Tag: Federal Government Shutdown

Social Insecurity

August 18, 2026

HISTORY LESSON ON YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY CARD:

Just in case some of you young whippersnappers (& some older ones) didn’t know this. It’s easy to check out, if you don’t believe me. Be sure and show it to your family and friends. They need a little history lesson on what’s what and it doesn’t matter whether you are Democrat or Republican. Facts are FACTS.

Up until the 1980’s, Social Security cards expressly stated the number and card were not to be used for identification purposes. Both my wife and I have these cards. My mother and father’s cards that I still possess show it as well. In college, my first student ID number was my SSI number.

Since nearly everyone in the United States now has a number, even our young children, it became convenient to use it anyway and the “NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION” message was removed. One promise is broken.

Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program. These are the promises that he made, with updates in brackets.

Participation in the Program would be completely voluntary [No longer voluntary, another broken promise.],

The participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual income into the program [Now 7.65% on the first $90,000, and 15% on the first $90,000 if you’re self-employed. That’s three promises broken.],

The money the participants elected to put into the program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year [No longer tax deductible, a fourth one bites the dust.],

The money the participants contributed would be deposited into an independent ‘Trust Fund’ rather than into the general operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program [Under Johnson the money was moved to the General Fund and the Trust Fund no longer exists. This makes five broken promises.], and

The annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income [Under Clinton & Gore up to 85% of your Social Security can be taxed which makes six lies that were told.].

Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month — and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the Federal government to ‘put away.’

The worst part about it is uninformed citizens believe these promises were never made to citizens. If enough people hear this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe changes will come. Maybe not, though. Some from both parties are awfully sure of what isn’t so — but it’s worth a try.

Remember this in November when you go to the polls. Both parties want to control you. Neither group wants to balance our budget or limit the number of terms that Congress and the Senate serve. They all want to live off your taxes and make fortunes from those they make wealthy while turning away from helping We the People.

Check the history of the shutdowns of our federal government and see that these two groups function as co-conspirators to destroy our country. It is time to vote against every politician on the local, state, and national level. Keep listening to partisan politics of any group and you will soon lose what freedoms you still have.

©Copyright 2026 by Charles Kensinger

Prelude to a civil war

December 2, 2025

John Nickle from Facebook

This is what the prelude to a civil war looks like:

With its southern-dominated Democratic majority, the Senate approved the admission of Kansas as a slave state on March 23, 1858. In the House, the administration could count on at least half of the northern Democrats, as in 1854. But this time, that was not enough to win the battle.

“Battle” was not too strong a word for events in the House. On one occasion during an all-night session, Republican Galusha Grow of Pennsylvania walked over to the Democratic side to confer with a few northern Democrats. Lawrence Keitt of South Carolina shouted at him: “Go back to your side of the House, you Black Republican puppy!”

Replying with a sneering remark about slave drivers, Grow grappled with Keitt and knocked him down. Congressmen from both sides rushed into the melee. “There were some fifty middle-aged and elderly gentlemen pitching into each other like so many Tipperary savages,” wrote a reporter describing this 2:00 a.m. free-for-all, “most of them incapable, from want of wind and muscle, of doing each other any serious harm.”

But Alexander Stephens believed that “if any weapons had been on hand, it would probably have been a bloody one. All things here are tending my mind to the conclusion that the Union cannot and will not last long.”

My point of view:

This is history. It is politics at its worst. It is how division of thinking can be allowed to become outright violence, even among what are considered normally civilized people. These are the reasons the South seceded from the Union. Don’t say that this will not happen today.

This is exactly the type of split that has been happening in Congress over the argument about closing and then reopening the Federal Government. Are you smart enough to see that the separation into political parties just adds fuel to this type of blaze? When we take sides without weighing the pros and cons of an argument, we fail to have the opportunity for compromise.

Compromise is what businesses and governments are built on. Agreeing to disagree and get on with what needs to be done is what made companies grow and America great. America will not be great if our representatives cannot solve their own differences.

We are only as great as our weakest link, and at this moment, it seems to be our elected officials. When we vote next August and November, we need to ensure that the candidates we support can set aside petty partisan differences and get their jobs done. I believe the only way to do this is to elect non-partisan candidates.

©Copyright 2025 by Charles Kensinger