Why I was Denied Social Security Disability

...so a 22-year-old could buy a $150 million mansion. Now I understand!

Since applying for Social Security disability I've read horror stories of the people with much more debilitating injuries and illnesses than I have, and it made me wonder why the U.S. government was being so cruel to these people. I can understand that with ANY government program there's going to be a few people who "game" the system, but why make EVERYONE who needs help go through such a difficult and prolonged process of receiving financial assistance from a government program that they paid in to all their working lives?

As in the case with SS disability, I've heard that first-time applications are usually always denied. But in articles I've seen on the internet, I've read that this was just a myth, but I now know this to be true, at least, it was in my case.

The Social Security office stated as one reason for denying me benefits was that they never received any records from my doctor. So that alone leads me to believe that they are just jerking me around to discourage me from pursuing my claim; but they might not have used these delay tactics with me if I had a lawyer from the very beginning.

When I was bartending at the Riviera Casino in (2006 or 2007) there was a convention for Social Security administrators. One guy was sitting at my bar with another man and they were drinking all night long. After work me and a co-worker sat down with them, and one of those guys actually bragged about systematically denying benefits to people. He even claimed to have known all the people at Binder and Binder and bragged about how they were all a bunch of assholes, and how he would always jerk them around. (Maybe the alcohol made him exaggerate a little, I don't know).

But according to everything I've read, I've met all the criteria for receiving SS disability and should have qualified the first time. X-rays show degenerative arthritis in my neck and lower spine. Now I need to get a lawyer involved, wait much longer, and receive 25% less in back-payments if I'm finally approved.

Sure, there will be abuse in the system, but that's just the cost of running a government, just like any business. Some employees will always steal from their employers too, as will some customers. Theft is calculated into the price of the goods they sell or written off in taxes. But a business won't strip search every old woman in a wheelchair leaving their store for fear that they stole something, or they wouldn't be in business for every long.

The U.S. government just lost (or had stolen) $7 billion from the defense industry's war chest. But who must pay for this? Not the rich, but the poor, the elderly, the sick, and the disabled. That's why the government is being so stingy with SS disability and Medicaid. Not because a few bad apples slipped through the cracks, but because of other waste, fraud, and abuse in government...like no-bid contracts in the defense industry.

But now I understand while the government has been making it so difficult for needy people like me to get relief. The budgets at all levels of government have been severely decimated by lack of tax revenues coming in from the richest and most privileged in this country. Evidently, during the worse economic disaster in our country's history, it's only the poor, sick, and elderly who have suffered. Otherwise, if you're young, healthy, and rich, it's a fantastic time to be alive.

The 22-year-old Formula One racing heiress Petra Ecclestone has just bought the most expensive home in America. (The home was built by the late television producer Aaron Spelling and was sold by his wife Candy.) 

The 57,000 square foot mansion is located near the ocean by Michael Jackson's estate in the Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles and was listed for $150 million. This 23-room mansion even has a separate "gift wrapping" room. How thoughtful!

Petra Ecclestone also owns a home in Chelsea in London, England that apparently costs more than $90 million. 

Petra's father (Bernie Ecclestone) is English and president and CEO of  The Formula One Group, which is owned ultimately by Delta Topco (a Jersey–based company), which in turn is owned by CVC Capital Partners' funds (approximately 70%) and JPMorgan (approximately 20%). The Bernie Ecclestone family trust owns the remainder 10% held by financial advisers and Ecclestone himself.

These are the people that the Republicans are representing, and those who they want to lower taxes for (corporate, capital gains, and inheritance). The GOP claims that by lowering these people's taxes, they will create millions of good-paying middle-class jobs. And that by giving the uber-rich more tax breaks, we will also lower the national debt by cutting such things as Social Security disability payments to parasites such as me - - - just so people like them can buy more mansions, yachts, limos, and private jets.

But if you want to tax them more to pay for government programs, you are accused of wanting to steal from the rich, and of unfairly redistributing the wealth, and you will be called an evil Socialist instead of an honorable, responsible, and generous Capitalist.

Here's just but a small sampling of the few of those whose taxes must also be kept very low at the expense of the poor, and whose accumulation of cash must be kept fully intact among the wealthiest families.

	Eddie Murphy’s Starter House – Norbert has this modest $20 million dollar bungalow in which to hang his fat-suit. Is it just a matter of finding something else to spend their celebrity cash on, or does a three person family really need their space?
	Air Travolta – This modest Florida ranch parks 2 airplanes and 16 cars comfortably.
	Casa de Oprah – This modest hovel has 14 bedrooms so there’s plenty of room for Dr. Phil, Stedman and Oprah’s intimate lady friend Gayle. Oh, do we burn eco-logs in the 10 fireplaces?
	Bill Gates doesn't have to swim in tax debt to the IRS.
	Tiger Woods certainly can afford the taxes he pays.
	Larry Ellison, co-founder and chief executive officer of Oracle Corporation, can afford to splash around in the water too.

I should be ashamed to call myself American, because I busted my ass for 40 years making other people rich and never saved $150 million to buy my own mansion or yacht; but instead I went begging to the government for disability checks when I could no longer work. Shame on me for attempting to be a financial burden on the likes of young rich girls like Petra Ecclestone and her sister Tamara (pictured below). 

I must be a very wicked, evil, slovenly, and pathetic man for even thinking about trying to survive. No wonder people like that wish people like me would just "go away" and die. Without them having to pay more in taxes to support my lazy ass would mean that much more for them. 

No, I don't envy rich people like them, I'd just appreciate it if my government would at least allow me to live out the rest of my life in poverty by allowing me to collect disability checks, rather than condemning me to the streets as a homeless man or condemning me to death as a useless parasite. And I could learn to be content with just being poor if I could also get health care when I get sick. But the Republicans don't want me to have that either.

But at least now I understand how my country feels about people like me, as opposed to people like "them". One has to wealthy like an heiress such as Petra Ecclestone or Paris Hilton, or rich like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, to be a true American patriot that can be respected. Anyone else below that financial threshold (such as myself) is not worth saving. I guess it's just my dumb luck that I was born into a middle-class military family...having a father who participated in two wars to protect the wealth of these people.

Maybe it's not so ironic after all, that the Republicans want to cut Medicaid but increase military spending.