Posted on 05/29/2012 8:33:35 AM PDT by upchuck
The hacks in both parties are the reason we are in the bad shape this country is in. Why should ANY AMERICAN have to pay the price for the fiscal mistakes made over decades by these hack politicians. This is where “compromise” leads.
A bankrupt country. And now they want us to pay for their mistakes. Off with their heads. Get the pitchforks, tar and feathers out.
Not only the disability but all the other give aways that were tacked on during the days of plenty to buy votes.
An example. Back in the late 70's my uncle died. His son was given enough money via SS to completely pay for his last three years of college. Tuition and room & board.
If SS had been left to just pay for retirees it would, in all probability, still be solvent but the politicians used all those excess funds to buy votes rather than keep those funds for the original intended use.
It is not an entitlement, it is paid for, it was supposed to be in a trust managed for our benefit... LIE.
I have paid in the following as of last year. It is MY money but the politicians stole it to buy votes for people who are against my interests and want MORE of MY money that I have EARNED. I have no employer contributions... I earned it all by myself and I have been “contributing” for a long, long time and still am.
Actual:
Medicare $206,921.32
Social Security $264,391.06
Total of the two $471,312.39
The present value of these “contributions” at a modest 6% return on the “investment”:
Medicare $381,712.16
Social Security $673,848.35
Total of the two $1,055,560.51
I’ll take a cashier’s check... ha, ha, ha. Fat chance... it is all gone. I am convinced I will not see a DIME of MY money again.
I don’t call it feral government for nothing.
Parasites...I doubt society will ever find any effective new ways of dealing them.
Correction: SS WAS an independent self-funding program. It became welfare when the links between funding and benefits were severed through mixing SS payments into General Funding, and also with means-testing of the supposedly prefunded benefits.
I personally know someone who received a rebuttal smackdown letter from Alan Simpson after criticizing him online.
Sarcastic, self-aggrandizing, in-your-face retort is this guy’s stock in trade. Along with a hair-trigger sensitivity to any sort of criticism.
SSI is a medical welfare program administered but not funded by SSA. SSDI, is a benefit program funded and administered by SSA. The standards for each are very different.
If the government that took the money at the point of a gun would stop printing money, then you might have a point.
Sorry, but it IS welfare. Period. Social Security has no account with your name on it. There never was. You paid into SS a tax which went to pay the old age welfare payments of your parents. There was a little left over to go into the kitty as surplus but your generation (collectively) started helping themselves to it early, spending it on frivolous things. Now it's almost gone. If we raise taxes high enough to continue paying old age welfare at the rate we have, we will eventually all starve as the U.S. collapses under a mountain of debt. EVERYTHING must be cut in order for us to survive.
Actual:
Medicare $206,921.32
Social Security $264,391
Medicare contribution thru FICA is only approx 1.50% while the SS contrib thru FICA is approx 6.5%. Yet you are reflecting contributing about the same for medicare as SS. How?While SS can be “fixed”, Medicare is not a sustainable program. The govt expends 900 billion a year on medicare benefits and collects approx 125 billion in FICA contributions annually for a 700 billion dollar annual deficit. It is not sustainable. The entire program needs to be revamped more along the lines of a voucher system as Ryan has proposed if we want to make it close to self sustaining.
Actually, both are true. However, as you correctly point out, Whatever is collected in FICA Taxes is robbed by the politicians to pay for other projects. Congress (and the people who elected them) is the problem. Simply put, if anyone OTHER THAN congress were doing this, they would be in prison. Just ask Bernie Madoff. In fact, what congress has done, and continues to do, is far worse than what Madoff did: At least with Madoff, his victims contributed to him voluntarily. He didn't effectively hold a gun to their head, as does congress.
Mark
Recall that medicare is paid on an UNLIMITED level of income and is not limited like SS.
Re your Post #30 to me:
What you say about Medicare is true, but I was responding to the quote in the article, which said “Social Security” and called it “self-funding” which Medicare never really was.
Every time you hear somebody bandy about the statistic “Half of the population is on Government assistance,” they are referring to SS.
Die quickly! Is what you seem to be saying...
I’m not saying “Die quickly!”; I’m saying “If you’ve collected more than you would have had if you had put your contributions into some typical sort of investment, you’re collecting an entitlement.”.
That’s a good question. A in-depth human audit with full cross tabs available for demographic representation of SSI use might be VERY revealing.
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