Re: Social Security and the right wing

[JPK]

Just what is it that the republicans don't like about Social Security? If we're paying for it, what's the big deal? I've been thinking about it a little and just can't see why they hate it so much. Since it's supposed to be in a separate account from the general revenue, what is their problem with it? I know the fund has been compromised and used to fund the government but if was left alone and just used as it was setup and intended to, what would be the problem with having it?

[Skink]

1. FDR. The greatest leader in our short republic.

This is where the Bush family comes in. Forget the Neocons the Bush's always hated FDR and what is right.

[PDJane]

2. dunno.........

I think it has to do with the fact that it's an "entitlement" programme that takes care of those least able to take care of themselves. That seems to be anathema to these people, who are fanatics about the self-sufficiency thing......well, as long as it's someone else's self-sufficiency and they hold the hereditary wealth.

[papau]

3. They want it seen as a welfare benefit - not a result of social insurance

that was paid for through taxes.

Indeed they are in favor of the a flat tax like the payroll tax that skips investment income and has a wage cap - but only as the only tax paid on income.

"Greed is good" as taught/endorsed/made possible by Reagan really works for the rich.

[Wapsie B]

4. I think the righties want the money taken out of the control

of Social Security and given to the bankers to oversee. This desire for private investment account is nothing more than a move to enrich the money changers who are approved to handle this $$$. And suprise suprise those who would be able to control that $$ just happen to be bush cronies.

[BlueJazz]

5. I had my Father (who was a Psychiatrist) told me once that Republicans...

..have an intense desire to have many others "Under Them" ..Classwise.
When you enabled Millions of people to be self-supporting individuals...The Repugs don't get to feel as Superior.

What a Pack of Sick Fucks...

[peacetalksforall]

6. Privatization. Give the money to corporate friends. Like Ken Lay.

They only want the money in their hands and the hands of their friends. They don't want a congress or judges or juries in any of the courts to tell them what they can and cannot do.

They want to privatize water. They want to privatize roads. They have nearly finished privatizing parks and national lands.

AND THEY PRIVIATIZED OUR VOTE - Republicans own the hardware, software, technicians, netowrks who pay for polling, own the data, and interprest it any way they want.

Read a paragraph or two about privatizing water in Bolivia and the people's fight with U.S. corporations = Bechtel, in particular. It already involves dead bodies.

Slavery or serfdom is coming if these people survive.

Part of the reason for taking Iraq and the pending takeover of Iran and Syria is to run water pipelines all the way from Pakistan Afghanistan to the Mediterranean, thus protecting Israel in still another way

So far, the public has seen the light on Social Security. Most don't have a clue about the water. The corporations already have us BUYING drinking and cooking water.

[TheFarseer]

7. Two reasons, I think

Employers kick in half the social security tax, which means less money for corporate bottom lines.

Second, forcing employees to invest in company stock (which was done at Enron, Worldcom, I'm sure other companies) and ending up with Ken Lay types running off with their money is good, but if we could make EVERYONE invest in the stock market, and then watch the Ken Lays of the world run off with EVERYONE'S money when the market crashes, that would be even better!

[stevebreeze]

8. Ok lets take one of the republicans favorite tax lines and apply it.

They are fond of saying that the more we tax something the less we get of it. So maybe they fell that SS is taxing youth to pay for the aged. If we refrain from taxing the young they will age slower. See it's not such a bad idea if you divorce yourself from reality! One pulse one is three, war is peace, and lower taxes on the wealthy are good for all of us, it really isn't hard if have had a lobotomy.

[Hidden Stillness]

9. But Those Would Be "The Little People..."

It means, at its most basic, that government works for the little people--the servants, the maids, the people who shine your shoes and clean the toilets--and that it addresses their concerns, as if they have a right. People that the Bushs could buy and sell a million times have now become their equals (choke), and are actually operating something--the Federal Government, for example--never having asked the rich people's permission, and not having to "render unto Caesar" first. It is annoying to these people that those they considered their social "inferiors" are getting their way, and winning--anything.

The other part, I think, is their basic opinion that nothing should ever go directly to the people, but should all be given to rich people, to control. Give to corporations, etc., and they will "manage" it as they wish, ("trickle down," and other lies). Despite the fact that even GAO studies prove that the most efficient and effective way of alleviating poverty, helping people, and stimulating the economy, is to give direct cash payments to poor and middle class people, they do not want those groups addressed by the operations of government--ever. They want "vouchers," and "tax credits" and "subsidies," etc., all to corporations, however worthless and ineffective those things are. They want a global capitalism, and we the peons are to be total non-persons under all conditions, never referred to. It violates their philosophy that there is something other than themselves.

[Yupster]

10. Here are all the complaints that I've heard

that I cn think of right now.

1. It's actuarily unsound. Since people will continue to live longer and longer, the program will demand constantly increasing taxes just as it has done over its whole history. What started out as a maximum rate of 2 % has now grown to almost 13 % and it's still out of whack.

2. It's a welfare program. The poorest workers get their whole tax back as the eraned Income Tax Credit, and yet since the bendpoint formula is so incredibly progressive, they end up paying the least and getting proportionatly the most. And then mine gets taxed and their's doesn't.

3. The benefit is puny for the tax I pay. Just give me my own 12.8 % and let me invest it myself and I'll do way better than the puny $ 1,400 a month I'm being promised which will probably be means tested down to $ 700 by the time I retire.

4. The money is being spent as fast as it's coming into Washington and isn't being saved for my retirement like they promised it would be.

Those are the complaints I've heard.

In the end though, regardless of what you thin, social security is necessary. You're going to have to do something for the retired poor whether you call it social security or something else.

Edit to add another -- it's just a way for old people, who have all the money already to take even more from the young who already have the least.

[kineneb]

11. but the cons don't care about the poor or the old

they are like Scrooge (how appropriate, given that the holiday season approaches). They see us as merely cogs in the machinery of business, to be used up and thrown away to die. They truly have no heart or humanity. It is all about money.

Their thinking:
If granny freezes to death because she couldn't afford the heating bill, well, too bad. She didn't save up money when she was younger, so it is her fault. Never mind she was raising children or working at a minimum wage job her whole life. She just should have been more frugal and saved for her old age. It is not the responsibility of those who "earned" and saved their money to bail out the less-responsible. And heaven forfend, tax money should never be used to help those losers.

[papau]

14. For the record answers to those Bullsh-t lies about Social Security

1. It's actuarially unsound. Since people will continue to live longer and longer, the program will demand constantly increasing taxes just as it has done over its whole history. What started out as a maximum rate of 2 % has now grown to almost 13 % and it's still out of whack.

The actuaries Report is part of the report presented by the Trustees every year - and while people living longer is indeed a fact, the economics of the system are not greatly affected by this. Reagan increased the "normal" retirement age (meaning retiring after age 62 but before normal retirement age causes a reduction in benefit) from 65 to 67, and we will need to increase the "normal" retirement age to 70 by the year 2050 if we really do get healthy. More likely is that the percentage reduction in the death rates for each attained age from current levels will mean at most an increase to 68 by 2050.




2. It's a welfare program. The poorest workers get their whole tax back as the earned Income Tax Credit, and yet since the bend point formula is so incredibly progressive, they end up paying the least and getting proportionately the most. And then mine gets taxed and their's doesn't.

Anything that does not screw the poor is a welfare program - the Romans went to a simple tax on wealth to fund the government - perhaps that would kill the welfare program noise. In any case while the earned income credit is great, it is only a very small portion of the actual Payroll tax paid by the poor. And indeed the top end 15% bend point (15% of the top end dollars are added to the benefit formula for life annuity calculation) does indeed hit the rich with a smaller return than purchasing an annuity would provide, it is the subsidy that gets the very, very, poor's benefit up to a level well below the poverty level. Can we say the rich are cheap and mean spirited and they pretend that something that was meant for them actually hits the vast middle class in some large manner. Remove the wage cap and all is fine. As is, the rate of return on monies put in as tax - an invalid measure for a social insurance system - is low but above zero for the middle class.


3. The benefit is puny for the tax I pay. Just give me my own 12.8 % and let me invest it myself and I'll do way better than the puny $ 1,400 a month I'm being promised which will probably be means tested down to $ 700 by the time I retire.

The large returns from 1928 to 1972 - and briefly again in the 90's, are no longer occurring and the stats indicated that they will not return. Using likely returns, the self invested do only a little better if they are middle class, the rich are not meant to do well as they subsidize the poor, and the poor do very well. In a invest by myself system winners are happy but the 20% that lose will include those left with nothing - and as Great Britain has found out post the Thatcher experiment, unless you like seeing folks dying in the street, you end up with another welfare program (perhaps the rich like the poorhouse or workhouse concept?).

4. The money is being spent as fast as it's coming into Washington and isn't being saved for my retirement like they promised it would be.

The tax increase to finance the government is indeed postponed via the current system, as the Trust Funds finance the deficit. But the Bush folks have shown they will borrow a trillion from Red China, making those foreign policy/trade decisions oh so hard politically, and not worry about the effects.

The money coming in for the Trust should be invested in non-government bonds - but that is no reason to kill the system.

[Nederland]

12. Cash flow

The reason they don't like it is because there is virtually no link between how much you pay in and how much you get. For example if you are currently receiving SS chances are very good that you will take out a lot more than you put in--even taking inflation into account. However if you are in your thirties right now (and middle class), there is no way you will ever get back what you have to pay in over your lifetime.

The reason is simple demographics and the nature of a pay as you go system. If you are lucky enough to be born into a large generation like the baby boomer's, you don't have pay as much to support the retirees that exist while you are working. I suppose that many people think that having your cost to benefit ratio hinge on being lucky enough to be born at a particular time as fundamentally unfair.

[area51]

13. "Just what is it that the republicans don't like about Social Security?"

Short answer -- SS money can keep people alive, & the nazi party is all about getting a woody when poor people die.

[salin]

15. Political. The belief that they lose votes to dems b/c of "scare tactics"

to sr.s about "losing social security" - change social security and defang it as a potential vote loser for GOP candidates. Pure and simple. Been a desired GOP goal (to get rid of) because of its power for dems as a vote getter since the 1980s. Of course some in the GOP have been against it since its inception - but there was no real move on it... the motivation for the whole party attempts to assault SS - is purely political.

[FormerRepublican]

16. I also think the pols are scared spitless of what's going to happen...

...when the trust fund comes due and they have to pay out all those treasury bonds to support SS recipients. SS holds a LOT of treasury bills.

But the bottom line is they truly don't care about anyone but themselves, they don't care if old people starve and die in the streets, they get off on the idea of living through a great depression (it was a GREAT time!), and they're flat out GREEDY. Greed is one of the seven deadly sins for a reason, and the Republicans are proving the wisdom of those who put greed on the list.