Raise Retirement age and cut benefits or not?

[Davros]

Build the wall, cut off all welfare to illegals and able bodied citizens who just plain don't feel like working for a living. S.S. was paid into without being given a choice, now the Dems want to screw millions of people over who paid into it because Dems used the money to create programs to buy votes with. Make all registered Democrats pay a stupidity tax for putting these bastards in office. Privatize S.S. for everyone under the age of say 30. Cut the budget across the board for everything except S.S. and Medicare. Stop all foreign aid to unfriendly countries (make it illegal). Punish companies who ship jobs overseas. Eliminate Dept. of Energy, Education, DHS, and others that aren't worth a shit. Replace the income tax system with a consumption tax and pass a balanced budget amendment. There are a lot of ways to solve the problem without screwing over those who had no choice but to participate in the system.

Who had any choice in paying any taxes.

My generation will pay equal or more in taxes to sustain your benefits to what you paid. If you make it optional for us, the deficits faced by the programs now will increase, so that is a non-solution.

Social Security should have been properly labeled as a welfare program. The pay now, get back later that they couched it as is nothing but a ponzi scheme.

We will pay your benefits, but either you agree to receive reasonable cuts in benefits, or else the whole ponzi scheme will blow up and there will be a generation that gets NOTHING. Would that be more fair than your generation getting reasonable cuts? No. So Social Security benefits for those above a certain income should be taxed.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Leave ssi and medicare the fuck alone!!!!

That's an emotional argument that ignores the fact that projected medicare and social security deficits are huge. How are we going to pay for that? Tax workers at 100%? Starve the workers so that seniors can live fat? Who will provide services for the seniors then if all the workers have died off?

That is a nonsense comment. Try again.

Well, the post I was replying to was a nonstarter, so it doesn't matter.

You are correct that your post was a non starter. How else was I to respond?

 

[JakeStarkey]

Build the wall, cut off all welfare to illegals and able bodied citizens who just plain don't feel like working for a living. S.S. was paid into without being given a choice, now the Dems want to screw millions of people over who paid into it because Dems used the money to create programs to buy votes with. Make all registered Democrats pay a stupidity tax for putting these bastards in office. Privatize S.S. for everyone under the age of say 30. Cut the budget across the board for everything except S.S. and Medicare. Stop all foreign aid to unfriendly countries (make it illegal). Punish companies who ship jobs overseas. Eliminate Dept. of Energy, Education, DHS, and others that aren't worth a shit. Replace the income tax system with a consumption tax and pass a balanced budget amendment. There are a lot of ways to solve the problem without screwing over those who had no choice but to participate in the system.

Who had any choice in paying any taxes.

My generation will pay equal or more in taxes to sustain your benefits to what you paid. If you make it optional for us, the deficits faced by the programs now will increase, so that is a non-solution.

Social Security should have been properly labeled as a welfare program. The pay now, get back later that they couched it as is nothing but a ponzi scheme.

We will pay your benefits, but either you agree to receive reasonable cuts in benefits, or else the whole ponzi scheme will blow up and there will be a generation that gets NOTHING. Would that be more fair than your generation getting reasonable cuts? No. So Social Security benefits for those above a certain income should be taxed.

No, SS and Medicare are not welfare programs.

No, it is not a ponzi scheme.

The programs are easy to fix, as you well know.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Some of these people worked for 40 or 50 years...Yet, you loserterians want to punish them??? Why not raise taxes on people not paying into the system and end the idiocy in the middle east.

You have no right to do this to people that did right in life.

 

[Katzndogz]

Work out a solution and don't allow democrats a say at all. Lock them out of the room.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Build the wall, cut off all welfare to illegals and able bodied citizens who just plain don't feel like working for a living. S.S. was paid into without being given a choice, now the Dems want to screw millions of people over who paid into it because Dems used the money to create programs to buy votes with. Make all registered Democrats pay a stupidity tax for putting these bastards in office. Privatize S.S. for everyone under the age of say 30. Cut the budget across the board for everything except S.S. and Medicare. Stop all foreign aid to unfriendly countries (make it illegal). Punish companies who ship jobs overseas. Eliminate Dept. of Energy, Education, DHS, and others that aren't worth a shit. Replace the income tax system with a consumption tax and pass a balanced budget amendment. There are a lot of ways to solve the problem without screwing over those who had no choice but to participate in the system.

Who had any choice in paying any taxes.

My generation will pay equal or more in taxes to sustain your benefits to what you paid. If you make it optional for us, the deficits faced by the programs now will increase, so that is a non-solution.

Social Security should have been properly labeled as a welfare program. The pay now, get back later that they couched it as is nothing but a ponzi scheme.

We will pay your benefits, but either you agree to receive reasonable cuts in benefits, or else the whole ponzi scheme will blow up and there will be a generation that gets NOTHING. Would that be more fair than your generation getting reasonable cuts? No. So Social Security benefits for those above a certain income should be taxed.

No, SS and Medicare are not welfare programs.

No, it is not a ponzi scheme.

The programs are easy to fix, as you well know.

Its always about hurting the poor and middle class with republicans. These people want to go back to the 19th century...Anyone that isn't super successful is seen as trash.

 

[Davros]

Single payer with government negotiating the costs with the suppliers.

Medicare already is single payer. How would expanding single payer to everybody cut healthcare costs? It would allow the government to dictate what it will pay, but that would cause all kinds of healthcare availability problems. Now, it's available but expensive. Under single payer, there are long wait lists for critical care.

I have had government medical care since I was military dependent, on military active duty, and as a VA disability recipient. I have never had an unreasonable waiting period. If the government negotiates reasonable prices, there will be no such problem. Now before you ask me to prove it, you made the statement that there will be long waits for critical care. Prove it.

Single payer works without waitlists when it applies to limited segments of the population. When the entire population is on it (Canada, UK, etc) there is over - demand for a limited supply. When prices are fixed by the government, prices cannot adjust for the over - demand and the result is waitlists due to supply shortage.

Plenty of proof of that from Canada and the UK. Single payer was rejected when Democrats had near super majority.

One, UK and Canada and Australia are satisfied with national health care. So was Winston Churchill and Maggie Thatcher. No reason exists, except for greed, that such health care will not work here.

You going to deny that waitlists are a problem in the UK?

A&E waiting times are worst in a decade

 

[Davros]

Work out a solution and don't allow democrats a say at all. Lock them out of the room.

You could do that if you obtained absolute power, but you aren't likely to.

 

[S.J.]

Build the wall, cut off all welfare to illegals and able bodied citizens who just plain don't feel like working for a living. S.S. was paid into without being given a choice, now the Dems want to screw millions of people over who paid into it because Dems used the money to create programs to buy votes with. Make all registered Democrats pay a stupidity tax for putting these bastards in office. Privatize S.S. for everyone under the age of say 30. Cut the budget across the board for everything except S.S. and Medicare. Stop all foreign aid to unfriendly countries (make it illegal). Punish companies who ship jobs overseas. Eliminate Dept. of Energy, Education, DHS, and others that aren't worth a shit. Replace the income tax system with a consumption tax and pass a balanced budget amendment. There are a lot of ways to solve the problem without screwing over those who had no choice but to participate in the system.

S. J. demonstrates an ideology that the great majority rejects.

Yep, the great majority of socialist parasites who think somebody else should pay their way and that your money is their money.

 

[Davros]

Build the wall, cut off all welfare to illegals and able bodied citizens who just plain don't feel like working for a living. S.S. was paid into without being given a choice, now the Dems want to screw millions of people over who paid into it because Dems used the money to create programs to buy votes with. Make all registered Democrats pay a stupidity tax for putting these bastards in office. Privatize S.S. for everyone under the age of say 30. Cut the budget across the board for everything except S.S. and Medicare. Stop all foreign aid to unfriendly countries (make it illegal). Punish companies who ship jobs overseas. Eliminate Dept. of Energy, Education, DHS, and others that aren't worth a shit. Replace the income tax system with a consumption tax and pass a balanced budget amendment. There are a lot of ways to solve the problem without screwing over those who had no choice but to participate in the system.

Who had any choice in paying any taxes.

My generation will pay equal or more in taxes to sustain your benefits to what you paid. If you make it optional for us, the deficits faced by the programs now will increase, so that is a non-solution.

Social Security should have been properly labeled as a welfare program. The pay now, get back later that they couched it as is nothing but a ponzi scheme.

We will pay your benefits, but either you agree to receive reasonable cuts in benefits, or else the whole ponzi scheme will blow up and there will be a generation that gets NOTHING. Would that be more fair than your generation getting reasonable cuts? No. So Social Security benefits for those above a certain income should be taxed.

No, SS and Medicare are not welfare programs.

No, it is not a ponzi scheme.

The programs are easy to fix, as you well know.

Ponzi Scheme ... outlays to investors that cash out are payed by investors who buy in. If the investors stop buying in, the system crashes.

Legitimate investment ... you know that the money you're investing will be used, and you know there is a risk that its use will result in its complete loss.

Which better fits social security? If you choose the non-obvious answer, explain yourself (which of course you can't, so yes this is a rhetorical question).

 

[Katzndogz]

Work out a solution and don't allow democrats a say at all. Lock them out of the room.

You could do that if you obtained absolute power, but you aren't likely to.

Not absolute power. Just eliminate democrats.

 

[S.J.]

Build the wall, cut off all welfare to illegals and able bodied citizens who just plain don't feel like working for a living. S.S. was paid into without being given a choice, now the Dems want to screw millions of people over who paid into it because Dems used the money to create programs to buy votes with. Make all registered Democrats pay a stupidity tax for putting these bastards in office. Privatize S.S. for everyone under the age of say 30. Cut the budget across the board for everything except S.S. and Medicare. Stop all foreign aid to unfriendly countries (make it illegal). Punish companies who ship jobs overseas. Eliminate Dept. of Energy, Education, DHS, and others that aren't worth a shit. Replace the income tax system with a consumption tax and pass a balanced budget amendment. There are a lot of ways to solve the problem without screwing over those who had no choice but to participate in the system.

Who had any choice in paying any taxes.

My generation will pay equal or more in taxes to sustain your benefits to what you paid. If you make it optional for us, the deficits faced by the programs now will increase, so that is a non-solution.

Social Security should have been properly labeled as a welfare program. The pay now, get back later that they couched it as is nothing but a ponzi scheme.

We will pay your benefits, but either you agree to receive reasonable cuts in benefits, or else the whole ponzi scheme will blow up and there will be a generation that gets NOTHING. Would that be more fair than your generation getting reasonable cuts? No. So Social Security benefits for those above a certain income should be taxed.

A welfare program is a program you don't pay into. It was not supposed to be used for anything else but Lyndon Johnson raided the fund, screwing over everyone. You act like you're doing people a favor by letting them have their own money back that was promised to them and just like a typical Democrat, think it's fine and dandy to not honor their commitments. And who decides at what point it should be taxed, and how many times will that number go down as government continues to be irresponsible with our money? How many times do we have to go down that road before we realize that government can't be trusted with our money?

 

[JakeStarkey]

Single payer with government negotiating the costs with the suppliers.

Medicare already is single payer. How would expanding single payer to everybody cut healthcare costs? It would allow the government to dictate what it will pay, but that would cause all kinds of healthcare availability problems. Now, it's available but expensive. Under single payer, there are long wait lists for critical care.

I have had government medical care since I was military dependent, on military active duty, and as a VA disability recipient. I have never had an unreasonable waiting period. If the government negotiates reasonable prices, there will be no such problem. Now before you ask me to prove it, you made the statement that there will be long waits for critical care. Prove it.

Single payer works without waitlists when it applies to limited segments of the population. When the entire population is on it (Canada, UK, etc) there is over - demand for a limited supply. When prices are fixed by the government, prices cannot adjust for the over - demand and the result is waitlists due to supply shortage.

Plenty of proof of that from Canada and the UK. Single payer was rejected when Democrats had near super majority.

One, UK and Canada and Australia are satisfied with national health care. So was Winston Churchill and Maggie Thatcher. No reason exists, except for greed, that such health care will not work here.

You going to deny that waitlists are a problem in the UK?

A&E waiting times are worst in a decade

What about the wait lists for our poor. Oh, that's right. You don't care. The system can work if it is balanced with service and reward.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Work out a solution and don't allow democrats a say at all. Lock them out of the room.

You could do that if you obtained absolute power, but you aren't likely to.

Not absolute power. Just eliminate democrats.

You fascists need not apply.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Medicare already is single payer. How would expanding single payer to everybody cut healthcare costs? It would allow the government to dictate what it will pay, but that would cause all kinds of healthcare availability problems. Now, it's available but expensive. Under single payer, there are long wait lists for critical care.

I have had government medical care since I was military dependent, on military active duty, and as a VA disability recipient. I have never had an unreasonable waiting period. If the government negotiates reasonable prices, there will be no such problem. Now before you ask me to prove it, you made the statement that there will be long waits for critical care. Prove it.

Single payer works without waitlists when it applies to limited segments of the population. When the entire population is on it (Canada, UK, etc) there is over - demand for a limited supply. When prices are fixed by the government, prices cannot adjust for the over - demand and the result is waitlists due to supply shortage.

Plenty of proof of that from Canada and the UK. Single payer was rejected when Democrats had near super majority.

One, UK and Canada and Australia are satisfied with national health care. So was Winston Churchill and Maggie Thatcher. No reason exists, except for greed, that such health care will not work here.

You going to deny that waitlists are a problem in the UK?

A&E waiting times are worst in a decade

What about the wait lists for our poor. Oh, that's right. You don't care. The system can work if it is balanced with service and reward.

And the libertarians sound stupid as usual.

 

[eagle1462010]

CBO’s 2014 Long-Term Projections for Social Security: Additional Information

In calendar year 2010, for the first time since the enactment of the Social Security Amendments of 1983, annual outlays for the program exceeded annual tax revenues (that is, outlays exceeded totalrevenues excluding interest credited to the trust funds). In 2013, outlays exceeded noninterest income by about 9 percent, and CBO projects that the gap will average about 17 percent of tax revenues over the next decade. As more members of the baby-boom generation retire, outlays will increase relative to the size of the economy, whereas tax revenues will remain at an almost constant share of the economy. As a result, the gap will grow larger in the 2020s and will exceed 30 percent of revenues by the late 2020s.

CBO projects that under current law, the DI trust fund will be exhausted in fiscal year 2017, and the OASI trust fund will be exhausted in 2032. If a trust fund's balance fell to zero and current revenues were insufficient to cover the benefits specified in law, the Social Security Administration would no longer have legal authority to pay full benefits when they were due. In 1994, legislation redirected revenues from the OASI trust fund to prevent the imminent exhaustion of the DI trust fund. In part because of that experience, it is a common analytical convention to consider the DI and OASI trust funds as combined. Thus, CBO projects, if some future legislation shifted resources from the OASI trust fund to the DI trust fund, the combined OASDI trust funds would be exhausted in 2030.

 

[JakeStarkey]

CBO’s 2014 Long-Term Projections for Social Security: Additional Information

In calendar year 2010, for the first time since the enactment of the Social Security Amendments of 1983, annual outlays for the program exceeded annual tax revenues (that is, outlays exceeded totalrevenues excluding interest credited to the trust funds). In 2013, outlays exceeded noninterest income by about 9 percent, and CBO projects that the gap will average about 17 percent of tax revenues over the next decade. As more members of the baby-boom generation retire, outlays will increase relative to the size of the economy, whereas tax revenues will remain at an almost constant share of the economy. As a result, the gap will grow larger in the 2020s and will exceed 30 percent of revenues by the late 2020s.

CBO projects that under current law, the DI trust fund will be exhausted in fiscal year 2017, and the OASI trust fund will be exhausted in 2032. If a trust fund's balance fell to zero and current revenues were insufficient to cover the benefits specified in law, the Social Security Administration would no longer have legal authority to pay full benefits when they were due. In 1994, legislation redirected revenues from the OASI trust fund to prevent the imminent exhaustion of the DI trust fund. In part because of that experience, it is a common analytical convention to consider the DI and OASI trust funds as combined. Thus, CBO projects, if some future legislation shifted resources from the OASI trust fund to the DI trust fund, the combined OASDI trust funds would be exhausted in 2030.

The program is easily reformed, as you well know.

 

[Sun Devil 92]

Do we touch Medicare and Social Security or not?

With Medicare, it's all about the government giving money to drug companies and rich doctors. We should gradually raise the retirement age, yes. But as far as cutting what Medicare is willing to pay, that would hurt seniors because the greedy doctors and drug companies would stop accepting Medicare. So the only viable thing there is health reform to cut the costs of healthcare paid by all so that what Medicare pays can also go down. Obamacare was supposed to work on that, but because of the toxic Washington environment they rushed out a Democrat only plan rather than working together with Republicans on the healthcare cost issue.

On Social Security, raise the retirement age, and tax benefits to more well off seniors. It's not fair, but there's no alternative. The money seniors put in to social security is gone and the current generation can't sustain the older generation at the current benefit level.

So fixing medicare is much tougher and must be done hand in hand with healthcare reform.

Bottom line: Huckabee, Christie, Bush, everybody had some good ideas. Get together with Democrats and come up with something.

We need to elect somebody who can do that because neither party will win absolute power in 2016.

Assuming that Social Security is a program that is worth salvaging, then yes. At the minimum, going forward (not retroactively), we will unquestionably HAVE to alter the age for eligibility.

And in the same going forward way, we will need to address how much gets doled out in SS payments.

The alternative will be that the SS system is going to go flat busted broke and then nobody will get diddly dick out of it.

The solutions are all difficult (which is a kind of inevitable outcome of building the foundation on the sand). But the fact that the solutions are difficult and even painful is no longer a sufficient excuse to refuse to address the problems and grapple WITH the alternative solutions.

The part about it "going broke" is a fallacy.

If the trust fund drys up, benefits will be cut to 65% of current in order to match up with incoming revenues. We pay money in every month...it has to go somewhere.

Well, nobody would be happy with an automatic 35% cut in benefits across the board, so just letting the trust fund dry up is not a good solution.

Not arguing....just saying....it won't totally dry up.

 

[eagle1462010]

CBO’s 2014 Long-Term Projections for Social Security: Additional Information

In calendar year 2010, for the first time since the enactment of the Social Security Amendments of 1983, annual outlays for the program exceeded annual tax revenues (that is, outlays exceeded totalrevenues excluding interest credited to the trust funds). In 2013, outlays exceeded noninterest income by about 9 percent, and CBO projects that the gap will average about 17 percent of tax revenues over the next decade. As more members of the baby-boom generation retire, outlays will increase relative to the size of the economy, whereas tax revenues will remain at an almost constant share of the economy. As a result, the gap will grow larger in the 2020s and will exceed 30 percent of revenues by the late 2020s.

CBO projects that under current law, the DI trust fund will be exhausted in fiscal year 2017, and the OASI trust fund will be exhausted in 2032. If a trust fund's balance fell to zero and current revenues were insufficient to cover the benefits specified in law, the Social Security Administration would no longer have legal authority to pay full benefits when they were due. In 1994, legislation redirected revenues from the OASI trust fund to prevent the imminent exhaustion of the DI trust fund. In part because of that experience, it is a common analytical convention to consider the DI and OASI trust funds as combined. Thus, CBO projects, if some future legislation shifted resources from the OASI trust fund to the DI trust fund, the combined OASDI trust funds would be exhausted in 2030.

The program is easily reformed, as you well know.

You always say that but never give options...................How do we stop the unfunded Liabilities.............................................

Since they combined the Trust Funds, which are a stack of IOU's, they are now insolvent by 2030.........Insolvent now if we don't take into account the Trust Funds are no longer there................

Social Security Policy Options

Policy Options
In this study, CBO analyzes 30 options that are among those that have been considered by various analysts and policymakers as possible components of proposals to provide long-term financial stability for Social Security. The options follow the convention of not reducing initial benefits for people who are currently older than 55, and all would directly affect outlays for benefits or federal revenues dedicated to Social Security.

The options fall into five categories:

• Increases in the Social Security payroll tax,
• Reductions in people's initial benefits,
• Increases in benefits for law earners,
• Increases in the full retirement age, and
• Reductions in the cost-of-living adjustments that are applied to continuing benefits.

Each option is analyzed in isolation, although most proposals to make substantial changes to Social Security combine several provisions. Many options would interact with one another, so combining them might cause changes to the overall finances of the system that are larger or smaller than would be produced by a simple sum of the effects of several discrete options.

This list of options is far from exhaustive. It does not include changes that would draw on general government revenues, create individual accounts, or change the trust funds' investments. Other than an increase in the Social Security payroll tax, changes to federal tax policy are not considered. The options do not include any that apply only to people who receive DI benefits, although some of the options would affect OASI and DI beneficiaries alike.

continue reading if you choose to do so........

 

[Davros]

Build the wall, cut off all welfare to illegals and able bodied citizens who just plain don't feel like working for a living. S.S. was paid into without being given a choice, now the Dems want to screw millions of people over who paid into it because Dems used the money to create programs to buy votes with. Make all registered Democrats pay a stupidity tax for putting these bastards in office. Privatize S.S. for everyone under the age of say 30. Cut the budget across the board for everything except S.S. and Medicare. Stop all foreign aid to unfriendly countries (make it illegal). Punish companies who ship jobs overseas. Eliminate Dept. of Energy, Education, DHS, and others that aren't worth a shit. Replace the income tax system with a consumption tax and pass a balanced budget amendment. There are a lot of ways to solve the problem without screwing over those who had no choice but to participate in the system.

Who had any choice in paying any taxes.

My generation will pay equal or more in taxes to sustain your benefits to what you paid. If you make it optional for us, the deficits faced by the programs now will increase, so that is a non-solution.

Social Security should have been properly labeled as a welfare program. The pay now, get back later that they couched it as is nothing but a ponzi scheme.

We will pay your benefits, but either you agree to receive reasonable cuts in benefits, or else the whole ponzi scheme will blow up and there will be a generation that gets NOTHING. Would that be more fair than your generation getting reasonable cuts? No. So Social Security benefits for those above a certain income should be taxed.

No, SS and Medicare are not welfare programs.

No, it is not a ponzi scheme.

The programs are easy to fix, as you well know.

Its always about hurting the poor and middle class with republicans. These people want to go back to the 19th century...Anyone that isn't super successful is seen as trash.

What idiot rated this post informative? Oops, that was me... oh well, it is informative as to Matthews mindset.