Which party will actually pay for the new Debt, or will Social Security & Medicare go Bankrupt?

[bendog]

The COVID-19 pandemic borrowing will make SS & Medicare less solvent.
Which party will raise taxes to save SS & Medicare for future generations?

The Future of America’s Entitlements: What You Need to Know About the Medicare and Social Security Trustees Reports - AAF

The Social Security and Medicare Trustees issued their annual reports detailing the financial state of America’s two largest entitlement programs.

www.americanactionforum.org

• Medicare’s Annual Cash Shortfall in 2019 was $396 billion;
• Payroll taxes would have to increase more than 15 percent to pay for Medicare Part A in 2019; and
• Over the next 75 years, Social Security will owe $16.8 trillion more than it is projected to take in.

You are implying that it is even possible to "pay for it".

With or without Covid-19, with or without the economic down turn, whether Democrats or Republicans are in office....

You can't pay for socialism. It never works. Never. Not one time in all human history, has taking from group A, to pay for group B, worked.

If Social Security and Medicare were possible to have working, then we would never have the concept of a Ponzi scheme, because both of those are ponzi schemes.

In the end, my guess is that health care in the US will end up run by the government, and thus will end up declining in quality to meet the ability of the government to pay.

Social Security will equally need to be cut to the ability of the government to pay. The way they will do this, is by cutting the retirement age, meaning raise the retirement age to 75 or something.

Now there are a few alternatives that the nation could go down, that will be absolutely devastating.

One is a drastic increase in taxes, which will cause capital flight and economic decline. That would be much like what we saw in Greece.

The other option is that government just keeps spending, until they destroy themselves. Again, much like Greece.

Given the recent rise of incompetence, like AOC who is exceedingly popular, even after saying things as utterly mindless as she's going to "spend" the money from a tax cut on schools and health care.....

I see the Greece result as more and more a real possibility.

There is no way to "pay" for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. These programs, were never, and are not, sustainable. We have only been able to out-grow our spending thus far, but that can't continue forever.

You want 75 year-old truck drivers on the road? You want 75 year-old roofers working on your house? You want a 75 year-old nurse assisting your doctor?

You really have not thought this through, have you?

Right now you can retire at 62 with full benefits at 67.
WTF is wrong with raising the 62 to 64 and 67 to 68 over 10-years?

Doesn't SS use actuarial data based on avg life span to pretty much make your total payout even, no matter whether you "retire" at 62, 67 and 70?

Not to go offtopic, but currently if you retire at 62, Soc Sec reduces your benefit even further if you earn from employment some amount (I think it's 30K but the reduction in benefit increases the more you make. Although, at full retirement age, Soc Sec them basically starts increasing your monthly benefit to make up for the reduced benefits from the age you took early retirement benefits to full retirement age)

The reason I mention this is that it seems to me the only people taking it early are those with little choice because either they can't do their old job or their old job disappears. So, while maybe full retirement age can be raised from 67, I'm not sure we can raise the early retirement age option.

 

[Andylusion]

The COVID-19 pandemic borrowing will make SS & Medicare less solvent.
Which party will raise taxes to save SS & Medicare for future generations?

The Future of America’s Entitlements: What You Need to Know About the Medicare and Social Security Trustees Reports - AAF

The Social Security and Medicare Trustees issued their annual reports detailing the financial state of America’s two largest entitlement programs.

www.americanactionforum.org

• Medicare’s Annual Cash Shortfall in 2019 was $396 billion;
• Payroll taxes would have to increase more than 15 percent to pay for Medicare Part A in 2019; and
• Over the next 75 years, Social Security will owe $16.8 trillion more than it is projected to take in.

Neither one, dumass. Political parties don't pay taxes.

WTF are you hallucinating about? Who writes the tax laws?
Who wrote the last tax cuts that aren't working no matter what Manuchin says?

So what you really meant to say is that Dims will raise all our taxes.

We already knew that, dumbass.

What they will do is raise taxes on the wealthy, and perhaps tobacco users; two groups that cannot protect themselves via vote.

The wealthy have gotten themselves many tax cuts. They can buy politicians.

Given the fact they pay most of the federal income tax for the rest of us, who would you suggest get a tax break?

Someone needs to pay the bills, might should be the folks with all the money.

View attachment 329424

I'm sure you have more than other people too. Does that mean government should have the right take it from you to give to somebody else? If you have eight beautiful hedges in front of your home, would it not be proper for government to take four of your hedges, and give them to the person down the street that has none? Or perhaps you have four video game systems in your household. Would it not be only fair for government to take two of those systems, and give them to somebody that has none?

The wealthy pay most of the bills already. How about we all pay, like with a federal consumption tax until this debt we incurred is paid off completely? Then everybody has a dog in the race.

Poor examples of class envy. We need to pay the bills or disaster will happen, look at Greece and Venezuela.
Then look at China.
A VAT (value added tax) aka a Fed sales tax hits everyone at the same rate.
The top rate needs to go up.
Add a tax on financial transactions
Raise the gas tax (it hasn't been raised in ages)
We also need to implement "fixes" for SS & Medicare.

We are in deep shit with all of the new COVID borrowing. We need to start paying down the Debt, not just the interest.

Actually Greece and Venezuela are exactly the countries that *I* would point to, as why you can't pay for socialism.

Greece has drastically higher tax rates than we do, by a massive margin. Why didn't those massively higher tax rates, result in the endless money to pay for Pensions and Health Care?

Venezuela, went even beyond Greece, and they just simply confiscated the wealth by force. Huge Chavez had military personnel at stores. So why didn't that collection of all the wealth in the country, pay for the pensions and health care?

Your system doesn't work. Socialism never works, because eventually, now or later... either after 10 years in Venezuela, or after 70 years in the Soviet Union.... either way... you will run out of other people's money.

Your system doesn't work. Greece and Venezuela proved that. You can't just take more and more from people, to pay for everything you want. And at some point, they will simply refuse to pay. The public of Greece simply refused to pay the taxes. The people of Venezuela packed up and left.

Your system does not work.... period.

 

[kyzr]

The COVID-19 pandemic borrowing will make SS & Medicare less solvent.
Which party will raise taxes to save SS & Medicare for future generations?

The Future of America’s Entitlements: What You Need to Know About the Medicare and Social Security Trustees Reports - AAF

The Social Security and Medicare Trustees issued their annual reports detailing the financial state of America’s two largest entitlement programs.

www.americanactionforum.org

• Medicare’s Annual Cash Shortfall in 2019 was $396 billion;
• Payroll taxes would have to increase more than 15 percent to pay for Medicare Part A in 2019; and
• Over the next 75 years, Social Security will owe $16.8 trillion more than it is projected to take in.

You are implying that it is even possible to "pay for it".

With or without Covid-19, with or without the economic down turn, whether Democrats or Republicans are in office....

You can't pay for socialism. It never works. Never. Not one time in all human history, has taking from group A, to pay for group B, worked.

If Social Security and Medicare were possible to have working, then we would never have the concept of a Ponzi scheme, because both of those are ponzi schemes.

In the end, my guess is that health care in the US will end up run by the government, and thus will end up declining in quality to meet the ability of the government to pay.

Social Security will equally need to be cut to the ability of the government to pay. The way they will do this, is by cutting the retirement age, meaning raise the retirement age to 75 or something.

Now there are a few alternatives that the nation could go down, that will be absolutely devastating.

One is a drastic increase in taxes, which will cause capital flight and economic decline. That would be much like what we saw in Greece.

The other option is that government just keeps spending, until they destroy themselves. Again, much like Greece.

Given the recent rise of incompetence, like AOC who is exceedingly popular, even after saying things as utterly mindless as she's going to "spend" the money from a tax cut on schools and health care.....

I see the Greece result as more and more a real possibility.

There is no way to "pay" for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. These programs, were never, and are not, sustainable. We have only been able to out-grow our spending thus far, but that can't continue forever.

You want 75 year-old truck drivers on the road? You want 75 year-old roofers working on your house? You want a 75 year-old nurse assisting your doctor?

You really have not thought this through, have you?

Right now you can retire at 62 with full benefits at 67.
WTF is wrong with raising the 62 to 64 and 67 to 68 over 10-years?

You oversimplify as it depends on your age. My wife can retire at 66 and 1/2 but I have to wait until 67. If you retire at 62 and continue working, your SS gets reduced. There are also no medical benefits, so you better have some pre-paid or your SS will just about pay for your health insurance. Then what do you live on?

1. If you retire at 62 and continue working your SS does get reduced if you make more than $17,640:
"If you earn more than $17,640 (in 2019), Social Security will deduct $1 from your benefits for each $2 you earn over the threshold. In the year you reach full retirement age, you can earn up to $46,920 (in 2019) without having a reduction in benefits. "

2. I'm not sure why you say you "have to" to work to 67, unless you want to max out your monthly SS check?
Age 65 is all you need to work to get full Medicare coverage. But even with Medicare you still need to pay for a supplemental plan because of the "donut" hole.

3. At 62 if you have a good paying job, don't start collecting SS and there is no deduction to worry about. SS only starts when you tell it to start. I retired at 62 and paid for healthcare, but I also had a 401k/IRA to help pay bills.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

The COVID-19 pandemic borrowing will make SS & Medicare less solvent.
Which party will raise taxes to save SS & Medicare for future generations?

The Future of America’s Entitlements: What You Need to Know About the Medicare and Social Security Trustees Reports - AAF

The Social Security and Medicare Trustees issued their annual reports detailing the financial state of America’s two largest entitlement programs.

www.americanactionforum.org

• Medicare’s Annual Cash Shortfall in 2019 was $396 billion;
• Payroll taxes would have to increase more than 15 percent to pay for Medicare Part A in 2019; and
• Over the next 75 years, Social Security will owe $16.8 trillion more than it is projected to take in.

Neither one, dumass. Political parties don't pay taxes.

WTF are you hallucinating about? Who writes the tax laws?
Who wrote the last tax cuts that aren't working no matter what Manuchin says?

So what you really meant to say is that Dims will raise all our taxes.

We already knew that, dumbass.

What they will do is raise taxes on the wealthy, and perhaps tobacco users; two groups that cannot protect themselves via vote.

The wealthy have gotten themselves many tax cuts. They can buy politicians.

Given the fact they pay most of the federal income tax for the rest of us, who would you suggest get a tax break?

Someone needs to pay the bills, might should be the folks with all the money.

View attachment 329424

That is literally the moral code of a thug:

Your proposed cuts added together are about $400b. So you're about $600b short of a Balanced Budget.
Someone needs to pay the fucking bills. Who should that be?
A VAT is paid by everyone, as an example.

A VAT is a hidden tax, which is precisely thugs such as you like it.

I'm fine having the tax shown on the receipt. Call it a VAT, a sales tax, or a consumption tax. We need to raise revenue.

That's about as regressive a tax as you can get.

What tax is regressive? The income tax is not.
The Fed sales tax is fair.
Everyone needs to pay some tax to get out of the hole.

A value added tax is as regressive as you can get, The largest burden would be paid by the lower incomes, exactly the opposite of what you proposed. You need to work on your plan. It sucks so badly even you don't understand it.

WTF is wrong with sales tax? Its very simple.
I dumped the VAT because its hidden and no one knows how much tax is paid by whom.
You ok with a Fed sales tax?

Read up on the FAIR tax. It's a sales tax that resolves the issue of progressivisity.

The Fair Tax is is regressive as it gets. I suggest you learn the difference between "regressive" and "fair".

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

The COVID-19 pandemic borrowing will make SS & Medicare less solvent.
Which party will raise taxes to save SS & Medicare for future generations?

The Future of America’s Entitlements: What You Need to Know About the Medicare and Social Security Trustees Reports - AAF

The Social Security and Medicare Trustees issued their annual reports detailing the financial state of America’s two largest entitlement programs.

www.americanactionforum.org

• Medicare’s Annual Cash Shortfall in 2019 was $396 billion;
• Payroll taxes would have to increase more than 15 percent to pay for Medicare Part A in 2019; and
• Over the next 75 years, Social Security will owe $16.8 trillion more than it is projected to take in.

You are implying that it is even possible to "pay for it".

With or without Covid-19, with or without the economic down turn, whether Democrats or Republicans are in office....

You can't pay for socialism. It never works. Never. Not one time in all human history, has taking from group A, to pay for group B, worked.

If Social Security and Medicare were possible to have working, then we would never have the concept of a Ponzi scheme, because both of those are ponzi schemes.

In the end, my guess is that health care in the US will end up run by the government, and thus will end up declining in quality to meet the ability of the government to pay.

Social Security will equally need to be cut to the ability of the government to pay. The way they will do this, is by cutting the retirement age, meaning raise the retirement age to 75 or something.

Now there are a few alternatives that the nation could go down, that will be absolutely devastating.

One is a drastic increase in taxes, which will cause capital flight and economic decline. That would be much like what we saw in Greece.

The other option is that government just keeps spending, until they destroy themselves. Again, much like Greece.

Given the recent rise of incompetence, like AOC who is exceedingly popular, even after saying things as utterly mindless as she's going to "spend" the money from a tax cut on schools and health care.....

I see the Greece result as more and more a real possibility.

There is no way to "pay" for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. These programs, were never, and are not, sustainable. We have only been able to out-grow our spending thus far, but that can't continue forever.

You want 75 year-old truck drivers on the road? You want 75 year-old roofers working on your house? You want a 75 year-old nurse assisting your doctor?

You really have not thought this through, have you?

Right now you can retire at 62 with full benefits at 67.
WTF is wrong with raising the 62 to 64 and 67 to 68 over 10-years?

You oversimplify as it depends on your age. My wife can retire at 66 and 1/2 but I have to wait until 67. If you retire at 62 and continue working, your SS gets reduced. There are also no medical benefits, so you better have some pre-paid or your SS will just about pay for your health insurance. Then what do you live on?

1. If you retire at 62 and continue working your SS does get reduced if you make more than $17,640:
"If you earn more than $17,640 (in 2019), Social Security will deduct $1 from your benefits for each $2 you earn over the threshold. In the year you reach full retirement age, you can earn up to $46,920 (in 2019) without having a reduction in benefits. "

2. I'm not sure why you say you "have to" to work to 67, unless you want to max out your monthly SS check?
Age 65 is all you need to work to get full Medicare coverage. But even with Medicare you still need to pay for a supplemental plan because of the "donut" hole.

3. At 62 if you have a good paying job, don't start collecting SS and there is no deduction to worry about. SS only starts when you tell it to start. I retired at 62 and paid for healthcare, but I also had a 401k/IRA to help pay bills.

1. That's $1500 per month, which is not much unless you are working part time.

2, Age 67 is the NORMAL retirement age for anyone older than me. I don't get this "max out" you are talking about since SS continue to go up the longer you do not enroll in it.

3. My SS benefit barely will cover my mortgage, meaning I will have to sell my home. My other savings were just about destroyed by COVID19.

My wife could have retired in December, but since she carries the medical insurance and my bills would have been $70,000 just in 4 months, I don't have any other options.

 

[kyzr]

The COVID-19 pandemic borrowing will make SS & Medicare less solvent.
Which party will raise taxes to save SS & Medicare for future generations?

The Future of America’s Entitlements: What You Need to Know About the Medicare and Social Security Trustees Reports - AAF

The Social Security and Medicare Trustees issued their annual reports detailing the financial state of America’s two largest entitlement programs.

www.americanactionforum.org

• Medicare’s Annual Cash Shortfall in 2019 was $396 billion;
• Payroll taxes would have to increase more than 15 percent to pay for Medicare Part A in 2019; and
• Over the next 75 years, Social Security will owe $16.8 trillion more than it is projected to take in.

You are implying that it is even possible to "pay for it".

With or without Covid-19, with or without the economic down turn, whether Democrats or Republicans are in office....

You can't pay for socialism. It never works. Never. Not one time in all human history, has taking from group A, to pay for group B, worked.

If Social Security and Medicare were possible to have working, then we would never have the concept of a Ponzi scheme, because both of those are ponzi schemes.

In the end, my guess is that health care in the US will end up run by the government, and thus will end up declining in quality to meet the ability of the government to pay.

Social Security will equally need to be cut to the ability of the government to pay. The way they will do this, is by cutting the retirement age, meaning raise the retirement age to 75 or something.

Now there are a few alternatives that the nation could go down, that will be absolutely devastating.

One is a drastic increase in taxes, which will cause capital flight and economic decline. That would be much like what we saw in Greece.

The other option is that government just keeps spending, until they destroy themselves. Again, much like Greece.

Given the recent rise of incompetence, like AOC who is exceedingly popular, even after saying things as utterly mindless as she's going to "spend" the money from a tax cut on schools and health care.....

I see the Greece result as more and more a real possibility.

There is no way to "pay" for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. These programs, were never, and are not, sustainable. We have only been able to out-grow our spending thus far, but that can't continue forever.

You want 75 year-old truck drivers on the road? You want 75 year-old roofers working on your house? You want a 75 year-old nurse assisting your doctor?

You really have not thought this through, have you?

Right now you can retire at 62 with full benefits at 67.
WTF is wrong with raising the 62 to 64 and 67 to 68 over 10-years?

Doesn't SS use actuarial data based on avg life span to pretty much make your total payout even, no matter whether you "retire" at 62, 67 and 70?

Not to go offtopic, but currently if you retire at 62, Soc Sec reduces your benefit even further if you earn from employment some amount (I think it's 30K but the reduction in benefit increases the more you make. Although, at full retirement age, Soc Sec them basically starts increasing your monthly benefit to make up for the reduced benefits from the age you took early retirement benefits to full retirement age)

The reason I mention this is that it seems to me the only people taking it early are those with little choice because either they can't do their old job or their old job disappears. So, while maybe full retirement age can be raised from 67, I'm not sure we can raise the early retirement age option.

1. I'm not sure how SS figures the payouts at 62, 65, or 67, just that the max is at 67. Another factor is that Medicare starts at 65, so if you retire before 65 you need to buy healthcare insurance, unless your spouse covers you.
2. At 62 if you continue working but start your SS payments, they deduct $1 for every $2 you earn over $17,640. Your monthly SS payments stay the same from your age when you start them.
3. I retired at 62 because I didn't like the long commute to work. I could have kept working, but decided to work on my health. Sitting at a desk all day is not healthy work. People are healthier now than when SS was formed, 62 isn't considered that old.

 

[Andylusion]

The COVID-19 pandemic borrowing will make SS & Medicare less solvent.
Which party will raise taxes to save SS & Medicare for future generations?

The Future of America’s Entitlements: What You Need to Know About the Medicare and Social Security Trustees Reports - AAF

The Social Security and Medicare Trustees issued their annual reports detailing the financial state of America’s two largest entitlement programs.

www.americanactionforum.org

• Medicare’s Annual Cash Shortfall in 2019 was $396 billion;
• Payroll taxes would have to increase more than 15 percent to pay for Medicare Part A in 2019; and
• Over the next 75 years, Social Security will owe $16.8 trillion more than it is projected to take in.

You are implying that it is even possible to "pay for it".

With or without Covid-19, with or without the economic down turn, whether Democrats or Republicans are in office....

You can't pay for socialism. It never works. Never. Not one time in all human history, has taking from group A, to pay for group B, worked.

If Social Security and Medicare were possible to have working, then we would never have the concept of a Ponzi scheme, because both of those are ponzi schemes.

In the end, my guess is that health care in the US will end up run by the government, and thus will end up declining in quality to meet the ability of the government to pay.

Social Security will equally need to be cut to the ability of the government to pay. The way they will do this, is by cutting the retirement age, meaning raise the retirement age to 75 or something.

Now there are a few alternatives that the nation could go down, that will be absolutely devastating.

One is a drastic increase in taxes, which will cause capital flight and economic decline. That would be much like what we saw in Greece.

The other option is that government just keeps spending, until they destroy themselves. Again, much like Greece.

Given the recent rise of incompetence, like AOC who is exceedingly popular, even after saying things as utterly mindless as she's going to "spend" the money from a tax cut on schools and health care.....

I see the Greece result as more and more a real possibility.

There is no way to "pay" for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. These programs, were never, and are not, sustainable. We have only been able to out-grow our spending thus far, but that can't continue forever.

You want 75 year-old truck drivers on the road? You want 75 year-old roofers working on your house? You want a 75 year-old nurse assisting your doctor?

You really have not thought this through, have you?

Right now you can retire at 62 with full benefits at 67.
WTF is wrong with raising the 62 to 64 and 67 to 68 over 10-years?

Doesn't SS use actuarial data based on avg life span to pretty much make your total payout even, no matter whether you "retire" at 62, 67 and 70?

Not to go offtopic, but currently if you retire at 62, Soc Sec reduces your benefit even further if you earn from employment some amount (I think it's 30K but the reduction in benefit increases the more you make. Although, at full retirement age, Soc Sec them basically starts increasing your monthly benefit to make up for the reduced benefits from the age you took early retirement benefits to full retirement age)

The reason I mention this is that it seems to me the only people taking it early are those with little choice because either they can't do their old job or their old job disappears. So, while maybe full retirement age can be raised from 67, I'm not sure we can raise the early retirement age option.

I don't think that system is going to continue.

That said, even if it does adjust payments based on average life span, you will eventually die, and when you die, the amount of payments you would have gotten are confiscated by the government, and not passed onto survivors.

In other words, say your pay out is $20,000 a year if you retirement at 67, and the average life span is 80.

Now say you delay retirement till 72, and because of this your retirement is higher, like $25,000 a year.

If you die at 75, then SS saved 5 years of payouts. Under the old system, that would be $100,000. Under the delayed retirement, it saved $125,000.

Raising the retirement age will decrease costs to Social Security. However, we need to grasp, that will not fix the fundamental problem of Social Security, which is that it is a ponzi scheme, and all ponzi schemes eventually run out of other people's money to spend.

 

[Andylusion]

The COVID-19 pandemic borrowing will make SS & Medicare less solvent.
Which party will raise taxes to save SS & Medicare for future generations?

The Future of America’s Entitlements: What You Need to Know About the Medicare and Social Security Trustees Reports - AAF

The Social Security and Medicare Trustees issued their annual reports detailing the financial state of America’s two largest entitlement programs.

www.americanactionforum.org

• Medicare’s Annual Cash Shortfall in 2019 was $396 billion;
• Payroll taxes would have to increase more than 15 percent to pay for Medicare Part A in 2019; and
• Over the next 75 years, Social Security will owe $16.8 trillion more than it is projected to take in.

You are implying that it is even possible to "pay for it".

With or without Covid-19, with or without the economic down turn, whether Democrats or Republicans are in office....

You can't pay for socialism. It never works. Never. Not one time in all human history, has taking from group A, to pay for group B, worked.

If Social Security and Medicare were possible to have working, then we would never have the concept of a Ponzi scheme, because both of those are ponzi schemes.

In the end, my guess is that health care in the US will end up run by the government, and thus will end up declining in quality to meet the ability of the government to pay.

Social Security will equally need to be cut to the ability of the government to pay. The way they will do this, is by cutting the retirement age, meaning raise the retirement age to 75 or something.

Now there are a few alternatives that the nation could go down, that will be absolutely devastating.

One is a drastic increase in taxes, which will cause capital flight and economic decline. That would be much like what we saw in Greece.

The other option is that government just keeps spending, until they destroy themselves. Again, much like Greece.

Given the recent rise of incompetence, like AOC who is exceedingly popular, even after saying things as utterly mindless as she's going to "spend" the money from a tax cut on schools and health care.....

I see the Greece result as more and more a real possibility.

There is no way to "pay" for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. These programs, were never, and are not, sustainable. We have only been able to out-grow our spending thus far, but that can't continue forever.

You want 75 year-old truck drivers on the road? You want 75 year-old roofers working on your house? You want a 75 year-old nurse assisting your doctor?

You really have not thought this through, have you?

What I want, doesn't matter. What you want, doesn't matter either.

Facts don't care what either of us think. Math doesn't care what we want.

Do you want to be this guy in Greece, with no money, living in poverty, because the government simply does not have any money?

Because that's our future if we keep pushing Social Security. There is zero difference between how Social Security works, and how the Greek Pension system worked.

If you keep doing the same thing, you'll get the same result.

 

[kyzr]

The COVID-19 pandemic borrowing will make SS & Medicare less solvent.
Which party will raise taxes to save SS & Medicare for future generations?

The Future of America’s Entitlements: What You Need to Know About the Medicare and Social Security Trustees Reports - AAF

The Social Security and Medicare Trustees issued their annual reports detailing the financial state of America’s two largest entitlement programs.

www.americanactionforum.org

• Medicare’s Annual Cash Shortfall in 2019 was $396 billion;
• Payroll taxes would have to increase more than 15 percent to pay for Medicare Part A in 2019; and
• Over the next 75 years, Social Security will owe $16.8 trillion more than it is projected to take in.

You are implying that it is even possible to "pay for it".

With or without Covid-19, with or without the economic down turn, whether Democrats or Republicans are in office....

You can't pay for socialism. It never works. Never. Not one time in all human history, has taking from group A, to pay for group B, worked.

If Social Security and Medicare were possible to have working, then we would never have the concept of a Ponzi scheme, because both of those are ponzi schemes.

In the end, my guess is that health care in the US will end up run by the government, and thus will end up declining in quality to meet the ability of the government to pay.

Social Security will equally need to be cut to the ability of the government to pay. The way they will do this, is by cutting the retirement age, meaning raise the retirement age to 75 or something.

Now there are a few alternatives that the nation could go down, that will be absolutely devastating.

One is a drastic increase in taxes, which will cause capital flight and economic decline. That would be much like what we saw in Greece.

The other option is that government just keeps spending, until they destroy themselves. Again, much like Greece.

Given the recent rise of incompetence, like AOC who is exceedingly popular, even after saying things as utterly mindless as she's going to "spend" the money from a tax cut on schools and health care.....

I see the Greece result as more and more a real possibility.

There is no way to "pay" for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. These programs, were never, and are not, sustainable. We have only been able to out-grow our spending thus far, but that can't continue forever.

You want 75 year-old truck drivers on the road? You want 75 year-old roofers working on your house? You want a 75 year-old nurse assisting your doctor?

You really have not thought this through, have you?

Right now you can retire at 62 with full benefits at 67.
WTF is wrong with raising the 62 to 64 and 67 to 68 over 10-years?

You oversimplify as it depends on your age. My wife can retire at 66 and 1/2 but I have to wait until 67. If you retire at 62 and continue working, your SS gets reduced. There are also no medical benefits, so you better have some pre-paid or your SS will just about pay for your health insurance. Then what do you live on?

1. If you retire at 62 and continue working your SS does get reduced if you make more than $17,640:
"If you earn more than $17,640 (in 2019), Social Security will deduct $1 from your benefits for each $2 you earn over the threshold. In the year you reach full retirement age, you can earn up to $46,920 (in 2019) without having a reduction in benefits. "

2. I'm not sure why you say you "have to" to work to 67, unless you want to max out your monthly SS check?
Age 65 is all you need to work to get full Medicare coverage. But even with Medicare you still need to pay for a supplemental plan because of the "donut" hole.

3. At 62 if you have a good paying job, don't start collecting SS and there is no deduction to worry about. SS only starts when you tell it to start. I retired at 62 and paid for healthcare, but I also had a 401k/IRA to help pay bills.

1. That's $1500 per month, which is not much unless you are working part time.

2, Age 67 is the NORMAL retirement age for anyone older than me. I don't get this "max out" you are talking about since SS continue to go up the longer you do not enroll in it.

3. My SS benefit barely will cover my mortgage, meaning I will have to sell my home. My other savings were just about destroyed by COVID19.

1. It depends how much you earn a year from working. If its a part-time job at 62 you take the SS hit, if you have a good paying full-time job at 62 , then don't start SS until you retire.
2. OK, true, if you work until 70 you do get more a month. I misinterpreted "full retirement age".
3. Sorry to hear about the financial hit, but the stock market is coming back, and the mortgage rates are rock bottom in case refinancing makes sense? Current 15-year fixed is 2.955%

 

[bendog]

The point I tried to make is simply that imo most people taking benefits before full retirement age do so because they don't have a choice. They couldn't work and couldn't get disability, or disability didn't pay as much as they needed.

So while raising full retirement age might be necessary, I don't think we can really raise early retirement age

 

[kyzr]

The COVID-19 pandemic borrowing will make SS & Medicare less solvent.
Which party will raise taxes to save SS & Medicare for future generations?

The Future of America’s Entitlements: What You Need to Know About the Medicare and Social Security Trustees Reports - AAF

The Social Security and Medicare Trustees issued their annual reports detailing the financial state of America’s two largest entitlement programs.

www.americanactionforum.org

• Medicare’s Annual Cash Shortfall in 2019 was $396 billion;
• Payroll taxes would have to increase more than 15 percent to pay for Medicare Part A in 2019; and
• Over the next 75 years, Social Security will owe $16.8 trillion more than it is projected to take in.

You are implying that it is even possible to "pay for it".

With or without Covid-19, with or without the economic down turn, whether Democrats or Republicans are in office....

You can't pay for socialism. It never works. Never. Not one time in all human history, has taking from group A, to pay for group B, worked.

If Social Security and Medicare were possible to have working, then we would never have the concept of a Ponzi scheme, because both of those are ponzi schemes.

In the end, my guess is that health care in the US will end up run by the government, and thus will end up declining in quality to meet the ability of the government to pay.

Social Security will equally need to be cut to the ability of the government to pay. The way they will do this, is by cutting the retirement age, meaning raise the retirement age to 75 or something.

Now there are a few alternatives that the nation could go down, that will be absolutely devastating.

One is a drastic increase in taxes, which will cause capital flight and economic decline. That would be much like what we saw in Greece.

The other option is that government just keeps spending, until they destroy themselves. Again, much like Greece.

Given the recent rise of incompetence, like AOC who is exceedingly popular, even after saying things as utterly mindless as she's going to "spend" the money from a tax cut on schools and health care.....

I see the Greece result as more and more a real possibility.

There is no way to "pay" for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. These programs, were never, and are not, sustainable. We have only been able to out-grow our spending thus far, but that can't continue forever.

You want 75 year-old truck drivers on the road? You want 75 year-old roofers working on your house? You want a 75 year-old nurse assisting your doctor?

You really have not thought this through, have you?

What I want, doesn't matter. What you want, doesn't matter either.

Facts don't care what either of us think. Math doesn't care what we want.

Do you want to be this guy in Greece, with no money, living in poverty, because the government simply does not have any money?

Because that's our future if we keep pushing Social Security. There is zero difference between how Social Security works, and how the Greek Pension system worked.

If you keep doing the same thing, you'll get the same result.

You talk about math and don't provide any. Here are several real SS "fixes". Show me where they are wrong.
https://www.fool.com/retirement/2018/05/21/how-warren-buffett-thinks-we-should-fix-social-sec.aspx
https://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/planning-to-retire/2014/11/14/5-potential-social-security-fixes
https://www.aarp.org/work/social-security/info-05-2012/future-of-social-security-proposals.html

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

The point I tried to make is simply that imo most people taking benefits before full retirement age do so because they don't have a choice. They couldn't work and couldn't get disability, or disability didn't pay as much as they needed.

So while raising full retirement age might be necessary, I don't think we can really raise early retirement age

It all depends on how much you love working. I always hated working in my later years, and wanted to retire at 62. You only lose 25% of your max collection, and who knows if you'll even live that long to collect full benefits. You can still earn up to 17.5 K, so depending on your situation, it's better to take early retirement if you can get by on it.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

The point I tried to make is simply that imo most people taking benefits before full retirement age do so because they don't have a choice. They couldn't work and couldn't get disability, or disability didn't pay as much as they needed.

So while raising full retirement age might be necessary, I don't think we can really raise early retirement age

It all depends on how much you love working. I always hated working in my later years, and wanted to retire at 62. You only lose 25% of your max collection, and who knows if you'll even live that long to collect full benefits. You can still earn up to 17.5 K, so depending on your situation, it's better to take early retirement if you can get by on it.

What are you doing for medical?

 

[bendog]

The point I tried to make is simply that imo most people taking benefits before full retirement age do so because they don't have a choice. They couldn't work and couldn't get disability, or disability didn't pay as much as they needed.

So while raising full retirement age might be necessary, I don't think we can really raise early retirement age

It all depends on how much you love working. I always hated working in my later years, and wanted to retire at 62. You only lose 25% of your max collection, and who knows if you'll even live that long to collect full benefits. You can still earn up to 17.5 K, so depending on your situation, it's better to take early retirement if you can get by on it.

I'm not sure many of us "love" working. Most of us want to stay active. But imo its not at all uncommon, since the great recession and it will get worse now, that workers over the age of 60 are cast aside. Employers find they are not "essential" or employers find cheaper workers.

But you make a good point. If the goal is to preserve soc sec, maybe we should raise the full retirement age, and require some showing of loss of full time employment to get early benefits.

 

[bripat9643]

The COVID-19 pandemic borrowing will make SS & Medicare less solvent.
Which party will raise taxes to save SS & Medicare for future generations?

The Future of America’s Entitlements: What You Need to Know About the Medicare and Social Security Trustees Reports - AAF

The Social Security and Medicare Trustees issued their annual reports detailing the financial state of America’s two largest entitlement programs.

www.americanactionforum.org

• Medicare’s Annual Cash Shortfall in 2019 was $396 billion;
• Payroll taxes would have to increase more than 15 percent to pay for Medicare Part A in 2019; and
• Over the next 75 years, Social Security will owe $16.8 trillion more than it is projected to take in.

You are implying that it is even possible to "pay for it".

With or without Covid-19, with or without the economic down turn, whether Democrats or Republicans are in office....

You can't pay for socialism. It never works. Never. Not one time in all human history, has taking from group A, to pay for group B, worked.

If Social Security and Medicare were possible to have working, then we would never have the concept of a Ponzi scheme, because both of those are ponzi schemes.

In the end, my guess is that health care in the US will end up run by the government, and thus will end up declining in quality to meet the ability of the government to pay.

Social Security will equally need to be cut to the ability of the government to pay. The way they will do this, is by cutting the retirement age, meaning raise the retirement age to 75 or something.

Now there are a few alternatives that the nation could go down, that will be absolutely devastating.

One is a drastic increase in taxes, which will cause capital flight and economic decline. That would be much like what we saw in Greece.

The other option is that government just keeps spending, until they destroy themselves. Again, much like Greece.

Given the recent rise of incompetence, like AOC who is exceedingly popular, even after saying things as utterly mindless as she's going to "spend" the money from a tax cut on schools and health care.....

I see the Greece result as more and more a real possibility.

There is no way to "pay" for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. These programs, were never, and are not, sustainable. We have only been able to out-grow our spending thus far, but that can't continue forever.

You want 75 year-old truck drivers on the road? You want 75 year-old roofers working on your house? You want a 75 year-old nurse assisting your doctor?

You really have not thought this through, have you?

People are a lot healthier now at 75 then they were in the 1930s. I wouldn't have a problem with a 75 year old nurse or a 75 year old lawyer. However, people who do physical jobs may have to be given the option of retiring earlier. I used to hang drywall for a living, and those guys retire at age 45.

 

[bripat9643]

The COVID-19 pandemic borrowing will make SS & Medicare less solvent.
Which party will raise taxes to save SS & Medicare for future generations?

The Future of America’s Entitlements: What You Need to Know About the Medicare and Social Security Trustees Reports - AAF

The Social Security and Medicare Trustees issued their annual reports detailing the financial state of America’s two largest entitlement programs.

www.americanactionforum.org

• Medicare’s Annual Cash Shortfall in 2019 was $396 billion;
• Payroll taxes would have to increase more than 15 percent to pay for Medicare Part A in 2019; and
• Over the next 75 years, Social Security will owe $16.8 trillion more than it is projected to take in.

You are implying that it is even possible to "pay for it".

With or without Covid-19, with or without the economic down turn, whether Democrats or Republicans are in office....

You can't pay for socialism. It never works. Never. Not one time in all human history, has taking from group A, to pay for group B, worked.

If Social Security and Medicare were possible to have working, then we would never have the concept of a Ponzi scheme, because both of those are ponzi schemes.

In the end, my guess is that health care in the US will end up run by the government, and thus will end up declining in quality to meet the ability of the government to pay.

Social Security will equally need to be cut to the ability of the government to pay. The way they will do this, is by cutting the retirement age, meaning raise the retirement age to 75 or something.

Now there are a few alternatives that the nation could go down, that will be absolutely devastating.

One is a drastic increase in taxes, which will cause capital flight and economic decline. That would be much like what we saw in Greece.

The other option is that government just keeps spending, until they destroy themselves. Again, much like Greece.

Given the recent rise of incompetence, like AOC who is exceedingly popular, even after saying things as utterly mindless as she's going to "spend" the money from a tax cut on schools and health care.....

I see the Greece result as more and more a real possibility.

There is no way to "pay" for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. These programs, were never, and are not, sustainable. We have only been able to out-grow our spending thus far, but that can't continue forever.

You want 75 year-old truck drivers on the road? You want 75 year-old roofers working on your house? You want a 75 year-old nurse assisting your doctor?

You really have not thought this through, have you?

Right now you can retire at 62 with full benefits at 67.
WTF is wrong with raising the 62 to 64 and 67 to 68 over 10-years?

Doesn't SS use actuarial data based on avg life span to pretty much make your total payout even, no matter whether you "retire" at 62, 67 and 70?

Not to go offtopic, but currently if you retire at 62, Soc Sec reduces your benefit even further if you earn from employment some amount (I think it's 30K but the reduction in benefit increases the more you make. Although, at full retirement age, Soc Sec them basically starts increasing your monthly benefit to make up for the reduced benefits from the age you took early retirement benefits to full retirement age)

The reason I mention this is that it seems to me the only people taking it early are those with little choice because either they can't do their old job or their old job disappears. So, while maybe full retirement age can be raised from 67, I'm not sure we can raise the early retirement age option.

SS payouts are set by law. Bureacrats aren't allowed to adjust what you receive.

 

[Andylusion]

The COVID-19 pandemic borrowing will make SS & Medicare less solvent.
Which party will raise taxes to save SS & Medicare for future generations?

The Future of America’s Entitlements: What You Need to Know About the Medicare and Social Security Trustees Reports - AAF

The Social Security and Medicare Trustees issued their annual reports detailing the financial state of America’s two largest entitlement programs.

www.americanactionforum.org

• Medicare’s Annual Cash Shortfall in 2019 was $396 billion;
• Payroll taxes would have to increase more than 15 percent to pay for Medicare Part A in 2019; and
• Over the next 75 years, Social Security will owe $16.8 trillion more than it is projected to take in.

You are implying that it is even possible to "pay for it".

With or without Covid-19, with or without the economic down turn, whether Democrats or Republicans are in office....

You can't pay for socialism. It never works. Never. Not one time in all human history, has taking from group A, to pay for group B, worked.

If Social Security and Medicare were possible to have working, then we would never have the concept of a Ponzi scheme, because both of those are ponzi schemes.

In the end, my guess is that health care in the US will end up run by the government, and thus will end up declining in quality to meet the ability of the government to pay.

Social Security will equally need to be cut to the ability of the government to pay. The way they will do this, is by cutting the retirement age, meaning raise the retirement age to 75 or something.

Now there are a few alternatives that the nation could go down, that will be absolutely devastating.

One is a drastic increase in taxes, which will cause capital flight and economic decline. That would be much like what we saw in Greece.

The other option is that government just keeps spending, until they destroy themselves. Again, much like Greece.

Given the recent rise of incompetence, like AOC who is exceedingly popular, even after saying things as utterly mindless as she's going to "spend" the money from a tax cut on schools and health care.....

I see the Greece result as more and more a real possibility.

There is no way to "pay" for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. These programs, were never, and are not, sustainable. We have only been able to out-grow our spending thus far, but that can't continue forever.

You want 75 year-old truck drivers on the road? You want 75 year-old roofers working on your house? You want a 75 year-old nurse assisting your doctor?

You really have not thought this through, have you?

What I want, doesn't matter. What you want, doesn't matter either.

Facts don't care what either of us think. Math doesn't care what we want.

Do you want to be this guy in Greece, with no money, living in poverty, because the government simply does not have any money?

Because that's our future if we keep pushing Social Security. There is zero difference between how Social Security works, and how the Greek Pension system worked.

If you keep doing the same thing, you'll get the same result.

You talk about math and don't provide any. Here are several real SS "fixes". Show me where they are wrong.
https://www.fool.com/retirement/2018/05/21/how-warren-buffett-thinks-we-should-fix-social-sec.aspx
https://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/planning-to-retire/2014/11/14/5-potential-social-security-fixes
https://www.aarp.org/work/social-security/info-05-2012/future-of-social-security-proposals.html

So let's use your links for example.

Finally, gradually raising the full retirement age to 68 would take care of 16% of the funding gap.

Right, I said openly that we would have to raise the retirement age.

Raising the Social Security payroll tax rate from 6.2% to 7.2% over a 20-year period would generate 52% of the shortfall.

Again, Germany has an 18% pension tax, and they are saying they need to increase it. So if 18% now in Germany isn't enough, why do you think 7.2% would be enough?

Eliminating the taxable earnings cap over a 10-year period would fix 74% of the long-term financing gap all by itself.

No, I don't think so. All you have to do is look at the 1970s. In the 1970s, we have a 70% rate on the top marginal income tax rates.

Did we have endless amounts of money for everything we wanted? Or did we have deficits? We had deficits. So if 70% tax rates didn't fix anything the 1970s, would would this fix social security?

Again.... if any of those proposals could work.... why hasn't any country anywhere in the world today, done all those things and had it work?

All those things can help.... Sure you delay the crash with all those things. Certainly. But it does not fix anything. We know that because as I said, Germany has a much higher pension tax, and they still need to raise the tax rate. Germany has a lower pension payout, and they still need more taxes.

You can't show me a single country, that doesn't have a pension crisis, unless they don't have a pension system.

For example, Singapore does not have a pension crisis. And the reason why is very simple. Singapore has a private system. People pay into a private account, that is invested in their own assets, that they own in their private account.

It's impossible to have a crisis, because people get out of their retirement account, what they paid into their retirement account.

That's also pretty good, because the government can't take it away by arbitrarily increasing the retirement age, thus denying you the money you paid into retirement.

Now I will say that Means-testing could in theory work.

But you'll never get that passed. Guaranteed. Because the moment you pass means testing, you blow apart the entire mythology that Social Security is a retirement system you pay-in and pay-out of.

The moment you tell people "Yes you paid into Social Security your entire life, but you have too much wealth, so you don't get anything from it".... you will have massive revolt across the country. No politician of either party will survive trying to implement means testing.

 

[bripat9643]

The COVID-19 pandemic borrowing will make SS & Medicare less solvent.
Which party will raise taxes to save SS & Medicare for future generations?

The Future of America’s Entitlements: What You Need to Know About the Medicare and Social Security Trustees Reports - AAF

The Social Security and Medicare Trustees issued their annual reports detailing the financial state of America’s two largest entitlement programs.

www.americanactionforum.org

• Medicare’s Annual Cash Shortfall in 2019 was $396 billion;
• Payroll taxes would have to increase more than 15 percent to pay for Medicare Part A in 2019; and
• Over the next 75 years, Social Security will owe $16.8 trillion more than it is projected to take in.

Neither one, dumass. Political parties don't pay taxes.

WTF are you hallucinating about? Who writes the tax laws?
Who wrote the last tax cuts that aren't working no matter what Manuchin says?

So what you really meant to say is that Dims will raise all our taxes.

We already knew that, dumbass.

What they will do is raise taxes on the wealthy, and perhaps tobacco users; two groups that cannot protect themselves via vote.

The wealthy have gotten themselves many tax cuts. They can buy politicians.

Given the fact they pay most of the federal income tax for the rest of us, who would you suggest get a tax break?

Someone needs to pay the bills, might should be the folks with all the money.

View attachment 329424

That is literally the moral code of a thug:

Your proposed cuts added together are about $400b. So you're about $600b short of a Balanced Budget.
Someone needs to pay the fucking bills. Who should that be?
A VAT is paid by everyone, as an example.

A VAT is a hidden tax, which is precisely thugs such as you like it.

I'm fine having the tax shown on the receipt. Call it a VAT, a sales tax, or a consumption tax. We need to raise revenue.

That's about as regressive a tax as you can get.

What tax is regressive? The income tax is not.
The Fed sales tax is fair.
Everyone needs to pay some tax to get out of the hole.

A value added tax is as regressive as you can get, The largest burden would be paid by the lower incomes, exactly the opposite of what you proposed. You need to work on your plan. It sucks so badly even you don't understand it.

WTF is wrong with sales tax? Its very simple.
I dumped the VAT because its hidden and no one knows how much tax is paid by whom.
You ok with a Fed sales tax?

Read up on the FAIR tax. It's a sales tax that resolves the issue of progressivisity.

The Fair Tax is is regressive as it gets. I suggest you learn the difference between "regressive" and "fair".

No, it isn't regressive at all. You obviously don't know a thing about it.

 

[bendog]

The COVID-19 pandemic borrowing will make SS & Medicare less solvent.
Which party will raise taxes to save SS & Medicare for future generations?

The Future of America’s Entitlements: What You Need to Know About the Medicare and Social Security Trustees Reports - AAF

The Social Security and Medicare Trustees issued their annual reports detailing the financial state of America’s two largest entitlement programs.

www.americanactionforum.org

• Medicare’s Annual Cash Shortfall in 2019 was $396 billion;
• Payroll taxes would have to increase more than 15 percent to pay for Medicare Part A in 2019; and
• Over the next 75 years, Social Security will owe $16.8 trillion more than it is projected to take in.

You are implying that it is even possible to "pay for it".

With or without Covid-19, with or without the economic down turn, whether Democrats or Republicans are in office....

You can't pay for socialism. It never works. Never. Not one time in all human history, has taking from group A, to pay for group B, worked.

If Social Security and Medicare were possible to have working, then we would never have the concept of a Ponzi scheme, because both of those are ponzi schemes.

In the end, my guess is that health care in the US will end up run by the government, and thus will end up declining in quality to meet the ability of the government to pay.

Social Security will equally need to be cut to the ability of the government to pay. The way they will do this, is by cutting the retirement age, meaning raise the retirement age to 75 or something.

Now there are a few alternatives that the nation could go down, that will be absolutely devastating.

One is a drastic increase in taxes, which will cause capital flight and economic decline. That would be much like what we saw in Greece.

The other option is that government just keeps spending, until they destroy themselves. Again, much like Greece.

Given the recent rise of incompetence, like AOC who is exceedingly popular, even after saying things as utterly mindless as she's going to "spend" the money from a tax cut on schools and health care.....

I see the Greece result as more and more a real possibility.

There is no way to "pay" for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. These programs, were never, and are not, sustainable. We have only been able to out-grow our spending thus far, but that can't continue forever.

You want 75 year-old truck drivers on the road? You want 75 year-old roofers working on your house? You want a 75 year-old nurse assisting your doctor?

You really have not thought this through, have you?

What I want, doesn't matter. What you want, doesn't matter either.

Facts don't care what either of us think. Math doesn't care what we want.

Do you want to be this guy in Greece, with no money, living in poverty, because the government simply does not have any money?

Because that's our future if we keep pushing Social Security. There is zero difference between how Social Security works, and how the Greek Pension system worked.

If you keep doing the same thing, you'll get the same result.

You talk about math and don't provide any. Here are several real SS "fixes". Show me where they are wrong.
https://www.fool.com/retirement/2018/05/21/how-warren-buffett-thinks-we-should-fix-social-sec.aspx
https://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/planning-to-retire/2014/11/14/5-potential-social-security-fixes
https://www.aarp.org/work/social-security/info-05-2012/future-of-social-security-proposals.html

So let's use your links for example.

Finally, gradually raising the full retirement age to 68 would take care of 16% of the funding gap.

Right, I said openly that we would have to raise the retirement age.

Raising the Social Security payroll tax rate from 6.2% to 7.2% over a 20-year period would generate 52% of the shortfall.

Again, Germany has an 18% pension tax, and they are saying they need to increase it. So if 18% now in Germany isn't enough, why do you think 7.2% would be enough?

Eliminating the taxable earnings cap over a 10-year period would fix 74% of the long-term financing gap all by itself.

No, I don't think so. All you have to do is look at the 1970s. In the 1970s, we have a 70% rate on the top marginal income tax rates.

Did we have endless amounts of money for everything we wanted? Or did we have deficits? We had deficits. So if 70% tax rates didn't fix anything the 1970s, would would this fix social security?

Again.... if any of those proposals could work.... why hasn't any country anywhere in the world today, done all those things and had it work?

All those things can help.... Sure you delay the crash with all those things. Certainly. But it does not fix anything. We know that because as I said, Germany has a much higher pension tax, and they still need to raise the tax rate. Germany has a lower pension payout, and they still need more taxes.

You can't show me a single country, that doesn't have a pension crisis, unless they don't have a pension system.

For example, Singapore does not have a pension crisis. And the reason why is very simple. Singapore has a private system. People pay into a private account, that is invested in their own assets, that they own in their private account.

It's impossible to have a crisis, because people get out of their retirement account, what they paid into their retirement account.

That's also pretty good, because the government can't take it away by arbitrarily increasing the retirement age, thus denying you the money you paid into retirement.

Now I will say that Means-testing could in theory work.

But you'll never get that passed. Guaranteed. Because the moment you pass means testing, you blow apart the entire mythology that Social Security is a retirement system you pay-in and pay-out of.

The moment you tell people "Yes you paid into Social Security your entire life, but you have too much wealth, so you don't get anything from it".... you will have massive revolt across the country. No politician of either party will survive trying to implement means testing.

No, the problem with "means testing" is that it makes Soc Sec a program that we're not all in the same boat. If we means tested only a maximum of 10% or so of us would lose the benefit. In theory, that should be popular. But it isn't. Americans generally don't want to cut the heads off the rich. One of the reasons I'm glad to be American.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

The COVID-19 pandemic borrowing will make SS & Medicare less solvent.
Which party will raise taxes to save SS & Medicare for future generations?

The Future of America’s Entitlements: What You Need to Know About the Medicare and Social Security Trustees Reports - AAF

The Social Security and Medicare Trustees issued their annual reports detailing the financial state of America’s two largest entitlement programs.

www.americanactionforum.org

• Medicare’s Annual Cash Shortfall in 2019 was $396 billion;
• Payroll taxes would have to increase more than 15 percent to pay for Medicare Part A in 2019; and
• Over the next 75 years, Social Security will owe $16.8 trillion more than it is projected to take in.

Neither one, dumass. Political parties don't pay taxes.

WTF are you hallucinating about? Who writes the tax laws?
Who wrote the last tax cuts that aren't working no matter what Manuchin says?

So what you really meant to say is that Dims will raise all our taxes.

We already knew that, dumbass.

What they will do is raise taxes on the wealthy, and perhaps tobacco users; two groups that cannot protect themselves via vote.

The wealthy have gotten themselves many tax cuts. They can buy politicians.

Given the fact they pay most of the federal income tax for the rest of us, who would you suggest get a tax break?

Someone needs to pay the bills, might should be the folks with all the money.

View attachment 329424

That is literally the moral code of a thug:

Your proposed cuts added together are about $400b. So you're about $600b short of a Balanced Budget.
Someone needs to pay the fucking bills. Who should that be?
A VAT is paid by everyone, as an example.

A VAT is a hidden tax, which is precisely thugs such as you like it.

I'm fine having the tax shown on the receipt. Call it a VAT, a sales tax, or a consumption tax. We need to raise revenue.

That's about as regressive a tax as you can get.

What tax is regressive? The income tax is not.
The Fed sales tax is fair.
Everyone needs to pay some tax to get out of the hole.

A value added tax is as regressive as you can get, The largest burden would be paid by the lower incomes, exactly the opposite of what you proposed. You need to work on your plan. It sucks so badly even you don't understand it.

WTF is wrong with sales tax? Its very simple.
I dumped the VAT because its hidden and no one knows how much tax is paid by whom.
You ok with a Fed sales tax?

Read up on the FAIR tax. It's a sales tax that resolves the issue of progressivisity.

The Fair Tax is is regressive as it gets. I suggest you learn the difference between "regressive" and "fair".

No, it isn't regressive at all. You obviously don't know a thing about it.

You don't know what regressive means of you would not be claiming it is not. Is it regressive or progressive? Tell us, since you seem to know.