Whats wrong with this picture

For years our elected representives have been taking money ( the surplus, 2.6 trillion since 1983, above the amount needed to pay current beneficiarys )that was paid in to the Social Security Administration, without any idea as to when or if it could ever be paid back.The social security surplus was invested in treasuries, enabling the government to borrow less money from other sources.The government borrows these funds to pay for other spending , but is obligated to pay intrest on these borrowings, and are to pay the funds back when needed by Social Security for benefit payments. The money is gone and the system is broke: These funds are guaranteed, but are only as strong as the federal Government and taxes will have to be raised to cover the costs of the borrowings when they are called for. Now they are back again ; this time to try to "overhaul" the system, to cut back on the benefits that are owed to millions of Americans , who have paid into this fund for a lifetime. Most of these Americans paid into this fund , with the understanding that when they reached retirement age they would at least be able to count on something each month as most of these Americans did not have any kind of retirement plans offered to them through their employer nor could they afford them if they were. Cuts need to be made : this is very true however cutting the benefits of Americans who have next to nothing is not really going to help much in the overall picture. It would be too easy to fix this by saying that we could divert some of the savings from the ending of the two wars and applying that money to cover the "borrowed" funds. This sadly can not happen, as the wars were and are funded with borrowed funds. More revenue needs to be coming in : Adding more revenue to the fund, if in fact there really was one , would be the quickest way to solve the problem of funding. But with the outsourcing of jobs there are fewer and fewer Americans working and paying taxes, at a time when we need more workers. Raising the retirement age; once again there is talk about raising the retirement age,but this would only be a quick fix and would not really offer much relief. Cutting the benefits to those who are receiving benefits but having never paid anything into the system, would be a good place to start. Taxes need to be raised to fund the Social Security system, but there is not much desire in doing so in an election year. The House Republicans just passed an extension on the payroll tax holiday,prolonging the cuts in funding to Social Security,in an effort to save face in an election year futher complicating the problem. We can't dig our way out of the hole that we now find ourselves in . If you keep digging you will find that the hole just keeps getting deeper.

Is anyone else embarrassed?

I'm sorry to say , but I feel that this Republican election cycle has got to be one of the most embarrassing moments in American history. Surely you would think that in all of America that there would be a few American's that don't come off as just plain stupid each time that they open their mouths. On the one hand we have as the front runner, a completely out of touch millionaire, who doesn't really have a clue as to how the rest of America lives,and in his past has been on every side of every issue and on the other hand we have this lying cheating short fuse has been,that has never taken any responsibility for anything unless someone else did it, that is just about ready to blow. There are a couple of other American's running who come across as somewhat intelligent, but they don't get the time of day by our we select who we want American media. I have been watching with great intrest all of the debates and all I have seen so far , is just more finger pointing and name calling. The President did this or my opponent did that, never saying that this is what I WILL do. I want to hear a plan I want to be told that as President I WILL WORK with all members of the American pollitical process. All of the members of the House and all of the members of the Senate I will go to them as the leader of the free world and say this is what I want to do , and your job is to make it happen, and if they give the same kinds of results that we have been getting, I will hold them up to the media saying that the reason we have failed to get anything done is because of this..These people need to get over their larger than life personas and get busy fixing America. Afterwards they can tell the story of how THEY did it anyway they want, but it does need to happen and it needs to happen NOW.