Trickle-down Gaming

In the news in late August it was reported that the Social Security Disability Fund was rapidly going broke.   The reported reason being that as people with disabilities lose their jobs and can't find new ones, they are forced to apply for disability benefits in order to survive.   Now, without going into any detail, I will say here that many people taking disability are not so disabled that they can't work.  There are four things going on:
1- People are taking disability because they have been laid off and cannot find a enough work to make a living wage
2- People are taking disability because they are not yet elegible for social security benefits
3- People are taking disability because their welfare time limit expired (4 or 5 years in most states)
4- People are taking disability because it's an easy paycheck they can get for life, regardless of their age.

Reason #4 is another way to say these are lazy people scamming the system, and thus ripping off the taxpayer.  How they manage to do this I'll leave to your imagination.

It's not fair, it's not right, they should be paying into the system instead of taking from it... and they are following the example -- and the intent -- of the very wealthy.  Of course, the poor (which in practical terms is about 80% of Americans) don't have the resources to scam the system as well as the wealthy.  However, they do the best they can with their limited resources and understanding.  For lack of a better term I call it Trickle-Down Gaming.

The wealthy don't need to trifle with stuff like taking disability at an early age.  The wealthy have "tax shelters" for almost everything they do that either makes money or costs money....doesn't that cover about everything?  And of course, the reason these "tax shelters" exist is because millionaire congressmen (both houses) make the tax rules, to their own benefit, or to the benefit of their wealthiest campaign contributors.  As a result, many very wealthy people pay less tax than a person considered middle-class.  Is it cheating?  No, because the law allows it.  Is it gaming the system?  Definately.  Are tax shelters intended to let the very wealthiest Americans pay little or no tax perverting the original intent of the tax code?  You bet it is!

With the very wealthy setting the example, the less wealthy, the middle-class, and the poor do what they can to pervert the intent of the system, within the means available to them.  If the wealthiest of us paid their fair share of taxes, maybe that sense of fairness would trickle down to the rest of us.