Occupy Democrats came up with a perfect response to Yertle's BS about Soc. Sec.

[dixiegrrrrl]

[dhill926]

1. K & R...

brutal....and true...

[erlewyne]

24. Mitch is right.

To him the national debt is a good thing. It is part of
the GOP platform. Medicare and Social Security work.
He wants that money! Get rid of them.

[Akamai]

51. Also, the Republicans want to poison any cooperation they can't

control and take a profit from.

[raging moderate]

2. I suspect Republicons plan to convert FICA to a plain tax on lower-income workers.

After all, "payroll taxes" sound so innocent. It's just another "payroll tax," don't worry your pretty little heads about how we all-wise Overlords spend the money.

[hill2016]

3. well they are actually the dumb ones

The Social Security trust fund runs out in 2035. Medicare is in even worse shape.

What happens when FICA deductions are unable to cover the Medicare and Social Security benefits?

[raging moderate]

4. Scrap the cap.

I speak as somebody who does not draw any Social Security benefits, despite having paid a lot of money into it.

[Wellstone ruled]

6. Bingo!!!!

[hill2016]

7. well

the statement claims that these are "100% funded by FICA". Not true. They are massively underfunded.

[wolfie001]

12. Social Security does NOT run out in 2035!!! Get your basic facts straight.

After all, aren't we Democrats? It can still pay 75% of the benefit at that time ad infinitum. Remove the cap on the high incomes and that will solve the balance. Poor rich people will have to contribute. Boo fucking hoo.

[freebrew]

13. Even better...

how about the government return the monies it stole(borrowed) from the system, with interest?

[wolfie001]

14. Yes freebrew!!!

Remember the Lock Box!!! Stupid george W. blew that to smithereens!! Asshole!!

[tecelote]

16. Absolutely.

Thanks for correcting the record!

[liberal from boston]

64. Senator Sanders

Thank you freebrew. Social Security is not part of the budget. Suggest you watch online amazing PBS "The Roosevelts" where FDR states he did not want Congress to ever get their hands on SS Fund. Reagan was told by Greenspan that he could transfer funds from SS Trust Fund to ths General Fund.

[freebrew]

66. I used to know the history better...

there are many that know more than me. I do remember the fight put up.
MANY Dems voted to misappropriate SS funds. I believe it was the 60s(?) maybe the 80s, maybe both...
Dems held both houses and yet this anti-democratic move was made with their help.

Taking monies from SS directly because there was SO MUCH $$ TO BE HAD.
The Rs bamboozled the system somehow getting this shit through.
As usual, the Dems had enough turncoats.

A little OT, why am I paying Medicare premiums when I paid for it all my working life?

Just askin'.

[deist99]

52. Agree

But not only remove the cap but also put a cap on maximum amount of benefits allowed. I would also have a minimum amount, my grandmother was living off of a paltry $780 in the early 2000. I would set the minimum amount at $1200 dollars a month and the max at three times that.
As far as Medicare goes I would propose a Medicare tariff on all imported goods to make up that diffierence.

[wolfie001]

62. Makes perfect sense to me!

[ChaunceyGardenier]

65. Agreed!

[alarimer]

58. Her candidate has expressed support for benefit cuts.

Raising the age at which you can draw SS IS a benefit cut. So I'm not surprised that the poster expressed the Grand Bargain (Catfood Commission) talking points.

Mark my words, the Republicans will fail to cut SS and Medicare (because they promise a lot but never deliver) but the Democrats WILL, because they (including Hillary) pretend to be progressive to get elected, then govern like old-school Republicans.

The only thing wrong with SS is the cap. Raise that and you will have eliminated most of the issues around it. Medicare requires more, but, since every retiree uses it, regardless of income, perhaps instead of a straight 1% payroll tax, it should be a progressive rate. I don't know.

But these are only problems because we refuse to spend the money to fix it and we spend far, far too much on the military.

[Skittles]

33. oh look, more rightwing bullshit

[Scuba]

40. Right-wing bullshit from a fan of the right wing of the Democratic Party.

[OwlinAZ]

54. Are we used to it yet?

[Scuba]

63. The proper response is "thank you sir (or maam), may I have another."

[Skittles]

67. I am SICK of these fucking trolls

I come here to GET AWAY from right wing bullshit

[Zen Democrat]

53. No, the government stole from Peter to pay Paul. FICA programs are Peter.

[dixiegrrrrl]

15. The trust fund is out, and has been Because

the Gov't spent it, even tho they were not supposed to count it as part of the budget.
They they put IOUs in the fund, in the form of Treasury notes...

the reason they do not want to have Soc. Sec. anymore is they want to spend billions on weapons, not people.

there IS enough money in the coffers.
The issue is, who gets it?

[lastlib]

28. In Vietnam....

we "had to destroy the village in order to save it." Now, the GOP wants to SAVE Social Security in order to DESTROY it.

The people who want to privatize Social Security are mainly the Wall Street vultures who want to get their grubby hands on the money, and the GOP does their bidding. Imagine if we had followed their plan under GWB before 2008--what would've happened to all of our retirement plans in the Bush crash? Many of us never would recover from that, but the Wall Street vultures would've walked out happy with their fortune in fees for taking our retirement $$ for a ride in the toilet.

[drray23]

26. I will be happy to keep paying.

I am fortunate enough to make more than the cap. so I pay zero above that. if the cap is lifted it will solve that issue and people like me or richer won't even notice the slight difference.

[TheBlackAdder]

27. Same here. While I'll notice it, I have no problem doing my fair share. Just don't piss it on MIC.

[Skittles]

34. maybe you could pony up a DU donation

[drray23]

61. i do. i donate every month to DU.nt.

[raging moderate]

49. Bless your heart forever!

People like you are part of the solution.

[KPN]

59. Yay! It's good to know that not all Hillary supporters are DINOs.

[progree]

39. The Medicare FICA deductions fund only Part A - Hospital Insurance

Medicare Part B and Part D are funded 25% by premiums and copays, and 75% by general revenues.

[KPN]

60. Which is why we need single payer. It's all do-able.

Nothing radical about this.

[Silver_Witch]

42. Republican talking points from a DU member??

What happened to Democrats.

[OwlinAZ]

55. Don't ask. It is forbidden to speak of it.

[RKP5637]

5. Excellent!!! And vote the Turtle out of office! n/t

[FailureToCommunicate]

8. Which is it Mitch? Imma-gonna-say... LYING

:small

[felix_numinous]

9. The Panama Papers

ended that excuse forever, that there are not enough funds.

Money never disappears--it only changes hands.

[ReRe]

35. That's right...

... the money didn't disappear into thin air.

[libodem]

10. Word!

[Downwinder]

11. How would Kentucky's economy do with a loss of

$71,693,353,000 per month?

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/oasdi_zip/2014/ky.html

[yellowdogintexas]

56. that is the national total. KY is 1,081,642 per month

the line quoted in you post is all areas of the US. Kentucky totals are right below that. 1,081,642 per month.

Which makes more sense, considering the relatively small population of KY

[Downwinder]

57. Thanks for the correction.

I have trouble with those big numbers.
Total monthly benefits (thousands of dollars)

$1,081,642,000 per month

[pansypoo53219]

17. this was reagan era/greenspan FUCKUP to 'fix' the baby boomer bust for SS.

greenspan fucked up tho w/ the lowass cap. no INDEXING of the cap.we need to LIFT the cap or raise it. greenspud left a time bomb.

[whathehell]

46. Workers had their SS contribution were raised after that..

I'm not sure that the cap was lower before that...It may ha e been, I don't know..I do know that we, those making under $100+, were paying more out of their paychecks.

[Poincare]

18. Raise the minimum wage to 15 dollars

Would double the amount of FICA taxes collected at the low end of the wage scale. That should add 10 to 15 years of solvency. But, most of these projections are relying on static conditions( inflation, median wage,..) and anything that delivers a result beyond 5 years is just a guess. Unless we create a paper bank, who employs all senior citizens, then Congress will find the money quick.

[-none]

47. Get our Living Wage Jobs back into this country.

That is the real reason there is a problem with Social Security. Too many of our Living Wage Jobs have left the country.

[Equinox Moon]

19. "The NSA...........the only part of government that actually listens."

You nailed it!

[George Eliot]

20. By borrowing from SS, they've made it part of debt.

You are right, of course. It should not be part of the debt. Same is true of how pensions were included in business assets and then zeroed out in bankruptcy. Pensions were fully paid and never considered assets of corporations until simple little laws were changed. How convenient. Just move money from one account to another. And whamo, it becomes an asset for the rich. The thing about McConnell is he obstructs everything for the rest of us that he gets for Kentucky. I read a lengthy article on him and he brings home the bacon including health care for his own which keeps him in office. But he denies same for the rest of us.

it is our lawmakers that makes this corruption possible.

[dixiegrrrrl]

25. What you call borrowing, I call stealing.

And I am sure you also noticed that after they made it mandatory for employees to contribute to pension funds, and illegal to get ahold of the money for years,
that suddenly we had a giant crash of the banks holding the money, just as the us boomers were getting ready to cash it out for our retirement.

Now there is talk of the Gov. creating another fun retirement plan for workers.

[George Eliot]

68. There's so much about the timing of all this . . . conspiracy?

I'm not a conspiracy nut but on the other hand, timing is all. And the timing sure did benefit all those financial institutions. And yet all those people who owned that money are left helpless and we're voting back in all the same people who did it to us the first time. How do you explain that?

[wordpix]

45. That's what repukes do, shell game economics

I'm incolved in local politics in a red town in a blue state. Never ceases to amaze me how many shell games go on.

[George Eliot]

69. Don't you think this started with the DLC? Rubin was Clinton's guy. Or

Or was Clinton Rubin's guy? We have one party now with two labels. That's the problem.

[PoliticAverse]

21. Medicare is not 100% funded by FICA taxes. n/t

[Silver_Witch]

43. Really? Educate us!

[PoliticAverse]

44. Approximately 41% of total Medicare spending comes from general revenue...

38% from FICA...

From: http://kff.org/medicare/fact-sheet/medicare-spending-and-financing-fact-sheet/

[turbinetree]

22. He supports a racist and a bigot, fraud and on top of that a white nationalist--------------

so when you present him with "stuff" and a set of questions, he blames the working class stiffs in this country who are trying to have a job, get a job, to pay for there later years, thanks from those like Francis Perkins, and hoping that there social retirement isn't given to the same hucksters on Wall Street who want to make a buck off my social security and keeping you in power.

We are not into scams there Mitchie turtle lips, we do know how to add 1+1 = 2 and not 2+2=5, or is this beyond your right wing comprehension, its not past ours, we took the civic class.

Honk------------------for a political revolution

[malaise]

23. Great post

Rec

[Marie Marie]

29. Yertle's response:

He slowly pulls his head back into his shell and hides.

[Jopin Klobe]

30. Thank you, thank you, thank you ...

... this has been stated weakly over the years ...

... it needs to be shouted over and over and over and over again ...

... "Entitlements* have nothing to do with the national debt!" ...

... now, tend to your wife's father's Asian shipping company's interests in regard to the stinking TPP, TIPP, TPTPTPT, whatever ...


*and, Yes, we're freaking ENTITLED to this money, you God damned tax evaders ...

[ReRe]

36. You know what I think of when I hear "entitlements?"

I think of all the Corporate Welfare that's handed out on an annual basis to American Corporations. All the loopholes that have been created and sneaked into the back of innocent-sounding Bills by the Corporation's Congressional crony pals.

[midnight]

31. I just can't believe that lie is still being told…

[Nye Bevan]

32. They have plenty to do with the national debt.

Because all of the excess of the FICA taxes over the amount spent on the programs over the years has been spent by the government on other stuff. The "trust fund" is an accounting fiction; there is no real money in the "trust fund" and economically, the situation is exactly the same as if they were funded as part of the general budget.

[mikehiggins]

37. I guess it is how you look at things. There are no "excess" FICA taxes.

There may be more taken in than is needed in any particular year but all of that money is collected and intended for use in the future years when the number of retired Americans goes up. That was the rationale for increasing the tax years ago, not to generate money to pay for wars that were never declared, and so forth.

I remember when the media and "learned" spokespeople mocked Al Gore over the concept of a locked box for FICA receipts. Instead the government was able to issue "bonds" for the money they used, the same bonds they now want to renege on because paying them back would increase the debt.

[Cordy]

38. It boils down to trust

It seems to me the people we can't trust with our SS, are the people who have it. So the first thing to be done is get it out of their hands some how. Maybe an Amendment to the Bill of Rights, thou shall not tamper with SS funding, or spend eternity in Prison.

[Arizona Roadrunner]

41. Social Security, a 20% problem

Social Security is an insurance program. You don't ask how much you earn in order to determine if you collect on an insurance claim. Also, even if the trust fund is or goes broke, people will get 75% to 80% of their benefits due to people paying in each year. All you have to do is remove or adjust the cap subject to FICA higher to make up for the 20% problem. Therefore, anytime people are saying Social Security will go broke, they are either uninformed, ill-informed, or a propagandist for some cause.

[-none]

48. A more viable and permanent solution is to get our Living Wage Jobs back into this country.

That is the real problem in the first place. Raising the cap without getting our Living Wage manufacturing jobs back into this country is only diddling with the symptoms.

[avaistheone1]

50. K&R