We have heard even Republican politicians say that current retirees paid Medicare taxes during their working years and therefore deserve every penny of their benefits in retirement. The fact that the taxes paid aren’t nearly enough to finance the benefits promised falls by the wayside.
But because beneficiaries have been told they paid for and earned their benefits, they present a pseudo-moral case for raising taxes rather than reducing benefits. (A true moral case would exist if beneficiaries actually had paid taxes sufficient to fund their benefits.)
I have repeatedly knocked heads with Freepers who have fallen into the "I paid into it and now I'm entitled to it" trap. And if Freepers feel this way, what hope is there for the electorate at large??
bookmark
The media collude with individual and institutional beneficiaries of Federal legislation, to defraud We the People.
The primary function of the alternative media, IMHO, is to put an end to this charade.
Government keeps growing because of the incompetence, corruption, selfishness, greed, love of power and control and ‘perks’ of those elected to public office. The main culprits are those in Congress.
It also grows because of payroll tax deduction. When the government pre-deducts a segment of your paycheck, instead of people having to write out a tax bill every year, the impact of what the government actually takes from us is blunted.
There is not nearly enough detail here to determine if this is accurate. Was the time value of money considered? $1 (in 1950) is not nearly the same thing as $1 (in 2010). What discount rate was used? If you use a rate of about 8% (what one can get in the stock market over the long term), I am sure that retirees' lifetime Medicare benefits would be FAR less than they paid in.
Governments are like weeds in a garden, both grow and choke out the good plants. The only solution is to remove the weeds.
but those benefits will be financed by taxes future workers will pay.
Herein lies the problem, look at it this way, the lock box, the trust fund. You know, the money locked away growing because it is invested, to pay for future benefits.
The problem is, there is no trust fund and the lying politicians know it because they spent it. If you are going to have a benefit, you gotta have a trust fund.
BUT, as with any trust fund, think UNIONS, the big pot at the end of the rainbow is just waiting for some enterprising individual or group to begin the fleecing. We done been fleeced, and so the benefit must end, and the price paid by the crooks in congress. Unfortunately the prison sentences will have to be posthumous.
Denigrate, defund, dismantle, destroy totalitarian programs.
It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder. Frederic Bastiat 1801-1850
The natural state of government is continuous growth. Those in leadership roles naturally want to expand their control, both in the public and private sector. The public sector has the power of coercion, which the private sector does not. So what you have is a continuous struggle for power between the private sector and government, and the government always wins, because they alone have the power of lawmaking.
Look at the history of government through the centuries. It is a history of overreaching, of control, of oppression. It is only though concerted effort that government growth can be stopped.
You can classify me as an old coot sucking at the govt teat if you want......but I want every dime I paid those bastards over the yrs!!
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it’s pretty simple...growing legions of people who are attracted like a magnet to the idea of relatively cushy jobs with above-market pay, tons of vacation, primo benes and airtight job security
“Larger, macro-oriented choices” used to be called “principles.”
Why does it grow, and grow, and grow?
Might as well ask why a cancerous tumor grows. That’s its nature. It grows until it kills its host, or weakens the host until it can’t be sustained. It’s just that simple.