Posted on 12/09/2010 3:20:36 AM PST by Scanian
On a midweek afternoon in February 2009, a month into the Obama presi dency, Republican Rep. Mike Pence arrived at Columbus in his east-central Indiana district for a town hall meeting, the sort of event that usually attracted a few dozen constituents. Surprised to see the hallway outside the room crowded with people, "their arms folded and brows furrowed," Pence shouted down the hall to an aide, asking him to get a janitor to open the room.
The aide shouted back that the room was open -- and overflowing. Congress had just passed the stimulus (Pence voted no), and Hoosiers were stimulated to anger. Soon the Tea Party would be simmering.
Five months earlier, on a Friday, TARP had been proposed. The original three-page legislation sought $700 billion instantly, no time for questions; Pence's staff figured the cost would be about a billion dollars a word. On Saturday, Pence announced his opposition, but thought the bill would pass the House 434-1. On Monday, however, other members started approaching him, almost furtively, "like a secret society." A week later, the House rejected TARP, 205-228.
Four days later, the House passed TARP's second, 451-page, pork-swollen iteration, 263-171. That weekend, Pence, who voted no, was at a Scout jamboree at the Henry County Fairgrounds. A man approached to thank Pence for opposing TARP. The man said that although he had lost his job the day before, "I can get another job but I can't get another country."
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I get it!
I pay social security taxes for 45 years, or so, and save additional money (denying myself immediate gratification) to provide for my retirement, and you want to take the SS benefit away as a reward for my frugality, self-control and advance planning, and give it to some mooch who spent all his money on toys.
Thanks, but I will pass.
A couple of years ago he lost a lot of support on FR for his support of some kind of compromise on amnesty, if my memory serves. I really like his fiscal and social views and hope that his views on illegal aliens have matured.
I still like the idea of the Chilean system with personally directed mandated retirement accounts. I do think they should be able to be borrowed from and repaid for housing, medical and education expenses (life has a pattern and there are periods that money flows out instead of into savings).
The older seniors can think they are going to get their benefits and be right. But younger seniors, with the path our country is on, will have their benefits inflated away or a straight out collapse of the system like in Greece. 40% of every dollar the government spends is debt. That’s like a family making $50,000 a year taking on $20,000 a year in debt. It doesn’t work. Young people at a certain point will go into an underground economy or go on the dole themselves.
There is no trust fund. You’ve known it all your life or should have.
Second, you didn't even to begin to answer my question -so I will have to assume that you have no valid response. I don't need or want some inane lecturing. Only a liberal mooch would advocate means testing of Social Security.
Only a liberal mooch would advocate means testing of Social Security.
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Since you are personally involved, those that disagree with you are liberals and mooches! I’ve paid into SS my whole life as well. For regular folks who don’t have income above the cap, our “contribution” when the employers payments are included is what 15.3%? It’s high. And it’s just a tax, like the sales tax and income tax we pay since there is no trust fund with assets. You act like you are paying the tax and I’m not. I’m telling you that our governments debt is going to crash the whole system. Do you care? And why should poor people be taxed to pay benefits to rich people? Poor and rich all pay taxes. They’ve labeled the benefit an “entitlement” and you’ve believed them apparently.
There would be no more sure, instantaneous way of bringing about the collapse of the American economy than means testing Social Security.
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The effect on demand depends on where the means test is set and how it is measured. It would not impact the spending of the wealthy at all. If they have 1 million a year income, SS isn’t impacting their lives at all.
Also, you are implicitely using a Keynsian analysis: aggregate demand goes down and that is the problem. The Austrian economist will say that when the economy is in recession there has been a misallocation of resources and government needs to downsize and reduce taxes so that private enterprise can reallocate resources more efficiently.
Your explanation does nothing to overcome the fact that, at the margin, means testing Social Security would provide an economic bounty to stop producing new wealth and to squander accumulated wealth.
No one is going to squander real wealth to get $1200 a month in SS security or whatever the payout is.
You are on the wrong form. Go to DU where people of like mind will play with you.
Its not a government benefit. You choose to ignore that it is our money to begin with.
You want to eliminate SS, fine. But, means test it so only mooches can collect - That's Obama's position.
You want to eliminate SS, fine. But, means test it so only mooches can collect - That’s Obama’s position.
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I see your point. The thing is that we have to unwind a ponzi scheme, and the trick is that we can’t have seniors that truly need the money to survive die or be homeless(and they have trusted government promises and political propaganda all these years). America will not allow seniors who have relied upon SS to be unable to pay for heat and food. A step towards unwinding SS is means testing it, so that our budget is stronger and the “entitlement” farce is ended and we can deal with the problem. Another step would be to let young people opt out. Another would be to simply eliminate the seperate SS tax. It’s general revenues anyway, with IOU’s in the “trust fund.”
By the way, Obama has not proposed means testing social security. You are making things up.
Let's say you're a 62 year old skilled tradesman who otherwise intends to work until age 65 and has a life expectancy of 20 years. Using the $1,200 per month figure, you would have to expect to clear after taxes (remember Social Security income isn't taxable to those folks who would pass the "means" test) over $80,000 per year for the next three years to equal the Social Security entitlement your would be losing.
...or, you could spend the next three years dissipating your life savings and qualify for the free money the rest of your life.
I’m not following your numbers but I understand your concern. You are not factoring in the indefiniteness of lifespan, the desire to leave assets to heirs, the insecurity of a government payout (it is vulnerable to politics and not something you own), pride, obligations (many in their 60’s and 70’s are supporting children, grandchildren). I don’t think it’s as big a problem as you do. Not a stopper to a necessary reform of the system.
Fixing Social Security in the short term isn't all that difficult. First, adjust the retirement age up slowly to reflect the actual anticipated life span of the person collecting benefits. At one time 62 was old age. For most people that is no longer the case and they collect benefits for a much longer period than they did even 25 years ago. Adjusting the retirement age upwards would remove the entitlement portion of old age benefits
Second, one of the primary problems with social security is that the number of people collecting disability payments (often without contributing much at all to the program) has exploded in the past 25 years. This needs a hard look as it has introduced a welfare aspect into a program which was originally intended to provide a base retirement income to those who paid into it.
Once these are done the current system would once again be solvent. Then we can take steps to privatize it for young people.
Finally, This government is just going to have to take the bullet and remove Social Security from the general budget and put it back into a trust fund status.
I’m for what you set out above with the exception of the last sentence. Setting up a true trust fund is a problem. Government would become a pension manager with massive control over securities markets . . . and would inevitably make massive mistakes. An option to opt completely out of the system is needed. Individuals would need to make the investment decisions, not government, for the pension as well. It’s too big for government to handle.
I’m also for means testing payments. Taxing the poor to give to the rich is wrong.
Don't take half measure then,means test bank accounts and 401(k) plans, also. After all, it just not right that a wealthy person should have a lot of money in the bank while the poor cannot afford a 52 inch television.
You seem to be mistaking a tax funded redistribution to you for property. Congress decides how much is paid to you and when. You can’t leave the payout to your children. It’s not your property. Social Security is taxpayer funded welfare with nice words around it. Previous generations got a massive rate of return on the taxes they paid for it. Future generations go negative massively to pay for our generations welfare. It’s a ponzi scheme that would be illegal if done by a private citizen and it would have collapsed long ago because new suckers couldn’t be found.
Actually, there "was" a fund. LBJ stole it and rolled it into the "Great Society".
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