Both the MAGA faction and the old-line “conservative” members of the GOP are dead serious about killing off this vital and important part of FDR’s legacy…
The Christian Nationalists in the GOP believe that God made them wealthy because they are righteous and others can burn in hell because they are sinful. If someone ends up eating cat food in old age, they feel that person deserves it. Besides being hateful, nonsensical and bad for the economy, it’s a shame that these folks don’t understand the religion they are hiding behind.
They failed to understand Jesus ministered to the poor and needy, but they profess to follow a Jesus who made them part of the fortunate few. Perhaps they need to reread the story of the poor man, Lazarus, who died in front of the rich man’s gate. They have made a Jesus who shares their priorities and their hatred, and their Jesus does not resemble the Jesus of scripture at all.
Kathy There are as many Jesus' as their are people. People use their god(s_ as a sock puppet, Christians are great at copy and paste. They extract 10 laws from Leviticus and Deuteronomy and ignore the other 601 laws, like don't mix fabrics, don't eat shell fish, don't eat pig.,don't stone adulterers and disobedient kids.
But Dominionists aka Christian Reconstrructionist, a trans denominational cult which includes Catholic Mike Pence, was founded by Ted Cruz father Raphael and R J Rushdoony, it makes Islamic salfists, like ISIS and the Taliban look liberal.
You nailed it Paul, but behind the privatization drive are investment banks like JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and their CEO's like Jamie Dimon, then there are billionaires like Peter Thiel, the gay quisling. They are aching to get their hands on the social security trust funds and FICA payments to churn the stock market and rake in commissions., also corporations and employers will save the employers FICA contributions.
When GWB ran for Congress in 1978, his uncle Pres, formerly of Goldman Sachs, was the driving source. Later after GWB was re-elected, he thought he had a mandate and named several privatizers as SSA executives. Gratefully Congress did not acquiesce.
When Romney ran for President in 2012, promised to raise the retirement age, make benefits smaller, and privatize Medicare. He selected Paul Ryan, who led the charge to destroy Social Security and Medicare, as his running mate. Romney introduced the TRUST Act during the pandemic, hoping to trigger automatic closed-door commissions to slash our earned benefits.
Supposedly a hearing tomorrow. Virtually every Republican has voted multiple times to privatize Medicare. DNXC needs to document this stuff.
The cynic in me, does not hold out expectations that the DNXC will intercede or take note, for the simple reason that too many of the Congress critters are dependent on an represent "Wall Street" Biden was known in the Senate as the Senator from Wall Street. Delaware was the final winner in the charter wars, and is the home to over 600 corporations, if there only presence is a Post Office Box.
Paul. What you so clearly describe started as Calvinism a half a millennium in the past. It has since spread to become the underlying philosophy of Capitalism. It was best described by Max Weber in THE PROTESTANT ETHIC AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM; a foundational study in Sociology.
This is how the GQP rolls, everything for the wealthy, nothing for ordinary people. Killing Social Security is an immensely unpopular idea, but the GQP wants to do this. Social Security can be fixed by removing the income cap.
They think privatization is better and are philosophically opposed to government helping ordinary people. However, they don’t see the contradiction between their views of helping ordinary people as a moral hazard, and expecting tax breaks and handouts to the wealthy and big corporations. They have already succeeded in abandoning defined benefit pensions and putting us into 401(k) programs, where we contribute from our salaries with no guarantee corporations will make matching contributions. The 401(k) was originally designed to serve as a tax vehicle to allow high income earners to withhold money from their paychecks toward retirement. Now it has become an inadequate replacement for a defined benefit pension, and many people may not earn enough to fund their own retirement. As it is, it looks like retirement is going to become a perk of the wealthy, while the rest of us will work until we die.
In addition to this, American multinational and domestic corporations have adopted Milton Friedman’s ethos is that the corporation owes duties only to its shareholders. Reagan’s Congress saw legalizing of practices that had been outlawed with the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. For one thing, corporations are legally permitted to buy back their stock in order to hold up the stock prices. Corporate CEOs and high executives are paid ridiculously inflated salaries that are completely out of line with how well the companies perform, and their salaries are thousands of times greater than what average workers earn. Corporate CEOs and executives are understandably paid higher salaries than average employees, but the disparity today is much larger and ridiculous than it was in the 1960s and 1970s. Stockholders in corporations may also see handsome returns. The problem is that employees, the people who actually do the work, have seen real wages fall since 1973, and they may see minimal raises at best that do not reflect their actual contributions to the bottom line. Friedman’s beliefs do not take into account the damage that occurs to ordinary people when they see their wages flatlining, nor do they take into account the very real problems that occur to former employees and the towns and cities where they live when their plants are closed and jobs shifted abroad. Many workers no longer have union protections because of the attack on union organizations that started with 1947’s Taft-Hartley act,@:$ that extended into the 1980s when Reagan enabled employers to destroy legal unionization efforts. Air traffic controllers declared an illegal strike in the early 1980s, and the illegal strike gave Reagan the pretext he needed to go after legal collective bargaining.
1. They think that FICA taxes are a drag on the economy. They primarily object to the 6.5% paid by employers as a match.
2. They want to have the funds "reinvested" so that they control the money.
3. They fail to recognize that after the "peak" (which happens to also be the default date) the number of baby boomer beneficiaries will begin to decline and that as the population ages there will be fewer beneficiaries.
I think it's more the psychology of it that I don't understand.
I know there are cruel/misguided people BUT they can't ALL believe this is the way to go. Yes, I know about the 'party line' nonsense but surely they can't all be cowards?
They only care about what their wealthy campaign funders want, and they will be well insulated from the inevitable damage and destruction this will cause for ordinary people.
I worked as a claims rep at SSA from 7/65-11/99 &.you are right on with this report. The ultra right is tenacious & funded to the max, always has been. Gotta stand up to them, constantly.
Daniel, could that be the reason that New Jersey does not report it's deaths. As I mentioned to Gene above, My mother and her mother died in NJ, but there names are not found in the Social Security Death Index, or maybe some one is collecting their benefits. My grandmother died in Ocean shores, NJ ( I think, maybe in a nursing home), my mother died in Ocean View, in a Lutheran nursing home. My grandmother was born in 1893 died in 1970, mom was born 1921 died in 2000.I wonder if accounts are still being credited.
I didn't think so, but I had to try Daniel. I figure that SSA pays it's beneficiaries electronically, and when one enters a nursing home on Medicaid or Medicare, and the victim signs off on the check being deposited to the Nursing Homes bank, that they have motivation not to report the death to SSA, and that in NJ, the laws and lack of enforcement enable this theft.
That was one of the worst things he did. I was never a worshipper at the altar of St. Ronald, because even as a high school senior, I understood his economic policies would be destructive to ordinary people. It’s one thing I wish I had been wrong about. Now we have degenerated to the point that the Republican Party has been taken over by a wannabe dictator who has already proven himself both criminal and incompetent.
And yet older MAGA Republicans vote for the people who want to destroy their current or planned retirement benefits. Perhaps the only way to reach them is by laying out exactly what they will lose under these proposals. If they finally get it that they are in the same boat as the ethnic minorities, gays, immigrants, etc. that are being trashed then maybe some of them will wake up. It will be hard, but appealing to their logic doesn't work. So self-interest may, at least for those who will listen. (And if that works then ask how their Medicare and VA benefits are different from socialized medicine.)
docrhw MAGAts, even the boomer MAGAts are unaware of Trump and his policies, because their only source of info is their echo chamber. Admittedly I am in an ideological echo chamber, but other sources of info do get through and I am constitutionally inclined to weigh the info, use logic and separate (hopefully) the wheat from the chaff.
I have no idea of how to get them to listen for their own self interest, if they perceive the source is from a "libtard" they tune out and are unreachable.
We need to just go ahead and let them make their evil plans. When enacted and the impoverished cult members start taking one penny in cuts, they will become Democrats.
When the poor get money from the government, the money is spent in America. When the rich get tax breaks from the government, most of it is infested overseas or put in offshore Banks and not reinvested in America. The only way the economic plan the right has of working, is slavery. Even then it won't last very long. The floggings will continue until all the poor are dead. This must be why the right hates birth control! That wasn't around during the dark ages which they want to go back to.
Bob, if Trump and his fascist cult takes over, there will be no Democratic party. The first thing tyrants do is eliminate the competition. Stalin's gulags were full of true believing communists, the ones who he felt were competition or strayed from his party line,or expessed discontent over the lack of food and consumer goods.
There are two Social Security trust funds and the Republicans tried to put the disability fund into default. Here's a peer reviewed paper published a few years ago. Save the Social Security Disability Trust Fund! and Reduce SSI Exposure to the General Fund, 36 J. Nat’l Ass’n Admin. L. Judiciary 142 (2016) https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/naalj/vol36/iss1/4/
In an effort to try to save the fund, I advocate using charitable deductions to reduce the "curve" of the date of pending default. I've been told, even by some former commissioners, that it saved the fund millions, but my attempts to get the Biden administration to publicize it have been frustrated.
Social Security—Maybe Charity Should Begin at Home
By Daniel F. Solomon
For most of its history, Social Security was a terrific bargain: our parents and grandparents most probably received significantly more benefits than they paid into the Social Security Trust Fund. The trust fund comprises the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Funds (OASDI, collectively).
In most cases, because our family units could rely on these benefits, they were able to enjoy enough financial independence to send people like us to school so that we could become lawyers—productive and, in some cases, wealthy, members of society. For 75 years, the Social Security Trust Fund has helped enable American soci- ety to achieve far beyond the aspirations of its founders, ultimately providing more than subsistence to retirees by also protecting widows, orphans, and disabled people. The dignity provided to needy beneficiaries surely far outweighs the economic value of the funds.
However, financial experts have long predicted a future insolvency of the funds. A majority of Americans have invested in the funds, recognize their social utility, and do not want to burden their heirs. Although there have been legislative attempts to “fix” the system, there is no consensus how to do it. The Congressional Research Service reported:
For example, for workers who earned average wages and retired in 1980 at age 65, it took 2.8 years to recover the value of the retirement portion of the combined employee and employer shares of their Social Security taxes plus interest. For their counterparts who retired at age 65 in 2002, it will take 16.9 years. For those retiring in 2020, it will take 20.9 years.
Geoffrey Kollmann and Dawn Nuschler, “Social Security Reform” (October 2002).
The National Commission on Social Security Reform (informally known as the “Greenspan Commission” after its chairman) was appointed by the Congress and President Ronald Reagan in 1981 in response to a short-term financing crisis that Social Security faced at that time. Estimates were that the OASI Trust Fund would run out of money possibly as early as August 1983. Congress rendered a compromise that extended the retirement age from 65 to 67, through a deal that raised payroll taxes and trimmed benefits enough to keep Social Security solvent. See Jackie Calmes, “Political Memo: The Bipartisan Panel: Did It Really Work?” New York Times, January 18, 2010. However, the legislation addressed only the immediate problem and did not address the long-term viability of the fund. See also Rudolph G. Penner, “The Greenspan Commission and the Social Security Reforms of 1983,” in Triumphs and Tragedies of the Modern Presidency, David Abshire, Editor. Washington: Center for the Study of the Presidency, pp. 129–31.
The George W. Bush administration commission deliberated on the issue and then called for a transition to a combination of a government-funded program and personal accounts (“individual” or “private accounts”) through partial privatization of the system.
President Barack Obama reportedly strongly opposes privatization or raising the retirement age but supports raising the cap on the payroll tax ($106,800 in 2009) to help fund the program. He has appointed a National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which is to report and offer another fix.
Current estimates predict that payroll taxes will only cover 78% of the scheduled payout amounts after 2037. This declines to 75% by 2084. 2010 OASDI Trust- ees Report, Figure II.D2, www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2010/ trTOC.html.
Although the congressional plan was to ensure solvency through Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax, there is a private means to help: to also consider the humanitarian and charitable nature of the Social Security Administration (SSA), which has been possible since a legislative fix in 1972. Before then, bequests naming Social Security or a trust fund as a beneficiary could not be accepted, which caused problems in administration of some estates. Money gifts or bequests may be accepted for deposit by the managing trustee of the OASI and DI funds. Section 170(c)(l) of the Internal Revenue Code lists the U.S. government among the educational or charitable organizations to which donations are acceptable. Gifts must be unconditional, except that the donor may designate to which fund the gift should be donated. If no fund is designated, the gift is credited to the OASI Trust Fund.
However, SSA has not publicized its charitable persona. Although the agency has received some gifts and bequests, they have been insignificant and not given consideration in a possible fix. The concept has been so unimportant to the experts that the Annual Statistical Supplement to the Social Security Bulletin does not specify how much the administration has received in gifts and bequests. Total revenue from gifts to the trust funds has been quite small. From 1974 to 1979 the most received in any one year was $91,949.88. During that period, the average annual amount was only $39,847. In 1980, almost two-thirds of the gifts were less than $100. The median gift size was $50. One person, for example, donated $13.11. She arrived at that amount by applying 5.85% (the employee tax rate then in effect) to her benefit amount and donated it to help “‘shore up’ the sagging, dwindling Social Security fund.” However, the 2010 Social Security Trustees Report lists them as about $98,000 (www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2010/III_ cyoper.html#2). Compared to many other charities, this is a paltry amount.
Apparently, SSA has never done a feasibility study nor marketing research to determine how an aggressive campaign could raise funds to support Social Security, or how gifts and bequests could reduce the current estimates of impending doom. According to some estimates total deductions taken for all charities next year would be $413.5 billion. Estimates for fiscal year 2011 are that SSA will spend $730 billion. That amount is already covered through “contributions” (taxes), but it is reasonable that charitable contributions to the trust fund could significantly lessen taxpayer exposure for impending doom, if not return the fund to solvency.
As lawyers, we have the capacity to remind our families, our clients, and the public at large that there is a way to contribute to help endow future generations in the pursuit of the same kind of social stability that Social Security provided to our parents and grandparents.
Not payroll taxes, that is Frank Luntz, newspeak for FICA, it was coined as a way to deflect from the fact that it is a retirement insurance plan.
I became eligible in 2004 to receive Social Security, I had a choice to accept the plan at age 65, or wait two years and get a slightly higher benefit.
I did a present value calculation, including the difference between the age 65 benefit, which I would forgo If I opted for age 67, and the difference between the projected benefit and future (AGE 67) benefit as regards future value, calculating in COLA, which was and is miniscule and never keeps up with the real cost of living.
The old Middle Ages Nobility believed they were blessed by God, and had earned their wealth by being virtuous. The poor, therefore, deserved to suffer for poverty due to their lack of virtue. Republicans now believe the same.
I live in France and I really don't understand what the hell is going on in the heads of these charlatans. Do they hate the American people so much or is this some kind of way to enrich themselves? To allow starvation is a crime against humanity especially in the 'supposed' richest nation in the world. I really having a hard time with this and the thought of many older people like me, without safety and assurance is insane.
Many of them are misled by a well-funded right wing media ecosystem designed to get them to believe what they are hearing. Journalist Anne Nelson has documented that people in rural and urban areas may not even hear the same news sources.
Social Security is vital. MAGA Mikey is truly frightening, but so are the rest of his maggot brothers and sisters. The maggot party aka The Republicans.
We can hope that public reaction will be akin to the reaction to the SCOTUS repeal of Roe v. Wade; however, we can't wait until SS is repealed. The defunding of SS administration is the frog in the boiling water metaphor, and complete privatization will be the death of the frog. Now is the time to turn off the stove. The problem is the knobs are also being (have been?) removed.
As you say Thom, we are the only nation in the developed world that does not provide national healthcare plans nor good education benefits. Then why do us taxpayers fund money yearly to some of these nations. Specifically Israel in the billions? Could you address the hypocrisy? Thanks for all you do Thom and were missing you on the radio but do enjoy Jeff and hoping to hear news with my dad today from Jeff and Jo on your program.
Two years after boot camp at Great Lakes Naval Training Center, I had to endure something even worse - Aviation OCS run by Marine Drill Instructors. Whenever we were standing in lines, we would be asked to recite (nark) things we were told to memorize. One was the Officer Honor Code: "I will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate among us those who do." That seemed like a rather straightforward honorable way to live, and most of us have followed it into our retirement years.
In contrast to honorable people, we have the 2023 House Republicans in Congress. The GOP history in the House this year has been to lie, to cheat, to steal, and to tolerate it among their ilk. They could not even bring themselves to eject a pathological liar, cheater, and thief named George Santos. Their anti-gay transmania, anti-abortion, anti-social security, anti-medicare, anti-Obamacare, anti-military promotions, anti-staffing of the IRS to collect evaded taxes, and even anti their own Speaker of the House posture has made this likely the most unproductive Congress in history. Worse, after these programs deteriorated due to GOP policies, they blame it all on Democrats. There is no honor in the Republican Congress. They are all scoundrels.
Because these legislators are elected by US citizens, their majority surely seems to imply that the majority of Americans no longer have any honor and are willing to lie, cheats, and steal. I am frustrated as to how to turn this around. How do we restore honor among the dishonorable?
Perhaps a few less bombs, missiles and killing. Perhaps the closing of the almost 800 military bases operated in almost half the world's nations (many of which do not want them there). The $766 BILLION (the total U.S Defense Budget) to kill, ZERO dollars for peace, most certainly would resolve the social security "crisis," homelessness, crumbling infrastructure and the health care fiasco/tragedy.
Instead of making enemies, I proffer that the United States needs an enema.
I totally agree and also socialized healthcare would save about $460 billion dollars a year also and help out immensely. Then we could raise the taxes on the wealthy to what a single person pays who earns $80,000 a year that would triple their taxes bringing in hundreds of billions if not a trillion?
Sounds great Rohn, But without a Defense Department, without overseas bases protecting our economic interests, without defense spending. You and other dreamers wouldn't even be able to exist, if at all.
Every congressional district has a military installation, a contractor or subcontractor, often more than one. These "engines of destruction" produce jobs and income that keep the districts and states alive.
So defund the MIC, and you I and others wouldn't have an internet, cell phone, car or computer, not to mention food in our belly and a roof over our head.
Those that had their own plot of land, in an area which has natural water source, like a well, and arable land for a garden, could survive at a subsistence level,
Grain production to feed the masses, and to export to feed the world, are dependent on machinery and technology that exists because of war and the MIC. Not to mention that without a latent MIC Our United States would be, despite the huge moats, split between Imperial Japan and NAZI Germany., without a MIC Stalin could easily march through Alaska, down the west coast and into the "heartland"
Instead of myopic focus on grievances. Try and take a look at where our druthers lead.
Granted there is inordinate waste in the defense industry, but you can blame that on Congress, whose residence in Congress depends on a happy constituency.And a happy constituency is dependent on jobs, and each congressional distract has at least one military installation, or a contractor or subcontractor if all they do is make cockpit handles for aircraft.
The Christian Nationalists in the GOP believe that God made them wealthy because they are righteous and others can burn in hell because they are sinful. If someone ends up eating cat food in old age, they feel that person deserves it. Besides being hateful, nonsensical and bad for the economy, it’s a shame that these folks don’t understand the religion they are hiding behind.
They failed to understand Jesus ministered to the poor and needy, but they profess to follow a Jesus who made them part of the fortunate few. Perhaps they need to reread the story of the poor man, Lazarus, who died in front of the rich man’s gate. They have made a Jesus who shares their priorities and their hatred, and their Jesus does not resemble the Jesus of scripture at all.
Kathy There are as many Jesus' as their are people. People use their god(s_ as a sock puppet, Christians are great at copy and paste. They extract 10 laws from Leviticus and Deuteronomy and ignore the other 601 laws, like don't mix fabrics, don't eat shell fish, don't eat pig.,don't stone adulterers and disobedient kids.
But Dominionists aka Christian Reconstrructionist, a trans denominational cult which includes Catholic Mike Pence, was founded by Ted Cruz father Raphael and R J Rushdoony, it makes Islamic salfists, like ISIS and the Taliban look liberal.
You nailed it Paul, but behind the privatization drive are investment banks like JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and their CEO's like Jamie Dimon, then there are billionaires like Peter Thiel, the gay quisling. They are aching to get their hands on the social security trust funds and FICA payments to churn the stock market and rake in commissions., also corporations and employers will save the employers FICA contributions.
When GWB ran for Congress in 1978, his uncle Pres, formerly of Goldman Sachs, was the driving source. Later after GWB was re-elected, he thought he had a mandate and named several privatizers as SSA executives. Gratefully Congress did not acquiesce.
When Romney ran for President in 2012, promised to raise the retirement age, make benefits smaller, and privatize Medicare. He selected Paul Ryan, who led the charge to destroy Social Security and Medicare, as his running mate. Romney introduced the TRUST Act during the pandemic, hoping to trigger automatic closed-door commissions to slash our earned benefits.
Supposedly a hearing tomorrow. Virtually every Republican has voted multiple times to privatize Medicare. DNXC needs to document this stuff.
The cynic in me, does not hold out expectations that the DNXC will intercede or take note, for the simple reason that too many of the Congress critters are dependent on an represent "Wall Street" Biden was known in the Senate as the Senator from Wall Street. Delaware was the final winner in the charter wars, and is the home to over 600 corporations, if there only presence is a Post Office Box.
Paul. What you so clearly describe started as Calvinism a half a millennium in the past. It has since spread to become the underlying philosophy of Capitalism. It was best described by Max Weber in THE PROTESTANT ETHIC AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM; a foundational study in Sociology.
This is how the GQP rolls, everything for the wealthy, nothing for ordinary people. Killing Social Security is an immensely unpopular idea, but the GQP wants to do this. Social Security can be fixed by removing the income cap.
We all know this but why are they doing it. It makes no sense.
A happy well cared for Country is more productive?
They think privatization is better and are philosophically opposed to government helping ordinary people. However, they don’t see the contradiction between their views of helping ordinary people as a moral hazard, and expecting tax breaks and handouts to the wealthy and big corporations. They have already succeeded in abandoning defined benefit pensions and putting us into 401(k) programs, where we contribute from our salaries with no guarantee corporations will make matching contributions. The 401(k) was originally designed to serve as a tax vehicle to allow high income earners to withhold money from their paychecks toward retirement. Now it has become an inadequate replacement for a defined benefit pension, and many people may not earn enough to fund their own retirement. As it is, it looks like retirement is going to become a perk of the wealthy, while the rest of us will work until we die.
In addition to this, American multinational and domestic corporations have adopted Milton Friedman’s ethos is that the corporation owes duties only to its shareholders. Reagan’s Congress saw legalizing of practices that had been outlawed with the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. For one thing, corporations are legally permitted to buy back their stock in order to hold up the stock prices. Corporate CEOs and high executives are paid ridiculously inflated salaries that are completely out of line with how well the companies perform, and their salaries are thousands of times greater than what average workers earn. Corporate CEOs and executives are understandably paid higher salaries than average employees, but the disparity today is much larger and ridiculous than it was in the 1960s and 1970s. Stockholders in corporations may also see handsome returns. The problem is that employees, the people who actually do the work, have seen real wages fall since 1973, and they may see minimal raises at best that do not reflect their actual contributions to the bottom line. Friedman’s beliefs do not take into account the damage that occurs to ordinary people when they see their wages flatlining, nor do they take into account the very real problems that occur to former employees and the towns and cities where they live when their plants are closed and jobs shifted abroad. Many workers no longer have union protections because of the attack on union organizations that started with 1947’s Taft-Hartley act,@:$ that extended into the 1980s when Reagan enabled employers to destroy legal unionization efforts. Air traffic controllers declared an illegal strike in the early 1980s, and the illegal strike gave Reagan the pretext he needed to go after legal collective bargaining.
Excellent Comment Kathy. I remember all of this well, especially the ATC strike.
Friedman's ethos dates to a court ruling in 1919, that said that the only purpose of a corporation was to make a profit for the investors.
Friedman took it further A Friedman doctrine‐- The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/13/archives/a-friedman-doctrine-the-social-responsibility-of-business-is-to.html and I was taught in Econ 101 that this doctrine was "the word of god".
1. They think that FICA taxes are a drag on the economy. They primarily object to the 6.5% paid by employers as a match.
2. They want to have the funds "reinvested" so that they control the money.
3. They fail to recognize that after the "peak" (which happens to also be the default date) the number of baby boomer beneficiaries will begin to decline and that as the population ages there will be fewer beneficiaries.
This is why we protested in France about the retirement age going up. We all knew this was a fallacy. Especially as birthrates are dropping.
I think it's more the psychology of it that I don't understand.
I know there are cruel/misguided people BUT they can't ALL believe this is the way to go. Yes, I know about the 'party line' nonsense but surely they can't all be cowards?
“If we really want to talk about the debt and spending, it’s the entitlements programs.”
Yes, exactly. We need to talk about those huge tax cuts to the entitled morbidly rich.
Social Security and Medicare are hugely popular. They used to be known as the “third rail”.
Is the RFP (republican fascist party) mis-reading the room?
We will see.
I agree with you. I hope they are. Break in the door why are the reportorters being kept out?
Ominous.
They only care about what their wealthy campaign funders want, and they will be well insulated from the inevitable damage and destruction this will cause for ordinary people.
...but but but if it causes damage and destruction who is going to be able to work?
I worked as a claims rep at SSA from 7/65-11/99 &.you are right on with this report. The ultra right is tenacious & funded to the max, always has been. Gotta stand up to them, constantly.
When I worked at SSA, some of our fellow appointees sabotaged the system.
Daniel, could that be the reason that New Jersey does not report it's deaths. As I mentioned to Gene above, My mother and her mother died in NJ, but there names are not found in the Social Security Death Index, or maybe some one is collecting their benefits. My grandmother died in Ocean shores, NJ ( I think, maybe in a nursing home), my mother died in Ocean View, in a Lutheran nursing home. My grandmother was born in 1893 died in 1970, mom was born 1921 died in 2000.I wonder if accounts are still being credited.
No idea.
I didn't think so, but I had to try Daniel. I figure that SSA pays it's beneficiaries electronically, and when one enters a nursing home on Medicaid or Medicare, and the victim signs off on the check being deposited to the Nursing Homes bank, that they have motivation not to report the death to SSA, and that in NJ, the laws and lack of enforcement enable this theft.
That is disgusting.
"Reagan’s commission made [Social Security] benefits taxable for the first time."
Reagan cuts taxes for the rich and adds taxes to everybody else.
That was one of the worst things he did. I was never a worshipper at the altar of St. Ronald, because even as a high school senior, I understood his economic policies would be destructive to ordinary people. It’s one thing I wish I had been wrong about. Now we have degenerated to the point that the Republican Party has been taken over by a wannabe dictator who has already proven himself both criminal and incompetent.
And if you receive another source of income, that is deducted from your benefit, unless, as in my case, you have military retirement.
Read the entire article. And join SOCIAL SECURITY WORKS
And yet older MAGA Republicans vote for the people who want to destroy their current or planned retirement benefits. Perhaps the only way to reach them is by laying out exactly what they will lose under these proposals. If they finally get it that they are in the same boat as the ethnic minorities, gays, immigrants, etc. that are being trashed then maybe some of them will wake up. It will be hard, but appealing to their logic doesn't work. So self-interest may, at least for those who will listen. (And if that works then ask how their Medicare and VA benefits are different from socialized medicine.)
docrhw MAGAts, even the boomer MAGAts are unaware of Trump and his policies, because their only source of info is their echo chamber. Admittedly I am in an ideological echo chamber, but other sources of info do get through and I am constitutionally inclined to weigh the info, use logic and separate (hopefully) the wheat from the chaff.
I have no idea of how to get them to listen for their own self interest, if they perceive the source is from a "libtard" they tune out and are unreachable.
We need to just go ahead and let them make their evil plans. When enacted and the impoverished cult members start taking one penny in cuts, they will become Democrats.
When the poor get money from the government, the money is spent in America. When the rich get tax breaks from the government, most of it is infested overseas or put in offshore Banks and not reinvested in America. The only way the economic plan the right has of working, is slavery. Even then it won't last very long. The floggings will continue until all the poor are dead. This must be why the right hates birth control! That wasn't around during the dark ages which they want to go back to.
Bob, if Trump and his fascist cult takes over, there will be no Democratic party. The first thing tyrants do is eliminate the competition. Stalin's gulags were full of true believing communists, the ones who he felt were competition or strayed from his party line,or expessed discontent over the lack of food and consumer goods.
That’s how they keep the poor and working class working in their sweatshops.
There are two Social Security trust funds and the Republicans tried to put the disability fund into default. Here's a peer reviewed paper published a few years ago. Save the Social Security Disability Trust Fund! and Reduce SSI Exposure to the General Fund, 36 J. Nat’l Ass’n Admin. L. Judiciary 142 (2016) https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/naalj/vol36/iss1/4/
In an effort to try to save the fund, I advocate using charitable deductions to reduce the "curve" of the date of pending default. I've been told, even by some former commissioners, that it saved the fund millions, but my attempts to get the Biden administration to publicize it have been frustrated.
Donate:
https://www.ssa.gov/agency/donations.html#:~:text=Make%20out%20a%20check%20or,Survivors%20Insurance%20Trust%20Fund%3B%20or
December 01, 2011 FINANCIAL PLANNING
Social Security—Maybe Charity Should Begin at Home
By Daniel F. Solomon
For most of its history, Social Security was a terrific bargain: our parents and grandparents most probably received significantly more benefits than they paid into the Social Security Trust Fund. The trust fund comprises the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Funds (OASDI, collectively).
In most cases, because our family units could rely on these benefits, they were able to enjoy enough financial independence to send people like us to school so that we could become lawyers—productive and, in some cases, wealthy, members of society. For 75 years, the Social Security Trust Fund has helped enable American soci- ety to achieve far beyond the aspirations of its founders, ultimately providing more than subsistence to retirees by also protecting widows, orphans, and disabled people. The dignity provided to needy beneficiaries surely far outweighs the economic value of the funds.
However, financial experts have long predicted a future insolvency of the funds. A majority of Americans have invested in the funds, recognize their social utility, and do not want to burden their heirs. Although there have been legislative attempts to “fix” the system, there is no consensus how to do it. The Congressional Research Service reported:
For example, for workers who earned average wages and retired in 1980 at age 65, it took 2.8 years to recover the value of the retirement portion of the combined employee and employer shares of their Social Security taxes plus interest. For their counterparts who retired at age 65 in 2002, it will take 16.9 years. For those retiring in 2020, it will take 20.9 years.
Geoffrey Kollmann and Dawn Nuschler, “Social Security Reform” (October 2002).
The National Commission on Social Security Reform (informally known as the “Greenspan Commission” after its chairman) was appointed by the Congress and President Ronald Reagan in 1981 in response to a short-term financing crisis that Social Security faced at that time. Estimates were that the OASI Trust Fund would run out of money possibly as early as August 1983. Congress rendered a compromise that extended the retirement age from 65 to 67, through a deal that raised payroll taxes and trimmed benefits enough to keep Social Security solvent. See Jackie Calmes, “Political Memo: The Bipartisan Panel: Did It Really Work?” New York Times, January 18, 2010. However, the legislation addressed only the immediate problem and did not address the long-term viability of the fund. See also Rudolph G. Penner, “The Greenspan Commission and the Social Security Reforms of 1983,” in Triumphs and Tragedies of the Modern Presidency, David Abshire, Editor. Washington: Center for the Study of the Presidency, pp. 129–31.
The George W. Bush administration commission deliberated on the issue and then called for a transition to a combination of a government-funded program and personal accounts (“individual” or “private accounts”) through partial privatization of the system.
President Barack Obama reportedly strongly opposes privatization or raising the retirement age but supports raising the cap on the payroll tax ($106,800 in 2009) to help fund the program. He has appointed a National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which is to report and offer another fix.
Current estimates predict that payroll taxes will only cover 78% of the scheduled payout amounts after 2037. This declines to 75% by 2084. 2010 OASDI Trust- ees Report, Figure II.D2, www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2010/ trTOC.html.
Although the congressional plan was to ensure solvency through Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax, there is a private means to help: to also consider the humanitarian and charitable nature of the Social Security Administration (SSA), which has been possible since a legislative fix in 1972. Before then, bequests naming Social Security or a trust fund as a beneficiary could not be accepted, which caused problems in administration of some estates. Money gifts or bequests may be accepted for deposit by the managing trustee of the OASI and DI funds. Section 170(c)(l) of the Internal Revenue Code lists the U.S. government among the educational or charitable organizations to which donations are acceptable. Gifts must be unconditional, except that the donor may designate to which fund the gift should be donated. If no fund is designated, the gift is credited to the OASI Trust Fund.
However, SSA has not publicized its charitable persona. Although the agency has received some gifts and bequests, they have been insignificant and not given consideration in a possible fix. The concept has been so unimportant to the experts that the Annual Statistical Supplement to the Social Security Bulletin does not specify how much the administration has received in gifts and bequests. Total revenue from gifts to the trust funds has been quite small. From 1974 to 1979 the most received in any one year was $91,949.88. During that period, the average annual amount was only $39,847. In 1980, almost two-thirds of the gifts were less than $100. The median gift size was $50. One person, for example, donated $13.11. She arrived at that amount by applying 5.85% (the employee tax rate then in effect) to her benefit amount and donated it to help “‘shore up’ the sagging, dwindling Social Security fund.” However, the 2010 Social Security Trustees Report lists them as about $98,000 (www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2010/III_ cyoper.html#2). Compared to many other charities, this is a paltry amount.
Apparently, SSA has never done a feasibility study nor marketing research to determine how an aggressive campaign could raise funds to support Social Security, or how gifts and bequests could reduce the current estimates of impending doom. According to some estimates total deductions taken for all charities next year would be $413.5 billion. Estimates for fiscal year 2011 are that SSA will spend $730 billion. That amount is already covered through “contributions” (taxes), but it is reasonable that charitable contributions to the trust fund could significantly lessen taxpayer exposure for impending doom, if not return the fund to solvency.
As lawyers, we have the capacity to remind our families, our clients, and the public at large that there is a way to contribute to help endow future generations in the pursuit of the same kind of social stability that Social Security provided to our parents and grandparents.
Not payroll taxes, that is Frank Luntz, newspeak for FICA, it was coined as a way to deflect from the fact that it is a retirement insurance plan.
I became eligible in 2004 to receive Social Security, I had a choice to accept the plan at age 65, or wait two years and get a slightly higher benefit.
I did a present value calculation, including the difference between the age 65 benefit, which I would forgo If I opted for age 67, and the difference between the projected benefit and future (AGE 67) benefit as regards future value, calculating in COLA, which was and is miniscule and never keeps up with the real cost of living.
Collecting the benefit at age 65 won.
The old Middle Ages Nobility believed they were blessed by God, and had earned their wealth by being virtuous. The poor, therefore, deserved to suffer for poverty due to their lack of virtue. Republicans now believe the same.
I live in France and I really don't understand what the hell is going on in the heads of these charlatans. Do they hate the American people so much or is this some kind of way to enrich themselves? To allow starvation is a crime against humanity especially in the 'supposed' richest nation in the world. I really having a hard time with this and the thought of many older people like me, without safety and assurance is insane.
Break down the doors.
Many of them are misled by a well-funded right wing media ecosystem designed to get them to believe what they are hearing. Journalist Anne Nelson has documented that people in rural and urban areas may not even hear the same news sources.
Social Security is vital. MAGA Mikey is truly frightening, but so are the rest of his maggot brothers and sisters. The maggot party aka The Republicans.
We can hope that public reaction will be akin to the reaction to the SCOTUS repeal of Roe v. Wade; however, we can't wait until SS is repealed. The defunding of SS administration is the frog in the boiling water metaphor, and complete privatization will be the death of the frog. Now is the time to turn off the stove. The problem is the knobs are also being (have been?) removed.
As you say Thom, we are the only nation in the developed world that does not provide national healthcare plans nor good education benefits. Then why do us taxpayers fund money yearly to some of these nations. Specifically Israel in the billions? Could you address the hypocrisy? Thanks for all you do Thom and were missing you on the radio but do enjoy Jeff and hoping to hear news with my dad today from Jeff and Jo on your program.
Two years after boot camp at Great Lakes Naval Training Center, I had to endure something even worse - Aviation OCS run by Marine Drill Instructors. Whenever we were standing in lines, we would be asked to recite (nark) things we were told to memorize. One was the Officer Honor Code: "I will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate among us those who do." That seemed like a rather straightforward honorable way to live, and most of us have followed it into our retirement years.
In contrast to honorable people, we have the 2023 House Republicans in Congress. The GOP history in the House this year has been to lie, to cheat, to steal, and to tolerate it among their ilk. They could not even bring themselves to eject a pathological liar, cheater, and thief named George Santos. Their anti-gay transmania, anti-abortion, anti-social security, anti-medicare, anti-Obamacare, anti-military promotions, anti-staffing of the IRS to collect evaded taxes, and even anti their own Speaker of the House posture has made this likely the most unproductive Congress in history. Worse, after these programs deteriorated due to GOP policies, they blame it all on Democrats. There is no honor in the Republican Congress. They are all scoundrels.
Because these legislators are elected by US citizens, their majority surely seems to imply that the majority of Americans no longer have any honor and are willing to lie, cheats, and steal. I am frustrated as to how to turn this around. How do we restore honor among the dishonorable?
Perhaps a few less bombs, missiles and killing. Perhaps the closing of the almost 800 military bases operated in almost half the world's nations (many of which do not want them there). The $766 BILLION (the total U.S Defense Budget) to kill, ZERO dollars for peace, most certainly would resolve the social security "crisis," homelessness, crumbling infrastructure and the health care fiasco/tragedy.
Instead of making enemies, I proffer that the United States needs an enema.
I totally agree and also socialized healthcare would save about $460 billion dollars a year also and help out immensely. Then we could raise the taxes on the wealthy to what a single person pays who earns $80,000 a year that would triple their taxes bringing in hundreds of billions if not a trillion?
Sublime, mate.
The joke is that the trust funds are separate from the general funds.
Has nothing to do with funding for anything else.
Which only punctuates the bullshit, and the bovine is constipated.
https://rohnkenyatta.substack.com/cp/138354794
Sounds great Rohn, But without a Defense Department, without overseas bases protecting our economic interests, without defense spending. You and other dreamers wouldn't even be able to exist, if at all.
Every congressional district has a military installation, a contractor or subcontractor, often more than one. These "engines of destruction" produce jobs and income that keep the districts and states alive.
So defund the MIC, and you I and others wouldn't have an internet, cell phone, car or computer, not to mention food in our belly and a roof over our head.
Those that had their own plot of land, in an area which has natural water source, like a well, and arable land for a garden, could survive at a subsistence level,
Grain production to feed the masses, and to export to feed the world, are dependent on machinery and technology that exists because of war and the MIC. Not to mention that without a latent MIC Our United States would be, despite the huge moats, split between Imperial Japan and NAZI Germany., without a MIC Stalin could easily march through Alaska, down the west coast and into the "heartland"
Instead of myopic focus on grievances. Try and take a look at where our druthers lead.
Granted there is inordinate waste in the defense industry, but you can blame that on Congress, whose residence in Congress depends on a happy constituency.And a happy constituency is dependent on jobs, and each congressional distract has at least one military installation, or a contractor or subcontractor if all they do is make cockpit handles for aircraft.