When my husband started to work for Social Security in 1966 the Social Security trust fund was in good shape.  Then Lyndon Johnson decided to raid the fund to finance the war in Vietnam. Subsequent Presidents, both Republican and Democrat, thought that was such a good idea that they could have their own wars and the trust fund would pay.  If you had a retirement fund and kept going into it to play the horses the effect would be much the same. 

What it boils down to is that we are going to pay for any war the President or Congress decides to make, whether they raise taxes or raid the fund and raise Social Security taxes.  It is not fair to you or me or your children or my children to have to pay for Bush's wars or any other war.   But all those people who championed going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan are partly to blame (my son was one of them).  Sometimes war is unavoidable (WWII) but sometimes it is better to let a nation fight its own war without interference.  Would Iraq be in any worse shape than it is now if we had just let them alone to fight their own revolution.  Sure people would have been killed, but how is that any different from what has happened. 

If the Social Security tax is raised then each employee pays a certain amount and the employer matches that amount.  Removing the cap on wages that are subject to withholding means that both employees and employers would pay more.  I am not forgetting the small businessman who has to pay the whole amount but its still not an enormous amount.  Congress could also eliminate all the Internal Revenue tax breaks on millionaires and billionaires and big companies and make up a lot of the deficit.  A few years of peace would be nice. 

I am not forgetting 9/11.  Would our search for bin Laden have been quicker or taken longer?  Who knows?  We certainly didn't find him in Iraq or Afghanistan.  I think our CIA is inept and needs major improvements but they did find him.  There will always be a Hitler, a Stalin, a Hussein, a bin Laden, or a Qaddafi but I think that only when America is threatened should we take action and then with the least damage to the innocents who become side damage.

Things are not right in many parts of the world.  It is not the United States of America's duty to make everything right for everybody.  Let's let them solve their own problems for a change.

What I learned this week.

It is not a good idea to let three years of papers pile up on your computer desk.

 It is also not a good idea to try to pick up your cat who is standing on said pile of papers.

A cinnamon bagel does not make a good Philly Cheese Steak sandwich.

That I really really really don't want to go on a diet but I am going to have to.