Who Pays For It?

That is the question that many of us should be asking when we see people or government “ripping off” the system. It’s all around for us to see. Just watch one days worth of T.V. and you’ll see what I mean.

Firstly, let’s take the claim on T.V. that if you are over-extended on your credit cards, you can hire “X” Co. to wipe out your debts, no problem, just call the number on the screen! But, there is a problem; somebody is going to have to pay for that forgiveness of your debt. Guess who? You and I! That’s why the credit card companies are “nickel and diming” us to death with petty fees and higher interest costs.

Secondly, another claim that is regularly “hawked” on T.V., is that you can practically wipe out the money you owe the I.R.S. just by hiring the “Y” Co., as advertised. I’m no big fan of the I.R.S., but are they so stupid that someone ripping off the tax code, by design or ignorance, will have his debt cancelled outright– no problem according to the “barker” in the T.V. ad. The problem is that we will have to pay more to make up for the tax deadbeats ripping off the system, especially since Pres. Obama is spending our tax money like a “Drunken Sailor”. Oops, sorry about the comparison, Obama makes drunken sailors look frugal.

Thirdly, another mind boggling claim that seems ridiculous is that a person who thinks he/she needs a motorized scooter, for medical reasons, has no worries in trying to obtain one – in fact one of the ads says that if you get turned down by Medicare, they’ll give you the scooter free of charge. (I’ll bet the Co. hasn’t given away one yet?). The cost charged to Medicare is twice the cost if you had to purchase it outright by yourself. That’s an example of why Medicare (and Medicaid) is in financial trouble. Waste and inefficiency is rife and rampant, as a government bureaucrat is dealing with taxpayer money, not his own.

Fourthly, how many times a day have you seen the ad from law firms trying to drum up clients who might have been exposed to asbestos sometime in their life? The disease – Mesothelioma is the “disease du jour” for the lawyers to cash in on today. Years ago, no one knew asbestos was a carcinogen, it was a legal substance used for insulation and wall boards. Now, people are claiming that companies (through their insurance companies) must be held liable for using a “legal” substance approved by the government. In addition to companies going out of business because of these lawsuits, the costs to the other companies being sued will be passed onto the shoulders of we, the poor schlumps, and the purchasers of insurance and the consumers of the products they make.

Finally, our government has allocated billions of dollars for a so-called “stimulus” plan to generate economic recovery. One problem, we don’t have the money they plan on spending and it has not done what the government bureaucrats said it would do, create jobs. So far, it is a failure in practice, but it is successful in skyrocketing our deficit to $1.6 trillion by the end of 2009. It is projected by the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) that our deficit will balloon to $10 trillion in ten years. Does anybody in charge have any economic common sense to see the errors of spending money we don’t have?

So who will pay for it in all the above cases? You got it, it us the ordinary people, plus our children and grandchildren, most all playing by the rules, who will have make up for the deceit of others. What a system, what a country!

Written by Chuck Lehmann