Socialism

Three Big Social Security Changes That Should Come in 2025

by Laurence M. Vance September 17, 2024

An article at The Motley Fool that was also posted at Retirely — a financial planning company — about big changes coming to Social Security caught my eye: “3 Big Social Security Changes Coming in 2025 May Surprise Many Americans.” Social Security is the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program that provides ...

Two Payments, More Payments, Higher Payments, or No Payments?

by Laurence M. Vance June 5, 2024

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is often confused with Social Security. Although both programs are administered by the Social Security Administration (SSA), and both programs provide Americans with cash from the federal government, that is where their similarity ends. According to the SSA, the main differences between SSI and Social Security are: Social Security benefits may be ...

The Social Security and Medicare Scams

by Laurence M. Vance March 19, 2024

Charlotte Cowles is a financial advice columnist for The Cut, “a New York Magazine site dedicated to women’s lives and interests, including politics, work, money, relationships, style, and parenting.” She recently lost $50,000 when she fell for a scam, put that amount in cash in a shoe box, and handed it over to ...

Johnsoncare, Bushcare, Obamacare, and Trumpcare

by Laurence M. Vance February 16, 2024

Former president Donald Trump has vowed to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare) with his own plan. Because “Obamacare is too expensive, and otherwise, not good healthcare,” he vowed: I will come up with a much better, and less expensive, alternative! People will be happy, not sad! I don’t want to terminate Obamacare, I want to ...

Medicare & You

by Laurence M. Vance February 1, 2024

Although I am not quite old enough to qualify for Medicare, I recently received in the mail a 131-page large-size book titled Medicare & You 2024: The Official U.S. Government Medicare Handbook, published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Turns out that the book was intended for a previous owner ...

The 80th Anniversary of F. A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom

by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 2024

Eighty years ago, in March 1944, the British edition of Friedrich A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom was published. An American edition appeared six months later, in September 1944. During these eight decades, Hayek’s book has become a classic work in defense of the liberal free-market society and against socialist central planning. Often, when a book has received the status ...

Democrats, Republicans, and Social Security

by Laurence M. Vance January 5, 2024

Social Security recipients received a 3.2 percent increase in their benefits at the beginning of this year thanks to Social Security’s annual cost of living adjustment (COLA). President Biden and his fellow Democrats, and even many conservatives, want them to receive even more money from the U.S. treasury. . Since 1975, Social Security beneficiaries have received cost-of-living ...

To Cure Healthcare, We Need to Kill Government Involvement

by Robert E. Wright August 1, 2023

Most Americans need not have seen the recent headline announcing that Connecticut healthcare insurers seek to raise premiums by over 20 percent to realize that America’s healthcare system is badly broken -- overly expensive and insufficiently healthful. What they have yet to fully grasp is that it’s almost entirely the government’s fault. Instead, many applaud socialized medicine, ...

Biden’s Wrecking Ball Benevolence for Homebuyers

by James Bovard July 1, 2023

When did being creditworthy become a federal crime? The Biden administration is intentionally punishing homebuyers with good credit scores to subsidize people with shaky histories of paying their debts. But the latest salvation scheme ignores the sordid history of federal policymakers ravaging homeowners they promised to rescue. As of May 1, a Biden administration decree requires adjusting mortgage calculations to ...

Why Does NPR Still Exist?

by Laurence M. Vance April 14, 2023

One of the hallmarks of authoritarian countries is that the media is state-run or under the direct supervision or control of the government. The Xinhua News Agency is the official state news agency in China. Al-Akhbar, Al-Ahram, and Al-Gomhuriya are state-owned national newspapers in Egypt. Cuba prohibits privately owned media. According to Reporters Without Borders, China, Egypt, and ...

What Republicans Aren’t Saying about Food Stamps

by Laurence M. Vance April 4, 2023

According to Democrats and their allies at progressive and liberal outlets, millions of Americans are going to go to bed hungry or starving to death because the extra food-stamp benefits they were receiving because of the “pandemic” ended last month. Now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the food-stamp program is a federal program administered by ...

The Roots of American Dysfunctionality, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 The United States once had the finest health-care system in history. When I was growing up in the 1950s — before Medicare and Medicaid came into existence — medical costs were low and stable. Hardly anyone had major-medical insurance. That’s because they didn’t need it. Going to the doctor was like going to the ...