Sunday Morning Talk Show Thread 9 August 2020

Various driveby media television networks ^ | 9 August 2020 | Various Self-Serving Politicians and Big Media Screaming Faces

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Care for any Nutria?

Nutria gumbo.....I can't wait.

(Served with white rice and Cabernet)

[ROCKLOBSTER]

We need to look at eliminating the following:
Amendment XVII
Amendment XVI

Yup, and anything containing the word Department.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

You could not do a better thing for the people of Houston than to remove this blighted sore from our region. Let the rest of the country have the pleasure of her rants - on par or better than Biden's

"This is Moon-bat II to Mission control...., Houston do you read me?

Hello.....hello?...Is this thing on?"

[vitzy929]

Matt Schlapp???? Have I missed something?

[shalom aleichem]

yes

[spokeshave]

[spokeshave]

[vitzy929]

i thought he was pro trump. Please tell me what you know

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Time to fire the top 5 floors of the FBI and start over.

Fire all of them and between the NSA and Federal Marshall's, they should be able to do a much better job.

Convert the building to mandatory dormitories for Congress. It would be taken out of their over-pay of course.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Currently both are funded through the FICA and Medicare taxes. Trump said yesterday that if he is reelected then he wants to eliminate both. Remove the funding and how do you continue the programs? What alternative sources are there?

Unused salaries and benefits of the several hundred thousand fired federal "employees".

[kabar]

Sales taxes. VAT. Tax on financial transactions. There are many ways to replace the revenue. See what is viable politically.

Currently, over 70% of earners pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes.

[bray]

Respectfully Dan, you have predicted a down market for the last 5000 pts.

[DISCO]

Visit Wall Drugs east of Badlands, Cosmos Mystery Area, Needles Mountains, and Devils Tower in Wyoming is a must see. Good Luck

[DoodleDawg]

Sales taxes. VAT. Tax on financial transactions. There are many ways to replace the revenue. See what is viable politically.

So if your solution to eliminating one tax is to add new taxes in other areas then why not just keep the original tax?

[rodguy911]

here is the problem its as of 2008 so its not current.I kept reading 60+ in harms way of the Yangteze flood zone but never was able to document it.Maybe we are looking at more than one reactor at each site which would make sense and would add up fast.I don't know.
Anyway huge problems down stream should Three Gorges Dam open up more sluices or the dam continue to disintegrate as it has been doing.
Food and housing are both critical especially since over 28k homes have already been destroyed.At that rate no telling how many will eventually go.Evidently much of China's food is grown in the region or near the flood plain as well and lies in jeopardy.Some farming fields have been described as under ten feet of mud already.How you recover from that I don't have a clue.
As previously mentioned China can buy a lot of food but the question is will they? And, will it be available and what will price when 400 million Chinese all need to eat?
Lots of unknowns in this fiasco.

[kabar]

As I indicated, more than 70% of wage earners pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes. A different method of capturing revenue could lessen the burden on employers and employees. It could give people more net income and incentivize more business activity, here and competing abroad.

Medicare and SS are in the red, i.e., benefits exceed revenue. Shortfalls are made up by the trust funds. The Medicare trust fund (HI) will be exhausted in 2028 or earlier. SSTF in 2033. By law, benefits will be limited to the revenue received. Estimates are a 20% reduction.

Something needs to be done. The status quo is not an option. Trump is smart not to talk about entitlement reform now. He won’t repeat the Ryan mistake. Both parties must support reform jointly.

[DoodleDawg]

A different method of capturing revenue could lessen the burden on employers and employees.

Would it? A sales tax and a VAT tax would have to at least make up for the revenue lost. Plus it is also just lumped into the general revenue fund and Social Security and Medicare just become another line item like the debt. So the new sources will have to at least match the revenue generated from the old sources, and do so without the employer matching, so it's likely that the average tax payer will pay more under the new taxes than the old.

Something needs to be done. The status quo is not an option.

No argument there.

Trump is smart not to talk about entitlement reform now.

He just did by promising if reelected he would work to repeal the FICA and Medicare taxes.

Both parties must support reform jointly.

This Congress? This President? Nobody is interested in working together on just about anything.

[Reily]

” ... Shortfalls are made up by the trust funds. The Medicare trust fund (HI) will be exhausted in 2028 or earlier. SSTF in 2033. ... “

Do you have a source for this? I need it to argue with some long term union Rats. They think Medicare & SS are somehow inexhaustible.

[kabar]

Everything should be on the table. Assuming the objective is to preserve both programs, you take a look at benefits, revenue, fiscal parameters, etc. It would be like a zero base budgeting system. I can see more means testing and reconfiguration of the benefits. The systems can be made more efficient. Given longer life spans, the age for full benefits could be looked at again. At this point, it is too early to draw any conclusions.

Repeal of payroll taxes is another way of signaling reform. Obama had a 2% employee holiday on SS contributions. Trump wants a holiday on all payroll taxes. It is a very clever way to get the public on his side for entitlement reform in his next term. People will see a major jump in their salaries and employers will have more money to invest or expand. As they say, once you see Paree, how do you keep them on the farm.

Congress will be forced to work together once this becomes a crisis—and it will. Medicare looms on the horizon in about 5 years. Something has to be done. Reagan and Tip O’Neill had to work together to save SS. Hence the phased increase in raising the age for full SS benefits and forcing federal employees to join the system. Medicare already has a means tested premium system.

[kabar]

The annual SS and Medicare Trustees report provides all the applicable data.