Confessions of a “Selfish” American Conservative

by Dr. Ada Fisher - March 29th, 2010

When it was put on my heart as a child that I would be a doctor and render service to those in need, I wondered how I would pay for my journey and who would come to my aid. While many of my peers were out having a good time and squandering away their time, talent and resources I buckled down to study, then gave up the marching band which I dearly loved to work in a physician's office to begin saving money for college and ultimately medical school. I went to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro through work-study, loans for service and awards from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to help integrate that institution. I even shined shoes for my white female classmates and cleaned more than a toilet or two in my search for cash--all of which seems beneath today’s students too often in search of a free ride.

In 1966, my father whose church pension was $100 monthly received only $107 per month from Social Security after more than thirty years as a pastor. The SS student supplement for me and my brother was $75 each per month until we were 21 which we gave to our parents while we went to work. My father wanted to pay for my medical education, not appreciating that my tuition exceeded three times more than the $2400 he took in retirement. Loans and grants with repayment for service criteria and work doing anything legal still left me with a $54,000 debt in 1975 for my medical education.

In my residency, I ran into tax trouble not understanding business or financial realities like you can’t actually spend your salary -- for taxes and other things such as FICA which I knew little about were being deducted.

Knowing nothing about saving for retirement I not only tried to earn more, I sacrificed to set aside monies from those already taxed while I planned to live comfortably past 65. Eventually I would appreciate that business is the bed rock of America and would invest my already taxed dollars in the stock market taking great risks to help businesses which would provide jobs for Americans.

I entered the Public Health Service to help repay some of my government assistance, followed shortly thereafter by a stint in the John Umstead Hospital of Butner, NC as the Alcohol Detoxification Director serving a 16 county catchments area for less money than the private sector paid. Then it was off to Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Inc. followed by Amoco Oil Corporation where I found my salary impounded by the federal government to get money given me for loans which had already supposedly been paid off in service through seven years out of my career when I could have made millions.

I had no right of recourse from the government which had acknowledged my service but cited a sentence in the loan noting that loans would be repaid only if Congress appropriated the money... which it hadn’t. The government got my service for free and took its money as well as pound of flesh.

Meanwhile I continued to give over $400 per month to the United Way while employed and donated generously to charities of my choice not those of the government.

Now we move fast forward to find as a baby boomer the retirement age had already been upped for social security even though it wasn’t so when I started putting my money in it. My stock market losses weren’t sufficient for tax rebates though my capital gains would be stolen in taxes with government consent to fund those who hadn’t made plans for a rainy day. 401K and IRA’s which were for my future have lost so much value that they aren’t sufficient for retirement or my personal support. Defined benefits plans which I had in two places have seen one not offered at 65. Fortunes of health which forced my retirement against my will on disability for lack of accommodations only to find those monies heavily taxed and converted to social security at age 62 which is less than I received on disability.

Add in that age discrimination means the likelihood of finding meaningful work past 55 is a joke.

So what should we do? Stand up for America and resist the continued massive redistribution of wealth which is Obamacare and all of its social engineering. Since Congress won’t vote to bind itself to the same rules it makes for other citizens, throw the bums out. And if like me you’ve drunk the tea — taxed enough already, then appreciate that we are in need of a new revolution for we are truly facing increasing taxation without representation.

Wake Up America! Let the revolution begin again!