Social Security and Medicare are OFF THE TABLE!

My response to some redneck retards thread was so good that I had to give it it's own thread..Here it is in it's entire form, complete with quotations

"Let me break it down for you retards..I'm gonna make it real simple so even you brainwashed birdbrains can understand. Here's the situation:

We are spending a huge pile of money or things we need over here..... And
We are spending a even bigger pile of money on stuff we don't need over there..And
We arent taking in enough revenue..

Now i'm no economist but I say we increase revenue's while cutting spending on the things we don't need. Like a Defense budget that is bigger than the rest of the worlds combined when we have no real enemies...

Make sense guys?" --Vice Lord 5/11/2011

I would comment and quote , but I don't want to be sued by a real estate lawyer.
Kind of agree. Mostly.

They've never been off the table. Significant changes to Social Security were made under Reagan (higher taxes and reduced benefits, on a bipartisian basis), and again under Clinton (higher taxes).

I have no problem cutting the defense budget. But if you do, it should go to reducing the deficit and paying off the national debt. What's it got to do with Social Security and Medicare?

I think SS and Medicare should be self financed as they've always been so far as I recall. If you start pulling money from other sources how do you keep track of what these programs really cost? Might as well use the gas tax to pay for them too.

And what's the problem with cutting some benefits for high income retirees? If you are making over $200K, I think you can afford to pay a couple of hundred dollars a month extra for Medicare premiums, or have a larger deductible.

jmc wrote: I would comment and quote , but I don't want to be sued by a real estate lawyer.
Kind of agree. Mostly.

:hands:

pineinthegrass wrote: And what's the problem with cutting some benefits for high income retirees? If you are making over $200K, I think you can afford to pay a couple of hundred dollars a month extra for Medicare premiums, or have a larger deductible.

I'll give you that

:hands:

And this post from my "Random questions regarding the coming debt ceiling..." is just as appropriate to this thread as it was to that one. It is taken from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to John W. Epps on September 11, 1813:

There have existed nations, and civilized and learned nations, who have thought that a father has a right to sell his child as a slave, in perpetuity; that he could alienate his body and industry conjointly, and a fortiori (with even stronger reason) his industry separately; and consume its fruits himself. A nation asserting this fratricide right might well suppose they could burthen with public as well a private debt their "nati natorum, et qui nascentur at illis" (their children's children and their descendants). But we, this age, and in this nation especially, are advanced beyond those notions of natural law. We acknowledge that our children are born free; that that freedom is the gift of nature, and not of him who begot them; that though under our care during infancy, and therefore of necessity under a duly tempered authority, that care is confided to us to be exercised for the preservation and good of the child only; and his labors during youth are given as a retribution for the charges of infancy. As he was never the property of his father, so when adult he is sui juris (of one's own law), entitled himself to the use of his own limbs and the fruit of his own exertions: so far we are advanced, without mind enough, it seems, to take the whole step. We believe, or we act as if we believed, that although an individual father cannot alienate the labor of his son, the aggregate body of fathers may alienate the labor of all of their sons, of their posterity, in the aggregate, and oblige them to pay for all the enterprises, just or unjust, profitable or ruinous, into which our vices, our passions, or our personal interests may lead us. But I trust that this proposition needs only to be looked at by an American to be seen in its true point of view, and that we shall all consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves; and consequently within what may be deemed the period of a generation, or the life of the majority.

How can we square this sentiment, which I presume all would agree, with the institutions of Social Security and Medicare which do nothing if they do not saddle the posterity and obligate them to pay for the enterprises that serve our own personal interests given that it is the posterity which must pay for not their own security and medical care, but that of those who are currently receiving the "benefits" of the "insurance"?

Makes my eyes water in sort of a Federalist/purist, Libertarian, TEA-party sort of way... The usual stuff I would expect from no-taxes/screw-you-if-you-didn't-achieve-enough-to-care-for-yourself-in-your-old-age crowd.

However, I've been paying into Social Security and Medicare since I was 15, along with everyone else, and it's not an "obligation" that you pay...It's what I've paid into the system that I expect to get back. Ronnie Raygun's trickle-down bullcrap notwithstanding. I paid for those that went before me, as was my obligation; and I will receive what was promised to me, as is the contract that I have with the government. If we have to deprive those poor suffering oil companies of their feeding-at-the-trough tax-breaks; if we have to force those millionaires and billionaires to have to pay that extra 3.6% of rate that they were paying under Ronnie Raygun and Clinton--(when Clinton added 23.1 million jobs)--instead of the unpaid for tax breaks that they've had for 10 years under Bush--(when he only added 3 million jobs in 8 years)--; if they have to eliminate some of the breaks that they've gotten a free ride on for the last 10 years, ... excuse me while I shed a tear.

I would expect no less from the "compassionate conservatives"....

LadyJazzer wrote: Makes my eyes water in sort of a Federalist/purist, Libertarian, TEA-party sort of way... The usual stuff I would expect from no-taxes/screw-you-if-you-didn't-achieve-enough-to-care-for-yourself-in-your-old-age crowd.

However, I've been paying into Social Security and Medicare since I was 15, along with everyone else, and it's not an "obligation" that you pay...It's what I've paid into the system that I expect to get back. Ronnie Raygun's trickle-down bullcrap notwithstanding. I paid for those that went before me, as was my obligation; and I will receive what was promised to me, as is the contract that I have with the government. If we have to deprive those poor suffering oil companies of their feeding-at-the-trough tax-breaks; if we have to force those millionaires and billionaires to have to pay that extra 3.6% of rate that they were paying under Ronnie Raygun and Clinton--(when Clinton added 23.1 million jobs)--instead of the unpaid for tax breaks that they've had for 10 years under Bush--(when he only added 3 million jobs in 8 years)--; if they have to eliminate some of the breaks that they've gotten a free ride on for the last 10 years, ... excuse me while I shed a tear.

I would expect no less from the "compassionate conservatives"....

Ah...I was hoping someone smarter than me would chime in

Thanks LJ

It is clear that the vast majority of Amerixans wish to keep and reform these systems, not eliminate or privatize them. Republicans continue to ignore this sentiment at their peril. Democrats need to realize that these programs cannot serve as a largesse distribution system. There is a limit to how much can be suppkied to how many. Every senior cannot be given a scooter, if you don't have private savings the rest of us should not subsidize your early retirement.

chickaree wrote: It is clear that the vast majority of Amerixans wish to keep and reform these systems, not eliminate or privatize them. Republicans continue to ignore this sentiment at their peril. Democrats need to realize that these programs cannot serve as a largesse distribution system. There is a limit to how much can be suppkied to how many. Every senior cannot be given a scooter, if you don't have private savings the rest of us should not subsidize your early retirement.

If we did'nt throw all our money away on weapons to kill eachother we could put every senior over 55 up in 5 star hotels. The money is there..It's just that people are stealing it. It's legalized stealing in many various forms..

I guess that sounds crazy to most of you, but thats whats going on.