Posted on 01/01/2011 8:02:36 AM PST by EBH
Governing elites in Washington and Wall Street have devised a fiendishly clever "grand bargain" they want President Obama to embrace in the name of "fiscal responsibility." The government, they argue, having spent billions on bailing out the banks, can recover its costs by looting the Social Security system. They are also targeting Medicare and Medicaid. The pitch sounds preposterous to millions of ordinary working people anxious about their economic security and worried about their retirement years. ...
...To understand the mechanics of this attempted swindle, you have to roll back twenty-five years, to the time the game of bait and switch began, under Ronald Reagan. The Gipper's great legislative victory in 1981--enacting massive tax cuts for corporations and upper-income ranks--launched the era of swollen federal budget deficits. But their economic impact was offset by the huge tax increase that Congress imposed on working people in 1983: the payroll tax rate supporting Social Security--the weekly FICA deduction--was raised substantially, supposedly to create a nest egg for when the baby boom generation reached retirement age. A blue-ribbon commission chaired by Alan Greenspan worked out the terms, then both parties signed on. Since there was no partisan fight, the press portrayed the massive tax increase as a noncontroversial "good government" reform.
Ever since, working Americans have paid higher taxes on their labor wages--12.4 percent, split between employees and employers. As a result, the Social Security system has accumulated a vast surplus--now around $2.5 trillion and growing. This is the money pot the establishment wants to grab, claiming the government can no longer afford to keep the promise it made to workers twenty-five years ago.
Actually, the government has already spent their money.
...Treasury has borrowed the surplus revenue collected by Social Security and spent the money on other purposes--
(Excerpt) Read more at thenation.com ...
You point out the scam that is/was with social security. It was sold as a savings account bearing interest required by a caring government. However, what this caring government did not tell was that it intended to use your savings with interest to give to so many people including children who would not be required to put anything into the pot.It should have been obvious as proven later that the pot cannot grow if the take(ers) is more than the give(ers). The politicians,democrats and republicans, saw the takers as more important to their voter count than the givers. As such there was a race to provide for the takers and the system is where it is. Remedy for SS: go back to original promise as to every man,women and child i.e. you take what you give, no give no take.
How about his little dog Andrea?
Married to the ENEMEDIA.
It isn't R vs D. It's a Punch and Judy show.
Go back to Reagan’s 1960 speech at the Convention. He laid out the problem then and it is exactly the same now.
SS is just another way the Govt has to heist the money and use it. We put in for 35 years, retire and then expect a little back. If we could, we could put into a fund we set up, for the thirty five working years, and with added interest, enjoy that growth of money for those retirement years. What we get back today barely pays the utilities on our homes. It is only a LEGAL WAY TO STICK UP THE TAX PAYER!!
Sadly, Social Security was an enforced contract, but it is NOT an unearned ‘entitlement’ by virtue of simply being a US citizen.
Benefits should be distributed only to those who have made contributions and proportionately so. Much like a private annuity.
Once again, the government has treated SS as a grab bag, by adding ineligibles to; and deducting funds from the design to render it actuarially dysfunctional.
“Ever wonder what the shape of Social Security would be in if SSI, Disability, etc. were not freely handed out to anchor babies, illegal aliens, brand new immigrants, and their extended families? “
Yes.
“Reagan was from a generation that believed a deal was a deal. And lying was a sin not practiced by honorable men/women.”
I think he also believed slavery was wrong too.
How is it right to make other generations pay for your goodies? We didn’t vote for Social Security. Why are we on the hook for promises we didn’t make, and that were unconstitutional when they were signed.
There should be no obligations imposed beyond the 2 year terms. They should have to be renewed every 2 years.
So here’s a question.
You’ve got children. Is it right to steal from their paycheques? That’s where the money is going to come from.
Wouldn’t it be better to let them keep their money? It’s your kids that are going to suffer.
It is not right or ethical to steal from anyone. When SS began, citizens believed FDR when he said it would be SECURE. At the time, life expectancy was 67 - it is now 73.
My children are being forced to pay SS taxes- as was I.
They are also paying taxes to support children that are not theirs and seniors who did not raise them.
YES IT STINKS!!!
You're trying to convince people it's the little private sector workers, that worked their asses to the bone for 30 or and 40+ years, that SS is broke because it's their fault?
You'll have better luck juggling flaming chain saws while skate boarding.
The government confiscated it out of America's paychecks...The little people had the choice of paying their taxes or the government would shoot them and or jail them. There was no choice, there was no vote, the government, like today, does exactly what it wants to do. You have ZERO choice.
Ya think American will survive if the government tells tens of millions of people the trillions they confiscated from them won't be given back? This country will not survive that, in fact, due to the corruption in D.C., it's barely surviving now.
You ignore all of the borrowing and spending done on your watch.
Like waking up from a long, happy slumber to find that you only dreamed of the riches you thought you had?
Yeah, and the Titanic was hardly damaged compared to the U.S.S. Arizona.
who’s “WE” kimosabe?
Please post something that is not both trivial and cliche.
You made a very broad and quite dumb statenment, speak for yourself as you don’t know squat about the rest of us
Not worth reading beyond this crap.
Hey grumpy - I worked three jobs to put my kids through school. No child support, no free lunch, no food stamps, no welfare and no regrets.
Self respect is more better than spit!
I have not benefited for *any* government spending which I have not already paid for in taxes. What benefit, are you referring to and please be specific.
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