Social Security and Medicare are OFF THE TABLE!

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"....

But it is an obligation LJ, it is a tax levied by the Congress that you must pay (unless you are a state government worker that is, but I digress). You and I have been paying into the Ponzi since we entered the workforce. Unfortunately, we are now at the point where there are not enough new investors to keep the Ponzi paying the promised rate of return and so the new investors must either pay more or the promised rate of return will not be met and the earlier investors such as you and I will be forced to accept a greatly diminished return on our investment. That is the problem with obligating the posterity to pay for all the unjust and ruinous enterprises that our personal interests and passions have led us. It is not necessarily that the idea is a bad one, but the manner in which it is currently organized is outrageous, immoral and financially ruinous. It must be reorganized such that each generation is obligated to aggregate the funds that it will consume in later years so that the posterity have the ability to decide for themselves whether or not they wish to continue to participate without impacting the contract between the government and the people. I have no authority, moral or otherwise, to bind you to a contract against your wishes. What the federated government is doing, and has been doing since the inception of the programs, is binding the posterity to a contract it has made with you and I before they have drawn their first breath. That is immoral LJ, it is appropriating for ourselves the fruit of the exertions of those who are only now learning to crawl; and even worse, the fruit of the exertions of those who are not yet even a twinkle in the eye of their parents. I agree that the federated government has incurred an obligation to both of us, but that obligation can't be financed on the backs of anyone other than those with whom it was made.

My compassion is for these LJ. It is important to me that I leave the posterity with fewer obligations to assume than others have left for me.

As I have said, I find agreement in the principle of required savings during the working years to provide for the years of retirement. I can even see where a compassionate approach would be to collect the same percentage of income from every worker and disperse that among the workers as an equal amount given to every worker. My primary objections have always been, and continue to be, that it is a federated usurpation of state sovereignty and that I am not being taxed for my own benefit, I am being taxed for the benefit of those who are currently retired and I will be dependent in my own retirement upon others doing the same. Neither I nor the federated government have the authority, moral or otherwise, to obligate them in this manner. It would be akin to my purchasing a house and obligating others to make the mortgage payments without first obtaining their consent.

Vice Lord wrote: Please Right Wing people...Please educate yoursevles. You keep repeating the same simple talking points over and over ("the system is broke, the country is Bankraupt")as if you really don't know where our money is going.

Believe me VL, I am familiar with the current federal spending and where the money is going. We can either eliminate every other function of government except providing for the individual welfare of each and every citizen in each and every state; keep every other function of government except the individual welfare of each and every citizen in each and every state; or double the current tax burden.

The first isn't an option because the Constitution requires the federated government to actually conduct foreign affairs, provide for the common defense, establish roads, coin and protect the value of the common currency and keep regular the commerce between the states that have joined the union. That is the sovereignty that the States transferred to the federated government when they accepted the compact. They never transferred to that entity the authority for the individual welfare of their citizens, that is authority the federated government usurped from the States by inventing for itself new power and authority by torturing new meaning from the text of the document. Not a single State would have ratified the document under the current tortured meaning that the federated government has given it, not a single one.

Doubling the current tax burden would ruin the economy of the nation and bring harm to, rather than provide for, the general welfare of the union which is the mandate of the federated government expressed in the Constitution.

That leaves us with returning to the independent and sovereign States in the union the authority over the individual welfare and the domestic affairs of the citizens of those states that the federated government has usurped from them and removing from the federated government's budget those items that the usurpation of that authority has created.

The citizens of the independent and sovereign State of Colorado are responsible for the welfare of the citizens in their state, not the citizens of New York, California, Mississippi and Florida - and these states have their own citizens to worry about. Colorado is not, nor has it ever been, a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States of America. A citizen of this state has no more or less of an obligation to a citizen of the state of New York, California, Texas or Florida for their individual welfare than they do to a citizen of the state of Israel, Germany, Russia or the United Kingdom for theirs.

That's the compact that was drawn up and accepted and that's the compact that should be in effect.

"federated government"...Is that your new "must use in a sentence" term for the month? It's as tiresome as the incessant calls to return to the Jeffersonian/Federalist "way it was originally intended" while ignoring the last 200+ years of settled case law.

I want the politicians to tweak the system, make it better; keep it solvent; tax ALL income for the SS & MediCare--not just the first $106,800... Yes, I believe in the government programs that were started to protect the seniors. Fortunately, 80% of the American people agree with me, and the chances of the libertarians, and "compassionate conservatives" are virtually zero and haven't got a prayer of pushing through their "I've-got-mine-screw-you" policies.

LadyJazzer wrote: The post was not directed at "you" specifically... "You", in this case, was meant to suggest anybody on the conservative side that would fall in behind Newt as any sort of rational candidate.

The GOP line-up is a joke... It's like a bad "Snow White and the 6 or 7 dwarfs." (BachMann, and the rest...) So, I hope you find what you're looking for.

Thanks for the clarification. I'll be looking for all of you politically active individuals to provide significant insight on both sides for insight.

Vice Lord wrote: Maybe I misunderstood your point, my point was nobody collects that much..People here act like our old folks are living the high life for 50 years after they retire

No one is saying that the live the high life after they retire VL. The median life expectancy for those who have lived to age 65 in this nation is right around 85. That means that Social Security and Medicare will be paying "benefits" an average of 20 years for every person that lives long enough to start collecting their retirement benefits. In addition to that, it is paying benefits for the surviving spouse and children of those who die much earlier in life and disability for those who become injured and are unable to work. The median age when the program was instituted was under 70 years. It was meant to be a safety net for 5 years, not 20 years. We can return it to perpetual solvency without reducing benefits by upping the age that you are eligible to start receiving benefits to 78.

The current tax is about 12.5% of annual income up to $105K a year (in rough numbers). The median family income in the US is around $50K/year. That means that around $6,250 each year for two people for 45 years - $281K in total. At $1500 per month in benefits paid out for 20 years the amount paid out, $300K, is in excess of the amount collected. Medicare is even worse. It's tax is about 3%, $1500 a year for 45 years - $67.5K in total. That represents less than the cost of one extended stay in the hospital for a broken hip that was surgically repaired.

The programs, in short and to use a popular progressive phrase, are simply unsustainable in their current form. They must be fundamentally transformed (to borrow a phrase from the last presidential campaign) if they are to continue to provide even a reduced measure of the security that the federated government promised when they usurped the authority of the independent and sovereign States by torturing new meaning from the text of the Constitution.

LadyJazzer wrote: "federated government"...Is that your new "must use in a sentence" term for the month? It's as tiresome as the incessant calls to return to the Jeffersonian/Federalist "way it was originally intended" while ignoring the last 200+ years of settled case law.

I want the politicians to tweak the system, make it better; keep it solvent; tax ALL income for the SS & MediCare--not just the first $106,800... Yes, I believe in the government programs that were started to protect the seniors. Fortunately, 80% of the American people agree with me, and the chances of the libertarians, and "compassionate conservatives" are virtually zero and haven't got a prayer of pushing through their "I've-got-mine-screw-you" policies.

And I want the program transferred to the independent and sovereign States where it rightfully belongs along with all the other individual welfare initiatives that have been instituted over the past century or so in an attempt to create a dependence of the citizens of the states upon a consolidated and central government. I am a citizen of Colorado. I am not responsible, nor obligated to provide, for the individual welfare of a citizen of another state whether it be within or outside of the union to which the state I am a citizen of belongs.

60% not currently receiving benefits say they don't expect they ever will. An all time high. Only 40% of those currently receiving benefits think Social Security will always be able to pay them their full benefits. 63% of Americans think the program won't be here 70 years from now. The Ponzi is collapsing - both financially and in the confidence of the citizens. Social Security is now paying out more than it receives in revenue, and that problem is going to continue to get worse, not better. Every year more of the IOU's in the SS "Trust Fund" are going to have to be cashed in to meet its financial obligations, and the only way to cash those IOU's in is for the federal government to borrow more than the $1.5 Trillion it borrowed last year. The Medicare "Trust", the hospital fund, will be gone in 15 years. Medicare B and D already steals nearly 75% of their cost out of the general fund - money that should be going to build roads, bridges, levees and other legitimate functions of the general government.

Collective salvation never works LJ. Never has, never will.

So you believe...

I think I'm beginning to understand something here... Are you a "sovereign citizen"? That answers a lot....

As I've already said, at least 80% of the American people don't want what you want... I'm comfortable with that.

PrintSmith wrote:

Vice Lord wrote: Please Right Wing people...Please educate yoursevles. You keep repeating the same simple talking points over and over ("the system is broke, the country is Bankraupt")as if you really don't know where our money is going.

Believe me VL, I am familiar with the current federal spending and where the money is going. We can either eliminate every other function of government except providing for the individual welfare of each and every citizen in each and every state; keep every other function of government except the individual welfare of each and every citizen in each and every state; or double the current tax burden.

The first isn't an option because the Constitution requires the federated government to actually conduct foreign affairs, provide for the common defense,

I stopped right there because youre a moron..Conduct foreign affairs doesnt mean become an Empire that occupies half the world, and we could provide for the common defense for 20 years with the trillions we spent in the last 5 years..We are OVERSPENDING on defense, the treasury is being looted by weapons manufactureres and all this Homeland security bulls***.

Wake up

So you believe. What that 80%, I among them, want is some form of security, not necessarily security provided by a federal program. That 80% would be just as happy with a program administered by their state as they were with a program administered by the feds as long as it actually provided some measure of security for them. That 80% want what you want, the benefits promised if they paid the taxes. They really don't care if the benefit comes from the state government or the general government.

How can a state manage a SS or Medicare type system when people move from place to place?
Will Colorado pay for you to retire on Florida? If you pay taxes for half your working life in NY then the other on CO....which state covers your retirement? Could different states have differing benefits? How would that work of you worked in 3 different states. These issues and many many others are why I think this is a federal responsibility, not one for the states.