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Republicans want to massively cut Social Security benefits

The trust fund is totally irrelevant. It is a parlor trick; it does not matter. Imagine you have it funded to whatever horizon you want, but all working-age people and children die. What happens to retirees' standard of living?

The only questions that matter are 1) what share of current production goes to the elderly? 2) how much taxing power are we willing to use for that purpose?
 
^^When you bring the material dialectic

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TuffaloDeac10 said:
The trust fund is totally irrelevant. It is a parlor trick; it does not matter. Imagine you have it funded to whatever horizon you want, but all working-age people and children die. What happens to retirees' standard of living?

The only questions that matter are 1) what share of current production goes to the elderly? 2) how much taxing power are we willing to use for that purpose?
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and 3) WHO IS DEMS?
 
WFFaithful said:
I agree. The immediate, drastic cuts Republicans are proposing are not necessary to save the program. They are an effort to kill it.
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Not only are the cuts morally reprehensible, they will be hugely deleterious to our economy.
 
birdman said:
Because some hard core Republicans don't want to fix it, they want to end it. The hate the idea that the govt is taking care of all these old people. That is not what Govt is for. It's the same philosophy that was behind the privatization scheme under GW Bush.
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And others don't have the balls to take any position other than maintaining the status quo for fear of backlash from voting seniors.
 
WFFaithful said:
I agree. The immediate, drastic cuts Republicans are proposing are not necessary to save the program. They are an effort to kill it.
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For no good reason except ideology. This is the dumbest shit ever. My brother and I take care of my 77 year old mom. We put her up in an apartment and pay all her bills along with her SS.

Some of you little boys out there who are not men who take care of people need a punch to your gut. this is real life shit not some stupid political debate. Keep your fucking hands off my mom's social security idiot pubs.
 
To further add a level of abstraction, the question of "what to do with poor elderly people?" is one of the great ticking time bombs we face.

Nowadays, a Defined Benefit pension plan is a rarity as employers have terminated those plans and replaced them with 401(k)s (or whatever equivalent for the size/industry) and said "your problem, you deal with it". Now there's a bunch of people that are in their 50s, 60s, looking at a balance of $50,000-100,000 and thinking they've got a nice chunk of money when in reality they're in dire, dire straits. If you gut Social Security, well... back to clipping "buy 1 get 1 free" dog food coupons Aunt Bessie. Only, in this case, Aunt Bessie is you.
 
PhDeac said:
Yep. The left would scream bloody murder but it wouldn't really have a negative impact. Phase it in slowly and it shouldn't matter at all.
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Because the poor are the most dependent upon Social Security. Any system wide cuts to SS are, in effect, regressive, the same way that a flat tax is regressive.
 
WFFaithful said:
I agree. The immediate, drastic cuts Republicans are proposing are not necessary to save the program. They are an effort to kill it.
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Yes, they are not trying to save it. They are trying to do away with it.
 
The objective here is to cut in back to the point of irrelevancy, then kill it all together. Currently it is a life line for a number of seniors, but Pubs don't want people depending on SS to live in the future and so they want to cut so drastically that none of will be planning on that income in retirement. That way when the take the next step and eliminate it all together, there won't be as many complaints.
 
birdman said:
The objective here is to cut in back to the point of irrelevancy, then kill it all together. Currently it is a life line for a number of seniors, but Pubs don't want people depending on SS to live in the future and so they want to cut so drastically that none of will be planning on that income in retirement. That way when the take the next step and eliminate it all together, there won't be as many complaints.
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And they want unicorns in their back yards and to hunt jakalope each year.
 
RJKarl said:
Now I'll piss off some of the progressives and conservatives. Part of what Cong. Johnson wants to do is correct, but most is wrong.

Let's look at how to fix it:

1. Raise the retirement age with some defined exceptions. The exceptions should be for people who work in physical jobs like farmers, construction workers, road workers, factory workers and a few others. For the rest of the public, the retirement age should be increased by 1 month/year for the next 60 years. When SS was created people didn't live that long after 65. This needs to be updated.

2. Every penny of income needs to pay Social Security Taxes. This should also include "creative" ways to get paid like dividends and others. If a dollar comes into the house, taxes are paid on it.

3. Means testing is critical. Social Security was never meant to be paid to those at the top or near the top. It was created to be the ultimate safety net. How about something like 30-50% above median income for a family of four? Don't cry about, "I'm paying in. I should get something back." How about paying real estate taxes when you have no kids? The number could be negotiated.

4. Use some of the savings from to increase benefits for those at the bottom. Again, this number needs to be negotiated. Those at the top will also benefit from this as they own the businesses or stock in the businesses where this money will be spent.
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#3 is ridiculous. You realize that real estate taxes pay for more than schools, right? Right?
 
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