It’s a start. I prefer to means test both Social Security and Medicare...but this is a step in the right direction.
We are $17T in debt...and cannot afford to subsidize the Winnebago Lifestyle anymore. My kids are already screwed for life enough as it is, and it’s getting worse by the year.
So you support Obama’s plan because he put us in trillions of dollars in debt?
Good Lord, where’s the white rabbit, now that we need him? Just rememember what the doormouse said.
Actually, I'd call it a big Boost. In building Class Warfare.
People who paid in should collect, as promised. Period.
Zer0’s is basically trying to “solve” the problem of his own party’s creation. Just like every other lame-brame program they’ve come up with that leads to destruction.
We paid our money into the system and expect to get every cent back out as the law WAS WRITTEN, not as some socialist wants to change it!
Didn’t we just hear that Welfare costs currently dwarf Medicare costs? I could swear that I read that on FR.
First cut the fraud and theft of the professional “victims”.
Then cap the number of years that people can get handouts.
If 99 weeks (which is a ridiculous number anyway) is the limit for Unemployment, make it the limit for Welfare, Food Stamps and Section 8 Housing Grants.
Might be a good idea to have a bi-yearly review of current Disability Claimants as well.
As my dear Late Mother used to say, “you help people that CAN’T help themselves, not people who WON’T help themselves”.
Or am I just a Tax paying meanie?
Agree! Even hating the gubmit med takeover, some of it is needed, like means testing and voluntary participation for SS and Medicare.
Of course you realize that SS has been means tested since 1983.
When I was young, I remember very well that my grandfather's SS payments were not taxed. There was a simple logic to this, if the government had taxed them, they would have had to be higher to have the same effect on his lifestyle.
Then in 1983, something changed, and part of them became taxable. It was a low percentage of the benefits that became taxable, and he was in good enough shape that it seemed like a small amount to me. Of course I never asked him about that, he probably had a different opinion--namely that the government was taking his money away from him.
Today I am retired, and the tax on my SS is complex, but the easiest way to put it is that 85% of my SS is added to my income and I pay the highest tax rate available on it. But if someone else has lower income they pay less tax, until at the very low end, SS is not taxed.
Now, this looks like a means test, walks like a means test, and quacks like a means test.
Is it your opinion that the means test already in place for SS should be increased still further, or is what we already have enough?
As far as medicare goes, I have private insurance, and was forced onto medicare when I turned 65. This was entirely against my will and I would be happy to give back medicare and return to the insurance I had before I was 65.
Instead of means testing medicare, why don't you just allow people to opt out of it?
Yes, I am one of those who read the financial advice columns, understood their wisdom, and prepared for my retirement. I lived well below the lifestyle of my peers, and now that I can enjoy the fruits of my savings, the government wants to take it away from me to finance the retirements of my peers, who acted like spendthrifts and did not prepare.
I prefer getting what I paid into the system OUT of the system. Why do you want to means test me out of something I paid into?