemizing filers can now claim $1,000 in charitable giving per year, and couples can claim $2,000 for deductions.

The Senate’s version of the Child Tax Credit, while slightly lower, is permanent. So, instead of a deduction of $2,500 per child, it’s $2,200, but at least it doesn’t expire in 2028 as some of the Above-The-Line deductions will.

The State and Local Tax Deduction will increase from $10,000 to $40,000, and increase by an additional 1% every year until 2030, when it will revert to $10,000. I don’t know if you live in a state where you pay State Income Tax, but chances are good that you do. That percentage is extremely variable, depending on where you live (which you know if you read what I wrote regarding Single-Payer Healthcare), so I won’t bother calculating it. I live in a state without it, but work in a state where there is State Income Tax, so this is beneficial to me.

The changes to the Estate and Gift Tax will benefit almost no one.

It increases from an exemption of $13.99 Million to $15 Million for individuals and $27.98 Million to $30 Million for couples who file jointly. I say this will benefit almost no one because the minimum net worth to be part of the wealthiest 1% is $13.7 Million as of this January, according to Investopedia. So, less than 1% of the population has the potential to leave an Estate or Gift of $15 Million.

Now, the trouble is that the people who could benefit from that increased exemption are the ones who really don’t fucking need it.

Individuals like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos, and other multi-billionaires avoid paying Income Taxes in several ways. Elon Musk receives no salary from Tesla, but was approved for a ten-year pay plan from the company last year that had a value of $44.9 Billion. The trick is that it was all in stocks, which means he won’t be paying any Federal Income Tax on that, while he can still use the stock value as collateral for loans, credit, and the like.

Mark Zuckerberg received an annual income of $1 last year, but received compensation amounting to $27.2 Million, which included $14 Million to cover his security and an estimated $1 Million in private jet travel. The rest, as you would imagine, came in the form of stocks.

Peter Thiel’s income is not publicly available. That’s something you might find amusing, considering what Palantir is capable of. Despite not knowing his annual income, we do know he has invested more than $5 Billion in Roth IRAs, which cannot be taxed, assuming he waits until retirement to liquidate them.

Jeff Bezos typically received a salary of $81,840, with total compensation that added up to $1.68 Million in 2022. Because of how he earns most of his money, via stock options, it was estimated he earned $8 Million every hour of the year between 2023 and 2024. And yet, there are several years in which he paid no Federal Income Tax, and has maintained an effective Tax Rate of 0.98% compared to his accumulation of wealth.

If you’re noticing a trend, you’re at least moderately observant. These people at the top of the American financial ladder are not even coming close to contributing their fair share in taxes. In part, because we don’t tax Unrealized Gains, which means all the stock options contribute to their Net Wealth and allow these people to live as they do, but are never taxed until they sell shares, and then Capital Gains Tax comes into play.

If something doesn’t seem wrong about that, you’re not paying attention.

There are years when the wealthiest people in the world are literally paying less in taxes than the people below the poverty level, and not just by percentage, but by dollar value.

Putting an end to that should be a priority. All it would take is implementing an Unrealized Gains Tax above a certain dollar value, maybe a 50% Tax on anything above $15 Million (just like the Estate and Gift Tax). Hell, Kamala Harris was far more generous, proposing a 25% tax on Unrealized Gains for anything over $100 Million. People freaked out over that because they had no idea what they were talking about, and because they were fed misinformation and fear-mongering that led them to believe their home’s increasing sales value would further increase their taxes. In reality, her proposal would have impacted fewer than 11,000 people nationally, and if you’re reading this, you’re probably not one of them. You probably don’t even know any of them, at least personally. That’s the kind of Tax Reform we need from something that anyone would consider worthy of calling a Big Beautiful Bill.

Now, I promised I’d get back to this, and I like to keep my promises. There’s one more massive driver behind the imminent failure of our Social Security program. It’s time to finish the discussion of why Social Security is likely to be bankrupt in only seven short years. We can thank Ronald Reagan and his Social Security Amendments of 1983 for that lovely little “fuck you,” with powerful assists from Alan Greenspan and a complicit and lazy 98th U.S. Congress.

Unfortunately, Trickle-Down (Supply Side) Economics was working out precisely as anyone but a moron would expect it to, and the decreased tax rates (for the highest income earners) were generating far less revenue than was promised. Our economy was in pretty big fucking trouble, because nothing but the delusional fantasies of our President happened to be trickling down. Reagan convinced a large number of people that Social Security was on the verge of bankruptcy, even though it wasn’t. But he had a solution. It was a two-pronged approach that would save everyone.

Surplus Social Security revenue generated by a Payroll Tax Hike implemented under Reagan, to the tune of roughly $2.7 Trillion, was meant to be invested in U.S. Treasury Bonds and held in trust until approximately 2010. That was it. That was his brilliant solution. It might have actually paid off, but Ronald Reagan was (predictably) Ronald Reagan.

Of course, Reagan, being the piece of shit he was, the surplus revenue raised by the payroll tax hike went into the General Fund instead of U.S. Treasury Bonds. Reagan then proceeded to spend every dime of that surplus that appeared during his remaining time in the White House. George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush followed suit and treated it like a fucking slush fund as well. Instead of putting $2.7 Trillion into trust, the money was spent on wars, covering the deficit from additional tax cuts for the wealthy, and shoring up other areas of the government.

Maybe this would have worked out if Social Security hadn’t stopped generating surplus revenue back in 2009, but it did. In 2010, it ran at a loss for the first time since 1983, by more than $40 Billion. This was money we borrowed from China. And we’ve had to borrow money from somewhere every year since then.

Well, we all sort of see where it goes from there. What’s worth noting is that, assuming we’d just kept the $2.7 Trillion where it belonged, and our Social Security shortage was by roughly $50 Billion every year, it could still be solvent through 2064, or 32 additional years from what is now projected.

Not Only CAN We Pay for It, We SHOULD.

July 17, 2025July 17, 2025 / MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

There’s always a lot of talk about how we can’t afford Single-Payer Healthcare here in America, and how much our taxes would increase if we were to implement a Universal Healthcare System. I got tired of listening to people who probably haven’t performed any mathematical operations more involved than basic addition or subtraction since they reached adulthood. I decided it was worthwhile to examine three countries that do provide for their citizens: Denmark, Canada, and the UK, to see how they compare to us here.

For the sake of simplicity, despite it making the whole process far more complicated for me, I’ve taken the liberty of converting all currencies to USD based on the conversion rates as they were today.

In Denmark, there is no Federal Tax on the first $8,080 an individual earns. From $8,080 to $94,224, there is a 12% Federal Tax rate. Anything above $94,224 is taxed at a rate of 15%.

If someone were to earn a hypothetical annual income of $150,000, they would face a total Federal Tax burden of $18,673.68, leaving them with $131,326.32 of their income.

There’s also a Municipal Tax rate that falls between 22 and 27% on all income. At the highest rate, it would decrease the remaining amount to $95.858.49. This means they pay a total of $54,141.51 in taxes on an annual income of $150,000. At the lower rate of 22%, it amounts to a grand total of $51,673.68 they’d pay.

In America, an individual is looking at a tax rate of 10% on the first $11,925. They pay 12% on everything earned between $11,925 and $48,475, 22% from that amount to $103,350, and 24% up to $197,300. So, the same person earning $150,000 in the United States would have a Federal Tax burden of $28,847, which is substantially higher than the federal taxes paid in Denmark.

To factor in municipal taxes, the closest comparison is to consider state income taxes, where applicable.

In the eight states where there is no State Income Tax, that $28,847 is all the individual pays, based on their annual wage. Most of us, of course, live in the 42 states where there’s an income tax levied on an individual’s wages.

Fourteen of those states have a single rate applied to all income, as opposed to a progressive system like we have at the federal level. Arizona is 2.5%, Colorado and Mississippi are 4.4%, Georgia is 5.39%, Idaho is 5.695%, Illinois is 4.95%, Indiana and Louisiana are 3%, Iowa is 3.8%, Kentucky is 4%, Michigan and North Carolina are 4.25%, and Pennsylvania is 3.07%.

In Arizona, the individual would pay an additional $3,750, and in Idaho, they would pay $8,542.50 in addition to the $28,847 they’re paying in Federal Income Tax. The larger amount is $38,389.50, so an individual living in Idaho would pay only $15,752.01 less in state and federal taxes than someone living in Denmark, on the same $150,000.

For states with progressive tax rates, you could be facing a maximum rate of 5% in Alabama and Massachusetts, 3.9% in Arkansas, 9.3% in California, 6% in Connecticut, 6.6% in Delaware, 7.9% in Hawaii, 5.58% in Kansas, 7.15% in Maine, 5.25% in Maryland, 7.85% in Minnesota, 4.7% in Missouri, 5.9% in Montana, 5.2% in Nebraska, 6.37% in New Jersey, 4.9% in New Mexico, 6% in New York, 1.95% in North Dakota, 3.5% in Ohio, 4.75% in Oklahoma and Rhode Island, 9.9% in Oregon, 6.2% in South Carolina, 7.6% in Vermont, 5.75% in Virginia, 4.82% in West Virginia, 5.3% in Wisconsin, and 8.5% in the District of Columbia.

For someone in North Dakota, that would translate into a total State Income Tax of $2,925, while in Oregon, it would come to $12,894.50 above the federal taxes collected, or a total tax burden of $41,741.50. This is only $12,400.01 below the maximum federal and municipal tax burden on the same income in Denmark.

We already know that taxes are higher in Denmark than in the U.S.. That comes as no surprise. But now we understand what the difference is, instead of imagining some abstract higher dollar value. So, let’s take a look at two other nations with universal healthcare.

Canadian federal taxes are 15% up to $41,883.75, 20.5% from there to $83,767.50, 26% up to $129,853.86 and 29% up to $184,992.22. The same $150,000 annual salary would lead to a total of $32,693.57 in federal taxes.

The individual provinces have their own tax rates, of course. The highest rate you’d experience at that salary would be in Nova Scotia, which is 21% on anything over $112,894.50. The lowest would be Nunavut, which has a rate of 11.5% on any income above $129,853.13. Looking at the highest rate, you’d be looking at an additional $24,829.79 beyond the $32,693.57 in federal tax, for a total of $57,523.36, which is moderately higher than the highest burden you’d encounter in Denmark.

In the UK, there is no tax burden up to the first $17,220.90. We’re looking at 20% from there until $68,869.90, and 40% up to $171,441.80. So for the same income of $150,000, you’d pay a total of $42,781.84 in federal taxes. You’d also be responsible for National Insurance Tax of 8% on earnings from $17,220.90 to $68,869.90, and 2% on earnings above that. Thus, you’d be paying an additional $5,754.52 on top of the $42,781.84, for a grand total of $48,536.36, which is lower than in both Canada and Denmark, but still slightly higher than the previous examples of Idaho or Oregon.

Of course, in Denmark, Canada, and the UK, you benefit from Single-Payer Healthcare along with those higher tax burdens; burdens that may not be quite as comparatively high as people in the U.S. often imagine them to be. Those increased taxes are largely offset by what we pay for our Insurance Premiums, even with employer-provided insurance.

The cost of individual Health Insurance Premiums in the U.S. can average anywhere from as little as $1,368 to as much as $8,951 per year, and family coverage is often dramatically higher. None of that even factors in the Out-Of-Pocket expenses for care and medication or multi-thousand-dollar deductibles we’re responsible for, before Health Insurance provides any assistance at all. For example, I have comparably fantastic Health Insurance through my employer. The Deductible for my Family Coverage is $3,300 annually, with an Out-Of-Pocket Maximum of $7,500. God forbid we have to find help Out-Of-Network, though, because the Deductible there is $10,000. Halfway through July, my Insurance Premium has cost me $1,491. It’s worth noting that this is entirely separate from Dental and Vision Insurance. To put all of that in perspective, that means that, in addition to the $1,491 I’ve paid just for the privilege of having Health Insurance, I also have to pay $3,300 Out-Of-Pocket before Insurance begins contributing to further Medical Care or Mental Health expenses. Until I’ve paid $7,500 Out-Of-Pocket, all my Health Insurance will contribute is a percentage toward those costs. I want to remind you that I have exceptionally affordable Health Insurance compared to many people I know.

All of this is brokered through Insurance Companies that receive massive Subsidies from the tax dollars we’re already paying. Companies that actually increase the cost of healthcare in the process. UnitedHealth Group, made famous by Luigi Mangioni, is a perfect example of this.

UnitedHealth Group raked in $372 Billion in 2023, $281 Billion of that revenue from the insurance division headed by Brian Thompson, the man killed on a New York City street by Mangioni. Only two years earlier, UnitedHealth’s insurance division obtained 72% of its revenue from Federal Subsidies, and it can only be assumed that the percentage increased by 2023. In 2024, the Federal Government spent between $1.7 and $1.9 Trillion on Healthcare Subsidies. All of this is money paid out to an industry of middlemen who have inserted themselves between people and their healthcare providers, while making massive profits in the process. In contrast, the UK spent approximately $353.5 Billion on healthcare in 2024. That is less than 19% of U.S. spending. Of course, the population of the UK is just shy of 70 Million, roughly 20% of the U.S. population of nearly 350 Million. What that means is that the Per Capita spending is virtually the same, though actually lower for the UK…but the majority of U.S. taxpayers see none of the benefits associated with that health spending. Looking at those numbers, it makes me wonder why there would even be a need to increase Income Tax rates if we weren’t propping up a parasitic and unnecessary industry in the process.

Or is it simply that the UK and other nations are better equipped to efficiently provide for their citizens than the U.S. happens to be? I’m willing to admit that we’re just not very good at doing things efficiently or effectively. I think there’s more than sufficient evidence to reinforce that perspective.

Beyond purely financial considerations, Single-Payer systems are far less likely to deny service, and when it does happen, it is typically an administrative error. Whereas, here in America, it’s a cost-saving measure on the part of the provider to maintain its profit margins.

And, the real kicker, if you don’t receive at least your premium costs in coverage from your insurer (and most people don’t), that money gets spread around to everyone else covered by the same insurance provider and to the people working there, leading to massive profits for the corporations in question and CEO salaries that can reach as high as $23 Million in total compensation. For example, even though I have reached my Deductible of $3,300 for the year, my Insurance Company is highly unlikely to pay out even the $1,491 I’ve paid so far in Premiums for their percentage of the payments before the new annual cycle begins.

Of course, none of this even takes into consideration the portion of my Premium that’s paid by my employer, which has reached almost $8,000 so far this year. So, even if my Insurance Company somehow ends up paying out $5,000 for their part of my Healthcare expenses, they’ve already got $4,419 lining their pockets without either me or my employer paying another dime toward the Premiums. I don’t get that money back. My employer certainly doesn’t receive the excess back at the end of the year either. Have you ever looked at your paychecks and calculated how much free money you and your employer are handing over to an Insurance Company that (as a policy) does whatever it can to avoid helping you? Now, take a moment to consider that all of the money coming in from people like you adds up to maybe a quarter of what the Insurance Company has for revenue.

But, of course, it’s “Socialism” if your Tax Dollars provide Single-Payer Health Coverage for every Citizen in the U.S.. But if your money is distributed between the thousands of people with the same insurer (while lining the pockets of the obscenely wealthy), then it’s an entirely different sort of thing. It’s “Socialism” even though it’s a Public Service provided by the Capitalist Governments of essentially every other Civilized Nation in the world, as well as several that we consider less than “First World” countries.

One additional benefit worth noting is that public universities cap most tuition at less than $13,000 per year in the UK. Canadians can expect an average annual tuition of under $4,800, and college tuition is not charged at all in Denmark. Whereas in the U.S., In-State tuition averages roughly $11,000 per year (ranging from less than $7k in Florida or Wyoming to more than $20k in Connecticut or Pennsylvania), and Out-Of-State tuition explodes to an average of around $30,000 (from less than $13k in South Dakota to more than $60k in Michigan).

Which is to say that you can be both healthier and better well-educated at substantially less cost in those nations, even when you factor in the increased tax burdens. Of course, as I pointed out already, there’s no reason to raise the taxes individuals pay in the U.S. if we were more efficiently utilizing the slightly higher amount the U.S. already pays Per Capita for Healthcare Subsidies than the government of the UK.

Don’t let idiots and fear-mongers influence you. None of the nations discussed are “Socialist” countries. They just take the role of government more seriously, providing for the public good.

It might also be worth noting that, in 2023, UnitedHealth Group donated $792,500 via PAC contributions to federal political campaigns. Roughly 54% of those PAC contributions went to Republican candidates and 45% went to Democrats.

It also spent an even more substantial amount of PAC funds on In-State campaigns all across the U.S.. This was divided up between individual candidates, party contributions, and ballot measures.

And, in 2024, UnitedHealth Group (according to its filing with the U.S. Senate) dedicated $6.85 Million toward lobbying efforts, above and beyond Millions in PAC spending. Think about that for just a moment. This Corporation receives most of its revenue from Federal Subsidies. And then it spends a small portion of that revenue to support the campaigns and political parties that ensure it keeps getting that money.

It’s easy to spend that kind of money when a company brings in a net income of $14.4 Billion (which was UnitedHealth’s lowest profit margin since 2019), a number heavily impacted by the Billions they spent recovering from a cyberattack on one of their claims processing subsidiaries. With everything adjusted accordingly, they proudly claimed a record high profit of $25.7 Billion for last year.

Spending $6.85 Million through lobbyists and millions more through PAC contributions isn’t a challenge when you have that kind of profit involved. The amount spent on corporate lobbying was, after all, only 0.048% of the net profit.

Of course, UnitedHealth Group has already dedicated $3.37 Million toward lobbying efforts so far in 2025, so they’re hardly skimping on graft despite it not being an election year.

While the industry rakes in massive profits, it’s happy to return the favor by lining the pockets of politicians and political parties across the political spectrum, all to ensure it has its interests taken care of.

If you can look at this and think it’s fine, while Single-Payer Healthcare would be too costly, you’re not only missing the point, but you’re being intellectually dishonest.

The Truth About Medicaid, Medicare, & Other Fraud: It’s Not What You Think

July 15, 2025July 15, 2025 / MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

It has always seemed obvious to me that if people want to know where Medicare and Medicaid Fraud come from, they need to stop looking for illegal recipients. It isn’t as simple as some might think to defraud programs like SNAP, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid by filling out an application with false information.

I don’t know why it bears mentioning, but neither Medicaid nor Medicare provides Beneficiaries with cash. They operate as a substitute for Health Insurance. That might come as a surprise for those of you who have never needed to use one of these programs. So, even if someone successfully applies via Fraud, they aren’t lining their pockets at the expense of Taxpayers.

Even if someone manages to obtain Medicare or Medicaid coverage through fraudulent means, what happens then? In the worst-case scenario, they would obtain medical treatment that they otherwise could not have received. Let’s assume it’s the most expensive surgical procedure from 2024, which is a Heart Transplant. At the most expensive rate, that would cost Medicare or Medicaid $1.3 Million, assuming it would cover the surgery in the first place. It would require more than 38,000 people receiving fraudulently obtained Heart Transplants to equal the $50 Billion House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed was lost to Fraud, Waste, and Abuse of Medicaid each year. If that seems absurd to you, you’re absolutely correct.

Just last week, CVS Health’s Omnicare (pharmacy services for long-term care & senior living communities) was found guilty of fraudulently billing the U.S. Government for invalid Medicare, Medicaid, and Tricare Prescriptions and ordered to pay $948.8 Million in penalties & damages. A massive $406.8 Million of that was for Damages, which were tripled as per the False Claims Act.

All of this came about because a Whistleblower brought attention to more than three million false claims between 2010 and 2018.

In 2021, the average Medicare Spending per Beneficiary was only a little over $15,000. To put that in perspective, it means the Fraud committed by CVS translated into the equivalent of the total annual spending for just under 9,000 Beneficiaries, or just under 1,000 Beneficiaries each year for which CVS was found Guilty of the illegal billing.

And this is just the Fraud from one Corporation. I can assure you that they are not alone.

One thing that people need to understand is that Improper Medicaid payments are not the same as Fraud. It’s a challenge for some people to wrap their heads around that distinction because certain individuals have played fast and loose with conflating the two things…because it suits their agenda.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Improper Payments made up only 5.09% of the total payments made by Medicaid in 2024. Of that 5.09%, roughly 80% (or 4.07% of the Total) were caused by missing documentation that would determine whether a payment was correct or incorrect, and payments that went to the right Providers in the right amounts, but that may not have complied with some regulations or statutes. In all of those cases, if the paperwork had been correct, they wouldn’t even factor into these numbers, because the payments wouldn’t have been classified as Improper or because they wouldn’t have been issued in the first place.

It’s the remaining 20% of that 5.09% where we find people who weren’t eligible for Medicaid. But it is also where we locate the individuals who were eligible but received a service that wasn’t covered.

So, while all of these 5.09% of Improper Payments count as Monetary Loss, they do not constitute Fraud. All of the Fraud falls into the minuscule 1.02% of the Total Payments.

Yes, we should be combating Fraud, but it’s not the Beneficiaries of Medicaid and Medicare who are the criminals, guilty of committing the vast majority of Fraud; it’s Ambulance Services, Pharmacies, Nursing Homes, and other Providers who have utilized creative bookkeeping and manipulation of the system. The victims are the Beneficiaries, Legitimate Providers, and Taxpayers alike.

Fighting Fraud doesn’t involve cutting funding for Medicaid, and it won’t have any impact on the rate of Improper Payments, because the Beneficiaries were never the primary Source of them.

What I hate more than anything is that this is ultimately yet another dog whistle for anti-immigration proponents. I’m not going to use Undocumented as a descriptor here, because we’ve all heard the plan, shared far and wide wherever cameras are rolling, that the Trump Administration intends to strip Documented Status from Immigrants, including those who are Citizens. It was never about doing it the right way; it was about being the right ethnic makeup, which is why there was so much support from people who believe in “The Great Replacement” myth.

Across the years 2021, 2022, and 2023, Wyoming and South Carolina were the two states with the highest rates of Improper Medicaid Payments (at 20.7 and 20.5% respectively), with Delaware, Connecticut, and Idaho following close behind. As you might notice, none of these five states are among the most populated, and none of them are near the top of the list of states with the largest immigrant populations.

California, New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Nevada are the states with the largest immigrant populations, yet they all fell below a rate of 9% during those three years.

So, people need to stop pretending this is even remotely connected with our Border Policy or Immigration Statistics, because there isn’t even a Correlation to mistake for Causality.

House and Senate Republicans upheld their promise not to tamper with Medicare as far as work and age Eligibility Requirements were concerned when drafting the 2025 Congressional Budget Bill. However, Eligibility for certain Immigrant groups will be impacted, as some Non-Citizens who were previously Eligible as Permanent Residents of the U.S. for at least five consecutive years will lose coverage 18 months after the Legislation is passed.

Medicaid, however, was far from off-limits to Congressional Republicans…and where they have tampered with Medicaid and other health coverage through the ACA, it could have dramatic and widespread impacts on healthcare systems across the nation.

Medicaid is funded through a combination of Federal and State Taxes, with roughly 70% of that funding coming from the Federal Budget. States often derive a significant amount of their funding through Provider Taxes, which are taxes paid by Health Care Providers (hospitals, nursing homes, and the like). The House version of the Congressional Budget Bill would have prohibited States from creating new Provider Taxes or increasing the current percentages paid by Providers, which are capped at 6%. The Senate version, however, gradually decreases that percentage to 3.5% by 2031, but only for the 40 States (and the District of Columbia) that employed Medicaid Expansion under the Affordable Care Act, leaving exceptions in place for nursing homes and intermediate care facilities.

This will dramatically decrease the amount of matching funds paid by Federal Taxes, creating a bit of a double-whammy on States that are being penalized for adopting Medicaid Expansion.

The concern here is that States will almost certainly have to make dramatic cuts to Medicaid as a result of the lost revenue, further cutting the number of people covered or the amount paid to Providers.

Of course, there’s also the addition of out-of-pocket expenses for Medicaid enrollees, as a $35 co-pay will be required for some services (again, only in States with expanded Medicaid) for individuals with an annual income of more than $15,650 (Federal Poverty Level). The Senate did add allowances for States to charge an even greater co-pay for Emergency Room visits for Non-Emergencies. The silver lining is that the co-pay policy doesn’t apply to primary care, mental health, or substance abuse services.

Access to insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace is about to become more challenging as well. It will also be more expensive as enhanced subsidies are scheduled to expire at the end of 2025, which could result in some costs for ACA insurance coverage increasing by an average of 75%. I don’t know how many people can afford to see their Insurance Premiums go up by 75%, but I would be irate if it were happening to me.

Hundreds of thousands of Lawfully Present Immigrants are likely to lose insurance coverage through the ACA, because additional subsidies that keep those costs down will also be expiring.

All of this is devastating at a time when hospitals and medical facilities across the country are already facing massive budget shortfalls. Part of that comes from Medicaid and Medicare payments not being sufficient to keep pace with rising operating costs. Those skyrocketing operating costs are partially derived from administrative expenses produced by Insurance Companies, due to prior authorizations and the appeals associated with denials.

According to a report from the American Hospital Association last September, administrative costs alone accounted for more than 40% of the average hospital’s total expenses. Not only does the Commercial Insurance Industry delay and often deny necessary care for patients, but it also dramatically increases the costs for Providers to operate in the first place, which leads to increased costs for the rest of us. Of course, the Industry is thriving as a whole, with many Insurance Companies seeing record profits year after year.

You may notice some disdain for Insurance Providers, and that’s something I’m entirely conscious of. I’ve experienced frustration regarding the predatory practices of the for-profit Insurance Industry while researching their standards, profit margins, and actions.

What we’re likely to see if the House and Senate Republicans have their way, in addition to fewer people being covered by Medicaid (and health insurance in general), is staffing cuts at Providers or (in the worst case) closures. This is most likely to happen in areas where the population is lowest, impacting rural Providers more than those in urban areas…though the impacts would still be massive there as well.

Because of this, Senators added a $50 Billion fund ($10 Billion annually) to the Congressional Budget Bill, insulating rural hospitals from some of the worst impacts. The House version of the bill would have allowed rural hospitals that closed between 2014 and 2021 to reopen under the Rural Emergency Hospital designation, which allows Medicare to provide them with a potential lifeline. This could have been good, since 146 hospitals in rural counties closed between 2005 and 2023. The Senate, unfortunately, included no provision to reopen those hospitals under the retroactive designation.

So, there are some small bits of good mixed in with the bad aspects of that portion of the new budget, but none of those “good” things would be quite as necessary if it weren’t for all of the “bad” aspects of the Congressional Budget Bill. And altogether too much of that “bad” is tied up in transparent bigotry directed toward Immigrants, and the false claims that they are responsible for Fraud in the Medicaid and Medicare systems, along with the other things people often refer to as “entitlements.” Of course, while focusing on Legislation to further disenfranchise already disenfranchised people, the same Lawmakers are providing additional handouts to Corporations, the actual sources of Fraud, Waste, and Corruption.

My Assurance To You

July 14, 2025 / MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

The current political climate in the United States has forced me to address far more political misinformation than I naively expected. I should have known better, having made it through not only the first Trump Administration, but also the year leading up to that and the interval of relative sanity that followed. The difference now is that I’m working as a journalist and don’t have the luxury of stepping away from the constant barrage of false claims, bad faith arguments, cherry-picked data, and data being tossed around without either context or nuance. On the positive side of things, I happen to enjoy doing research, and I’m good at it.

I’ve recently found myself sharing long, detailed posts on social media (Facebook, in particular, due to the lack of character limits being imposed), and someone suggested that they’d subscribe to it if I had a blog. I suddenly remembered that I do indeed have a website available where I can post these things. I’d been primarily focusing on using this space for reviews of books and audiobooks that I’ve completed, but I haven’t been doing that lately. Since I pay for the privilege of having this space, I might as well use it.

So, here we go.

I don’t expect you to take any of the things I post here at face value. You have no particular reason to trust me over any other entity sharing their political opinions online, and I don’t expect you to place that kind of faith in me. I want you to question what I say, especially if it doesn’t make sense to you. But I will make an assurance to you that I will not be posting something unless I’ve done my due diligence. I have dedicated time and energy to researching whatever the topic might be, using sources that are nonpartisan and unbiased. This is not to say that I am impartial, because (like everyone) I most certainly have my own set of biases in place. In my career as a News Producer, I have to exercise great caution to keep any of my opinions from influencing the news I’m assembling for the gradually diminishing audience for local television newscasts. But I do lean heavily on facts over feelings, even when they’re my own. If the facts and data don’t support something, it won’t be in my newscast unless I’m also supplying the facts and data that counter whatever that thing happens to be.

You’re always encouraged to research these things yourself; the resources are all readily available, and I’ll even happily provide links if they’re requested. I know not everyone has the time available to do so, and most people don’t enjoy research and collating data…at least not as much as I do.

I may mistype something here and there, double up or miss a word altogether, and even have an error in my math (though I typically double and triple check all the numbers). I apologize for any of those errors that may slip through. I’m not a fan of AI, but simple spelling and grammar checking algorithms are in play…however, they are occasionally more incorrect than I am.

As I said, I don’t expect you to trust me implicitly. What I do expect is that you know I care a great deal about being right, even when it doesn’t make me particularly nice. I don’t like being wrong, so I prefer to keep my mouth shut unless I know I’m not.

I’ll gladly admit when I’m wrong about a thing, but I go to great lengths to verify my sources and check my work before I share anything. Not only do I enjoy it, but I’m good at researching things, which is why I’m good at my job (and somewhat okay at my far less lucrative career as a writer).

Sure, I’ll tell someone an opinion is wrong, but that’s just me being an asshole, and we all know that. Of course, some opinions are informed by bad/false data, and I will try to address that…but opinions are subjective, whereas facts are not.

Five of a thing is always more than two of the same thing.

The sky appears mostly blue because molecules in the atmosphere scatter the light from our star in such a way (based on wavelength) that it looks that way.

The Earth is not flat.

We have been to the Moon, and astronauts left things behind on the surface even during the earliest missions.

And so on.

Some things are simply not a matter of opinion, and about which there are not equally valid arguments in opposition.

One thing I ask, beyond your belief that I care too much about being right to waste my time on the long posts without knowing I am, is that you do not use Google’s AI or ChatGPT as a resource. I can’t tell you how many times I happened to glance at what Google AI provided as a response to a search inquiry and felt like it either did not have the slightest capacity to recognize what was being searched for, or that it hallucinated a response that fell far out of line with any legitimate sources. That being said, I will acknowledge that it was closer to accurate more often than it wasn’t…but this is neither horseshoes nor hand grenades.

Thoughts On American Polarization

February 22, 2021 / MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

We are polarized.
Our culture is playing a high-stakes game of tug-of-war with the Overton Window and the view through that window in America has been growing progressively more right-leaning and red over the years. The talking heads fanning flames of fear will tell you that America is being consumed from within by “communists” and “socialists” whenever there’s even a tiny concession made concerning basic human rights or the recognition that homosexuals, transgender people, women, or any sort of minority group haven’t been receiving a fair shake. The reality is that we’re nowhere near moving left in this country. Even the Democrats tend to disregard the most left-leaning members of their party.
In large part, this is due to Democrats not being progressive enough in their policies and largely being unwilling to play the same rhetorical shell game with facts and truth that the other side has become expert at playing. There’s an unwillingness to think big or take big risks within the bulk of the Democratic Party whereas the Republicans have no problem with lining up behind a man who represented the worst extremes of right-wing politics in America because they assumed that it would get them just a little bit closer to their ideal positions of power and authority. The most progressive members of the Democratic Party, on the other hand, have to fight tooth-and-nail to receive even marginal representation when it comes to matters of policy. There’s a bit of simpering cowardice and a lack of boldness within the bulk of the Democratic establishment, and it’s been that way for decades.
So yes, we are indeed polarized in several key aspects. That’s a hard truth of American politics. It does present a challenge.
The worst part about it all is that we’re not quite as polarized as it superficially might seem.
There are a lot of points where individuals on the left and those on the right are in total agreement. The focus is never on those things in our political discourse, especially through media of all kinds (whether we’re talking about mainstream media–and that does include Fox and OAN, though I see a lot of people trying to pretend otherwise–or social media). This division is cultivated by keeping people on the left appearing as crazy socialists to those on the right and the folks on the right appearing to be mentally deficient bigots in the eyes of the people on the left. These descriptors are certainly true of some individuals, but they aren’t representative of the bulk of either group.
This is going to devolve into a rambling diatribe, I’m sure. I know myself well enough to see that on the near horizon. I apologize for that being the case. I can only hope you’re able to keep up with me along the way.
I do lean Socialist in my political views. It can easily be inferred that I’m pretty far left of the Democratic Party (as a whole). I don’t dispute this at all. This is not to say that I think the Federal Government should become a nanny state or that I feel like D.C. should be the focal point of a new religion.
I’m not a nationalist, after all.
I believe the role of the US government is to serve the best interests of the American people. That’s it. That’s the sole purpose of it. Politicians are our servants, meant to act in our best interests. This is not what is happening.
What we see today, from the vast majority of our political figures, is a government acting in the interest of those who fund their reelection campaigns and provide them with hand-outs. They’ll toss some superficially pleasing and inoffensive concessions our way once in a while, as long as it doesn’t cost them too much by way of campaign funding…but that’s about all we get for the price of admission we pay by voting and participating in the democratic process.
This is not the way it’s supposed to be working.
We all know it’s wrong…right and left, center and fringe.
The only people who don’t seem to know it’s wrong are the ones directly benefitting from the oligarchy we’ve allowed to grow within our nation like an unchecked tumor.
This is not being written for the people who subscribed to the QAnon conspiracy. There’s no getting through to you if you believe Donald Trump was the literal savior of America (or the world). You’re too far gone for me to have any hope of reaching you. This is not for the militant leftists who somehow believe that we’re going to overthrow the American neo-fascist government and usher in a utopia of communal living and worker-owned industry overnight. Though people in those aforementioned groups still recognize that things are wrong with the political arena in America, they’re choosing to cling to fantasies and wish-fulfillment rather than reality. That’s a whole different conversation for a different day.
It’s also a conversation I don’t care to have.
Most of us aren’t bigots. Or should I say that all of us are bigots, just not quite the way the term gets tossed around?
I know that’s difficult for some people on the left and the right to acknowledge…but it’s true.
No, most people aren’t homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, or religiously intolerant beyond a tiny extent.
That tiny bit of bigotry…well…we all have it. We’re all ignorant, some more than others. We’re all biased in different ways, larger and smaller. We’ll never find any sort of resolution as a society if we can’t come to terms with the fact that we are all wildly imperfect.
The only thing we can do is come together. The more we meet new people and interact with others who aren’t like us, the greater the chance that we can overcome those cultural biases deep within our psychologies. I’m no less guilty of this than anyone reading these words.
For most of us, our biases are minimal…though no less problematic. These things can be overcome. I honestly do have this much faith in my fellow human beings. I’ll admit that I could be overly optimistic here, but I believe most of us are better than a lot of us think we are.
This is not to say that systemic racism is not a real thing.
It is.
This is not to say that there is a profound undercurrent of homophobia and transphobia within large segments of the population.
There absolutely is.
This is not to say that sexism in America (and a whole lot of the world) is not a real cause for concern.
It most assuredly is.
There are, without question, awful people out there who believe terrible things about other people based on either their ignorance or contempt.
If we take the time to try and explain things to others without frustration and impatience, maybe we can come to better terms with one another. We might even be able to get through to some of the people who otherwise seem irredeemable.
We need to come together, sooner rather than later. If we can’t figure out how to do this, we’re going to continue being ground beneath the treads of those who benefit the most from us being at one another’s throats. Until we stand together, we’ll continue to find ourselves crushed, consumed, and disposed of.
We all see money being squandered on ridiculous corporate bail-outs while the middle class disappears below a rising poverty line. It’s fair to say that almost no one, regardless of party affiliation, sees something like that and agrees that it’s something good or right. We’ve been seeing it in D.C. a great deal since the pandemic started in early 2020. There was no hesitation when it came to bailing out Wall Street and corporations where the CEOs and board members had been seeing massive rises in profit while the employees receive barely subsistence wages. Money that was earmarked for small businesses, to keep them afloat during these troubling times ended up being approved as loans for companies that needed no assistance. People who were without work had unemployment benefits stripped away before anything had been done to improve their odds of returning to work. Politicians in Congress nickeled and dimed the actual voting population, trying to figure out just how little they could offer while still appearing to care just a little bit. And then, only a few short months later, they were doing the same thing all over again. They happily approved money for the people and corporate entities who fund their campaigns but decried payments (beyond a pittance) sent directly to people as socialism. We saw the same thing back in the recession more than a decade ago as well. We tossed money at banks and corporate entities while we allowed people to be swallowed up by debt and poverty.
We see these things happening while infrastructure around the country fails. Bridges and roads are maintained poorly, utility networks are neglected so that the providers can obtain record profits, some of those profits sure to be funneled into the coffers of the politicians who turned a blind eye or actively aided in deregulation under the guise of honoring the free market. Most of us see through these infantile rationalizations, but they succeed in these selfish grifts by counting on the polarization of our political climate to guarantee their base will still support them.
We squander countless billions of dollars on corporate welfare, regime-changing conflicts, and a war on drugs that has been a transparent failure since the beginning. All the while we’re told that it’s too costly to divert mere fractions of that money to programs that would improve the overall quality of life for American citizens…programs like universal healthcare or free access to higher education and trade school. We’re told that this is “socialism” and that we can’t afford it, while the rest of the civilized world succeeds in doing these things without becoming the socialist dystopias American politicians and media talking heads insist we would become. We’re told to worry about higher taxes when most of us are already paying more for insurance premiums and deductibles than we’d ever end up paying in increased taxes. We’re told that we should selfishly refuse to spend our money on someone else’s medical costs, even though that is precisely what our insurance premiums are for. The insurance companies don’t pay those bills out of some endless surplus of funds they generate for themselves, they utilize the money you and I are paying and divert that money to the medical costs of other individuals with the same insurance provider.
We’re told that raising the minimum wage in proportion with the cost of living (rate of inflation) and the degree of productivity will raise costs (creating a cascade effect of ever-increasing inflation rates) and force businesses to close their doors…but both of those things have been happening for decades while the living wage has remained stagnant. Some of these fears could be offset if we introduced universal healthcare, as employers would not have to dedicate funds to insurance companies for their co-pay portions.
We’re told that we should find nobility in pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, often by individuals who come from families who passed wealth down generation by generation in the form of land ownership, business partnerships, or literal wealth. We’re told that America is a land of equal opportunity by these same people after generations of dominion have allowed their particular class to largely rig the game in their favor. As an individual who descended from a family who took advantage of the Homesteader Act back in the day. I’m familiar with the myth of Manifest Destiny. Those early Westward traveling settlers were handed parcels of land by a government that didn’t own the land in the first place…all for nothing more than working the land and making lives for themselves.
What is being given to us for our labor these days?
Insufficient wages, insurance that denies our claims when we need them most (while we make the higher-ups at these insurance companies sufficient money that they can buy politicians), and the sense of being beaten down beneath the feet of those who use our labor to elevate themselves?
Whether we want to admit it or not. We have these things in common. I have a decent job, as far as wages are concerned when compared to the difficulty. My insurance is pretty decent and not particularly expensive. There are plenty of us in this position.
For every one of us, there’s someone miserable where they are, and that misery is being compounded by the exploitation of the people they work for. It’s easy to claim they should just leave those jobs to find something else.
When are they supposed to find the time to look for new work while they’re still working the job they wish they could get away from?
What happens to them if they become ill while they’re between jobs?
What if the benefits aren’t as good but the pay is better?
These are concerns that could be entirely eradicated with something as simple as universal healthcare being in place. With guaranteed higher education or trade school, it provides the worker with better leverage as well.
Alright.
Fuck it.
I’ve babbled more than enough. I’ve probably lost the thread somewhere along the way…but I hope you’re able to follow along to some extent.

Domus Necrophagous

Welcome To the House of the Carrion Eaters. Providing Reviews, Sociopolitical Discussion, and Writing Updates from Nikolas P. Robinson

America

Sanctuary States Do NOT Cost Taxpayers Money. That’s Always Been a Lie

Immigrants Are NOT the Problem, and They Never Were

Not Only CAN We Pay for It, We SHOULD.

The Truth About Medicaid, Medicare, & Other Fraud: It’s Not What You Think

My Assurance To You

Thoughts On American Polarization

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: