Subscription: $15 / year Membership: $15/year All correspondence to: Editor: Duane Bates All correspondence to: P. O. Box 1744 Greenville, SC 29602 April, 2008

The Voice of Sanity THE NEWSLETTER OF THE UPSTATE S.C. SECULAR HUMANISTS Visit our web-site for current and back-issues at: www.uscsh.org e-mail: secularhmnst@aol.com

NUMBER OF RELIGIOULY UNAFFILIATED CONTINUES TO GROW

A recent survey of 35,000 Americans by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life indicates that 16.1% of Americans, or about 48 million, are either atheists, agnostics or respond with “nothing in particular” when asked about their religious affiliation.

The other important finding of this survey is that Americans are quite willing to change to change their affiliation when they find a religion that is more in tune with their beliefs and needs. The survey states that as many as 40% of adults have changed their faith since childhood, a radical change from the past when you generally died within the same faith as you were born. This clearly shows the importance of creating a free society where a person is free to choose their belief, or non-belief without restriction. The separation of church and state is a very important condition to having true freedom of belief. America has hundreds of different religions, something that would be impossible in a nation that does not have respect for human rights at its core.

Christians of all persuasions still dominate the religious mix in the US totaling about 75% of the population, but there is a substantial movement between the many denominations that make up Christianity. Mormons and Jews make up about 1.7% each, with a number of other religions of the world making up the balance.

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO FREE SPEECH?

MySpace, that supposedly free-wheeling Internet networking site has twice deleted a 35,000 member atheist and agnostic group during the past two years according to Freethought Today. It was deleted after complaints by Christian, restored and then deleted again in January 2008.

Army Spec. Jeremy Hall, an atheist, is suing the Department of Defense, alleging that his promotion was blocked and Constitutional right violated because he attempted to hold a discussion group on atheistism while deployed in Iraq. A link to the full article is posted below.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23490989/

ARE YOU “ENTITLED” TO SOCIAL SECURITY?

I always experience a twinge of annoyance and irritation whenever I hear someone in government refer to Social Security and Medicare as an “entitlement” when they are trying to demonstrate the depth of the financial problems these programs face in the future.

My dictionary defines entitlement as: to give a person a right or claim to something. How kind of our political leaders to give us a right to claim the trillions of dollars our employers and we have paid into Social Security for all of our working lives. Currently we pay 6.2% of our annual earnings up to $102,000 into Social Security and 1.45%, without any upper limit, into Medicare. SSA, Federal and State funds pay for Medicaid, a program to provide medical care to low-income adults and children that do not have medical insurance.

The real beneficiary of the massive inflow of funds into the Social Security Administration (SSA) is the Federal government. Congress uses the social security funds as a captive source of low-interest loans to fund their excessive spending, giving the SSA IOUs in return for the growing deficits over the past decades. Currently the SSA is owed about $2.2 trillion by the Federal Government. The rate of interest earned on the amount borrowed by the Federal government from SSA averages about 3%.

There is no doubt that both Social Security and Medicare need adjustments to continue their solvency in the future, but the biggest adjustment that should be made is to stop the SSA from being used as a private piggy bank for Congress by separating it from the Federal Budget and allowing it to invest excess funds in a manner to earn a better rate of return. An independent board should manage SSA and funds loaned to the Federal government should earn a market rate.

There is literally no free lunch, however, and we need to realize that the current contribution rates will need to be increased to provide the promised benefits for current and future retirees. The Bush failed initiatives to “privatize” social security was a thinly veiled attempt to relieve employers of the 7.65% current matching contribution rate and place the entire burden of saving for retirement on their employees, but that does not mean we should not investigate every possible approach to secure the future of Social Security.

Regardless of the outcome of the November elections, we need to mount a massive lobbying campaign to force Congress to take action to make the adjustments necessary to begin creating a sound financial future for Social Security. My specific suggestions to begin the process are as follows:

1. Establish the SSA as an independent agency, redeeming the Federal IOUs for cash and allowing SSA more freedom in investments to increase the rate of return. The IOUs would have to be redeemed by their replacement with additional Treasury bill issues with, I suggest, a fifty-year term and would increase the current Federal interest expense.

2. Increase the employee contribution rate to 8% while holding the employer contribution rate at the current 7.65%. This change would cost a family or individual with an annual earned income of $30,000 $105 per year.

Increase the contribution level maximum from the current $102,000 per year to $150,000 per year and index it to inflation for future years.

3. Means-tests future cost of living adjustments to shift a greater portion of these adjustments toward the SS recipients with the lowest benefits. This approach has already been installed for the portion of SS benefits changed for Medicare, with the SS recipients who have a higher total income from all sources income paying substantially more for Medicare premiums.

4. Allow employees to voluntarily pay more into Social Security without a matching employer contribution to receive a higher benefit at retirement.

Social Security is the most successful and efficient Federal program, with a 2% operating cost basis, but we have been deficient in not recognizing the demographic changes that have been taking place in our society and making the changes that will protect this important program in the future. We need to start making the adjustments now so that the future and adjustments can be managed more effectively and minimize negative impacts to the system and individuals. The key to success is convincing our elected Federal representatives to begin the process of making SSA an independent agency. Start writing those letters to Congress.

WARREN BUFFET: SHIFT THE TAX BURDEN TO THE WEALTHY

This morning, March 3, 2008, Warren Buffet, one of the wealthiest persons in the world, is the guest of CNBC. The Oracle of Omaha is discussing a wide variety of subjects, including the distribution of the Federal income tax burden. Once again, he has questioned the fairness of the Federal tax burden, pointing out that he pays a rate of about 17% while all the people that work for him in his office pay over 30% when Social Security taxes are included. He believes that the tax burden should fall heaviest on the group of taxpayers, like himself, that have received the greatest benefit from the opportunities afforded them by America. Here are the numbers that support his position.

Below is income and tax statistics for 2005, the latest year for which detailed information is available, based on actual IRS tax returns for that year.

(DOLLARS IN MILLIONS EXCEPT FOR AVG INCOME/RETURN)

Tax Filers Tax Filers All Tax

Bottom 75% Top 25% Returns

Total Income $2,438,503 $5,069,455 $7,507,958

Total Fed Tax $ 130,944 $ 803,797 $ 934,741

Federal Tax % 5.4% 15.8% 12.5%

No. Of Tax Returns 99,518,727 33,458,728 132,977,455

Avg. Income/Return $24,508 $151,517 $54,461

The average income for the bottom 75% of tax filers in 2005 was $24,508. The 99,518,727 tax returns in this category covered slightly over 200 million Americans, men, women and children, two-thirds of the entire population. For the 66,305,818 tax returns in the bottom 50% of tax filers, the average income was $14,572.

If we would had eliminated Federal Income taxes on the bottom 75% of tax filers in 2005, they would have had almost $131 billion in additional income in that year, providing them with funds to purchase healthcare, save for their retirement, or educate their children. Based on Buffet’s suggestion, that $131 billion would have been added to the tax bills of the top 25% of tax filers, raising their average tax rate from 15.8% to 18.4%. By comparison, their tax rate in 1980 was 19.1%.

Removing about 100 million Federal Tax returns would allow us to reduce the size of the IRS, cut back on other Federal programs like food stamps and other welfare programs and save our hospitals millions in medical care that is currently written off because people do not have the money to pay for health care. It would also reduce the number of bankruptcies, 50% of which are caused by healthcare costs.

DEMOCRATS ACCUSED OF MAKING POPULIST APPEALS

In an article in MSNBC, New York Times reporters James M. Broder and Jeff Zeleny attempt to stick the nasty label of “populism” to the Democrats, stating that Senators Obama and Clinton are attempting to appeal to the majority of the population though promises of programs that will benefit the blue collar and middle class voters and tax increases aimed at the highest earners in out country. A link to the Times article is posted below.

Populism is defined as a political philosophy supporting the rights and powers of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite. The leaders and participants in the American Revolution viewed themselves in exactly that light; they were in a struggle to obtain their personal, political and economic freedom from King George III and the privileged elite of England. That goal accomplished, our nation set out to create it’s own political and economic aristocracy, initially limiting the vote to white men with a certain degree of wealth and assets. Now that we have established a privileged elite in America, they resist any changes to the new order of economic and political control just as King George and the British elite did.

Of course, in the “old country” the class lines were strictly drawn based on ancestry, family name, title, and social position, but there were plenty of poor gentry who struggled to maintain their place by marrying into wealth. In the new world the path to high social status has developed more strongly along economic lines, but we had a whole continent to exploit once the indigenous peoples had been subdued and millions of African slaves had been kidnapped and brought to North America to work the plantations in the South.

Embedded in the derision and criticism directed at the very concept of populism in the media is an unspoken social Darwinist belief that our economic and political leaders are somehow destined by Devine Providence to lead while the rest of us follow with caps in respectful hands, thankful for what our leaders toss our way. Unfortunately, the middle class and blue-collar workers in America have placed their stamp of approval of the current economic structure by default, not bothering to register and vote to elect representatives that will look out for their interests.

A CNN feature today demonstrates this bias very clearly. They were running a feature on why most middle and blue-collar families will never be able to purchase a home and used Cleveland Ohio as an example. The median home price in Cleveland is $121,000, but to be able to qualify for a home loan to buy a home of this value you would need an income of $40,000, but the vast majority of families in Cleveland have income below that level, preventing them from ever qualifying for a home mortgage. The CNN presenters, all of whom are in the top 10% of earners, discussed the problem, noting that middle class and blue-collar incomes have been stagnating or falling for decades while home, and all other prices, have been rising. Not once during their discussion did they ever present increasing family incomes as a solution to the problem. They simply cannot conceive that increasing family incomes would solve many of the financial problems facing Americans today.

The good news is that, based on voter turnouts in the primaries, it appears that the tide may be turning in the favor of the majority. In the twenty-five years since 1980 when income tax cuts favoring the top 10% were first passed there has been a well documented increase in the concentration of income and wealth in the top 10%, with the top 1% gaining the most, while incomes of the bottom 70% of earners steadily losing real, inflation adjusted, income.

We have been told that the expressway to economic nirvana for all of us is to provide the wealthiest in our society with the lowest tax rates possible so that they will wisely invest their incomes in job creating activities and that some of the resulting benefits will “trickle down” to the rest of us. It is clear that since the 1970s this has not happen, with 70% of the population now economically worse off than they previously were, while the top 10% has gained a increasing share of all personal income and have enjoyed a almost one-third reduction in their tax rates.

The outcome of the 2008 elections represents a critical point in our nation. The real question is whether the approaching $10 trillion national debt, the out of control spending by Congress, misplaced priorities, uncontrolled immigration, and the effects of globalization has reached a tipping point where the near-term future of America is bleak.

Will we continue our march toward a two-tier society; the very wealthy and everyone else or make the fundamental changes that will lead us to a more stable, more socially and economically secure society? The outcome of the 2008 elections will point to the direction our country will take. Encourage and assist everyone to know, Republican, Democrat, Independent, to register and vote. Democracy cannot survive in any nation without participation of the majority.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23228640

CALENDAR

March Meeting: Because the normal meeting schedule would result in the March monthly meeting falling on Easter Sunday, we have decided to combine the March monthly meeting with the April Brunch on April 12^th;

April Brunch: The April Brunch/March monthly Meeting will held at 10:30AM on Saturday April 12^th at the home of Joe and Elaine Norwood, 19 Oakleaf Rd, Greenville, 29609. Call Joe and Elaine at 268-1889 to coordinate your contribution. As usual, the host will provide eggs and coffee.

April Monthly Meeting: Time and location will be announced by email after the April brunch.