Bernard Madoff has become a household name the past months due to a massive Hedge Fund ponzi scheme.  Madoff's Hedge Fund had annualized returns in the double digits for years and no red flags were raised.  Turns out those gains were just current investors paying past investors with a touch of paperwork shuffle to fill in the gaps.  Thousands of investors were defrauded out of billions of dollars while Bernard and his wife lived a lavish lifestyle.  Well, Madoff's chickens came home to roost and now he is a jailbird.  Madoff should be in jail.  The man is a criminal and will do his time.  However, what if Madoff were a politician or political body?  The Social Security system pays retiree (past workers) benefits with current workers' Social Security taxes.  Well technically the system is paying current benefits out of the Social Security Trust, but it will be in the red in a few years or more.  The system doesn't even pay out the equivalent of what you put in.  What makes the Social Security system more legit than Madoff's Hedge Fund?  The fact that the Social Security Trust can still make payments unlike Madoff who had to come clean when withdrawal requests were too large for him to cover?  The fact that the Social Security system is a law passed by politicians?  What about other promised government benefits such as Medicare?  Will these politicians be "jail worthy" once these government sponsored ponzi schemes collapse in the next years?  Likely not since the original Liberal kooks that enacted these ponzi schemes are long dead.  If Madoff had died years ago wouldn't his investors had gotten their money back or at least requested it back?  Why can't current taxpayers opt-out of the Social Security system since the great "promisers'" of the past are worm food?  The House just passed the "Climate Change" or "Cap and Trade" bill this past Friday.  Even though there are Environmental Protection Agency reports doubting Global Warming, the bill was forced though the House with parts of it not even written yet.  Here's an idea...  The bill specifically outlines transfer payments to lower income "taxpayers" from higher earners to offset the huge cost of living increases expected.  How are these transfer payments any different than a ponzi scheme if not just outright theft?  Why is it that Congress never has to provide thousands of documents and studies backing up their legislation?  I bet Madoff's legal team had truckloads of data to defend their client just as the prosecutors had truckloads to convict.  What about the housing market bubble?  Rep Barney Frank (D-MA) and Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) both forced banks to lend money to unqualified applicants.  The influx of new home owners caused the housing market to increase in value far more than normal.  Mortgage companies got rich.  Some home owners and real-estate investors got rich.  Democrat cronies working at Freddie Mack and Fannie Mae got rich.  Later housing investors?  Left holding the bag on homes down up to 50% or more in value.  The taxpayer?  Left to bailout another bad government program's aftermath.  Don't kid yourselves.  The next great bailouts will be the original government ponzi schemes of Social Security and Medicare.  What about the Federal Reserve?  This federal agency has printed or borrowed trillions of dollars this year alone.  There have been reports of Freedom of Information act requests and lawsuits being ignored that demand transparency.  Especially when it comes to $2 trillion dollars that is unaccounted for.  How is what the US Treasury is doing any different than Madoff?  At least we have some traction on this issue now.  Too bad the before mentioned Barney Frank is an accomplice in the great government fraud.  Might make it tough for Rep Ron Paul (R-TX) to succeed.  Madoff received 150 years in prison for bilking investors out of $13 billion.  By my crude math, the government should receive a sentence of 115,000 years.  Split it up amongst most elected/career non-military/intelligence personnel and that should keep the government out of the way of liberty for at least a few years.  More than enough time to save America.

Updated 07/16/2009:  The National Review has just said something similar, but using existing government health care programs as the "fraud" portion.  Side note...  Don't we already have government health care?  Yes.  Then why pass another, and much larger, program?  CONTROL!  SOCIALISM!