What is it about Social Security that Republicans hate? And a solution.

[Texacon]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9008505

ThomWV  (1000+ posts)        Tue Aug-24-10 06:41 PM
Original message

What is it about Social Security that Republicans hate? And a solution.
 
The Republican Party is hell-bent on destroying Social Security - but why? Who's water are they carrying? What is it they hope to accomplish? Only two reasons come immediately to mind. The first is evident in the very name of the program they wish to annihilate, "Security". If workers have nothing to fall back on then they will be more dependent on their employers. A dependent workforce is a compliant workforce that will cut its own throat in the race to the bottom, to see who can win that endurance race to see who will work for the least. The more cynical among us might suspect the reason is less complicated. Business may simply object to having to pay its half. Remember, your employer matches your pay-in to the Social Security System dollar for dollar with every pay check that goes out the door. So it may be that the Republicans are simply serving their traditional base in trying to kill Social Security just to save employers having to pay in. That offers an interesting possibility for a trade-off. How about we double the cap and at the same time remove the employers contribution. There should be no net loss in income to the system, employers will be saved the cost of accounting for as well as paying into the system for each of their employees - something that small businesses should welcome, and all it would take is expanding the covered income by a little over a hundred grand.
 

ThomWV , ThomWV , ThomWV , ThomWV

I hope you google your user name from time to time.  I want you to come see this you ignorant piece of work.

HERE'S why Conservatives don't like Social Security.  They are STEALING from you you DUmbass!  You, who put ALL your faith in the government ....  You are idiots.  They have been stealing from you since day one!  Don't believe it?  Why don't you look up Galveston County.  THEY don't have SS and THEY retire with better benefits than anyone on SS will EVER retire with.

Don't like that example?  How about the Teacher's Retirement System?  THEY don't have SS and THEY retire with better benefits than anyone on SS will EVER retire with.

How frickin' hard is it for you people to understand that the government is NOT your friend.  They STEAL from you and you LOVE it.  I don't like it and don't think I should have to participate.  It is theft of my money and I still don't see how it is constitutional.

As a matter of fact let me save you a little time;

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba514

The Galveston Plan. In 1979, many county workers were concerned about the soundness of Social Security, as many people are today. We could either stay with it - and its inevitable tax increases and higher retirement ages - or find a better way. We sought an "alternative plan" that provided the same or better benefits, required no tax increases and was risk-free. Furthermore, we wanted the benefits to be like a savings account that could be passed on to family members upon death.

Our plan, put together by financial experts, was a "banking model" rather than an "investment model." To eliminate the risks of the up-and-down stock market, workers' contributions were put into conservative fixed-rate guaranteed annuities, rather than fluctuating stocks, bonds or mutual funds. Our results have been impressive: We've averaged an annual rate of return of about 6.5 percent over 24 years. And we've provided substantially better benefits in all three Social Security categories: retirement, survivorship and disability.

Alright ya DUmbass.  You wanna come tell me why the rest of us can't have that?! 

There's a whole bunch of stupid over there on this thread that I simply can't bear to look at.  It pisses me off way too much.  Someone else will have to look at or bring over the rest of the retard's posts.  And I don't mean those who are retarded by birth.

OMG.

KC

[zeitgeist]

 Dummies are sideways about Social Security.  Did you happen to catch this one?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9002875

depakid  (1000+ posts)      Mon Aug-23-10 08:41 PM
Original message
Dean Baker: the real danger to social security is coming from Democrats
 Edited on Mon Aug-23-10 08:42 PM by depakid
President Obama comments on Social Security privatization in the last week sound like something that he stole from the playbook of the last Democrat in the White House. Just as President Clinton tried to tell us that the veracity of one of his statements on the Lewinski affair depended on "what your definition of 'is' is," President Obama is telling us that he will stand up against Republican plans to privatize Social Security.

That is nice to hear, but it really is beside the point. President Bush did try to privatize Social Security in 2005 and, no doubt, many Republicans would still like to do so today, but privatization is not currently on the agenda of their leadership. The immediate threat to Social Security is plans to cut benefits by either changing the benefit formula and/or raising the retirement age.

This threat comes not just from the Republican Party, but from the top levels of the Democratic Party as well. Rep. Steny Hoyer, the majority leader in the House, explicitly called for raising the retirement age to 70 in a speech earlier this summer. Erskine Bowles, the co-chairman of the deficit commission appointed by President Obama, also explicitly said that cuts to Social Security would be on the agenda of the deficit commission. Of course, former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, the Republican that President Obama appointed as the other co-chair of the commission, never misses an opportunity to say that he wants to cut Social Security.
 
{snip}

and they are going out not with a bang but a wimper.

Dragonfli (1000+ posts)        Mon Aug-23-10 08:57 PM
Response to Original message
2. When they are done pulling off this theft as Democrats, it will be the end of the party for decades
 Not that that will stop them, many Democrats are really Republicans hiding in our party from the fascists that took over theirs.
They won't care that much that the democratic party will become a swear word to all seniors and most others that hope to stop working sometime before death.
 

Whoa Nellie, played by teh O-man.  Who'd a thunk it??    

[jukin]

I'll type slow for lurking DUchebags.

P-O-N-Z-I SCHEME.

[AllosaursRus]

Well lets see, in 3 years workin' for the Home DUmp, I managed to put away 7 grand + interest + Home Depot contributions. I won't delve into the rewards I reaped, cause it just ain't nunya!

If ya try matchin' that to SS, you'd be suckin' hind tit.

Suffice it to say, I pulled my dough outa the stock market a few years ago!

[dandi]

BECAUSE IT'S SUBJECT TO THE WHIMS OF THE GOVERNMENT, YA DUMBASS.

Look at the very thing you're freaking out about right now going on in Washington - talk of cuts and/or raising the age at which you can collect. No guarantee that it will even be there at all for you after a lifetime of paying in. Your retirement money being held hostage by politicians you admit can't be trusted.

Wouldn't it be better to have that money going into something like the federal employees' Thrift Savings Plan, where once the money is deposited it is yours, in your name, can't be voted away by Congress, can be left to loved ones if you die before it's spent and you at least have a chance at a couple of percent return on it?

Geez, what makes you so hellbent on putting your lives in the hands of politicians? And you make fun of Christians for having faith and trust in something unprovable.  

[AllosaursRus]

Geez, what makes you so hellbent on putting your lives in the hands of politicians? And you make fun of Christians for having faith and trust in something unprovable.   

Ain't that a bitch! They don't believe in God, yet they believe mere mortals can give them paradise!

Will wonders never cease!

[JohnnyReb]

Ain't that a bitch! They don't believe in God, yet they believe mere mortals can give them paradise!

Will wonders never cease!

Why is Bernie Madorf(sp) doing time for running a ponzi scheme and the feds have been doing the same thing for over 70 years?

[Karin]

What I object most to is the raiding.  Getting their grubby hands on our money and dropping in an IOU.  This should never have started, it's out and out thievery.  If they insist on having this government-coerced program, it should have stayed sacrosanct.   There should never be a question in anyone's mind, "am I going to get this money back someday?" 

[DumbAss Tanker]

It's not that gigantic of an issue to most Republicans or Conservatives, really.  More of a 'While you're at it, do something with this too' sort of thing.

With the death of lifetime employment at one company as a typical career, replaced by disposable labor in a market where few employers offer any kind of decent retirement plan for the majority of the workers, it's pretty much a necessary evil to have some sort of government-pool retirement system.  All the talk about personal responsibility is great when you're employed and making money, but a very large part of the workforce is always going to be living hand-to-mouth through just not being all that smart or simply the fortunes of life, and that part will end up just being a huge drain on social service providers without a government-backed system.  The biggest issue I have with it is really the accounting games Congress and OMB get to play with the money that is supposedly in it, but really isn't. 

[Randy]

Why is Bernie Madorf(sp) doing time for running a ponzi scheme and the feds have been doing the same thing for over 70 years?

Because the Government hates the competition. They may lose out to a better scam and that can NOT be allowed.

[USA4ME]

ThomWV

Only two reasons come immediately to mind.

Both of which are irrelevant because whatever comes to your simple little head isn't worthy of consideration.

Several have given the answer; I'll add this.  It isn't the duty of the gov't to help my neighbors when they are in need or to provide for them a safeguard, it's the responsibility of all of us as individuals to seek out these people and help them as individuals.  If an individual in my neighborhood needs help, a bunch of us who are able will bind together and help them.  If a certain community in my city or country needs help, a bunch of us in the area will bind together and help them.  We don't need a gov't to confiscate a portion of our income to do that.  In fact, it would work much more effectively and be much more cost effective if the gov't wasn't involved.

Now grow up, Thom.  You're an idiot.

.

[AllosaursRus]

Why is Bernie Madorf(sp) doing time for running a ponzi scheme and the feds have been doing the same thing for over 70 years?

Walter E. Williams
The National Ponzi Scheme

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was set up to combat fraudulent practices. The SEC's website explains that "Ponzi schemes are a type of illegal pyramid scheme named for Charles Ponzi, who duped thousands of New England residents into investing in a postage stamp speculation scheme back in the 1920s." It goes on to say, "Decades later, the Ponzi scheme continues to work on the 'rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul' principle, as money from new investors is used to pay off earlier investors until the whole scheme collapses." That is how the SEC described the recent Bernard Madoff $50 billion Ponzi scheme, "a stunning fraud that appears to be of epic proportions."................

[more.....]

 A Ponzi scheme does not generate any wealth whatsoever; that is why it ultimately collapses. As Circuit Judge Anderson said in the 1922 Lowell v. Brown case, the Ponzi scheme was "simply the old fraud of paying the earlier comers out of the contributions of the later comers." So long as the number of late comers -- you might call them suckers -- grows, the fraudulent scheme has life. ( emphasis mine )

We have a national Ponzi scheme where Congress collects about $785 billion in Social Security taxes from about 163 million workers to send out $585 billion to 50 million Social Security recipients. Social Security's trustees tell us that the surplus goes into a $2.2 trillion trust fund to meet future obligations. The problem is whatever difference between Social Security taxes and benefits paid out is spent by Congress. What the Treasury Department does is give the Social Security Trust Fund non-marketable "special issue government securities" that are simply bookkeeping entries that are IOUs.

Looks like the same damn thing to me! I say we start arresting every congress critter that has dropped one of those IOU's into the pot, which I suppose would be all of them!!

[Happy Fun Ball]

Why is Bernie Madorf(sp) doing time for running a ponzi scheme and the feds have been doing the same thing for over 70 years?

Because Madoff couldn't simply print more money to keep the scam going.

[AllosaursRus]

Because Madoff couldn't simply print more money to keep the scam going.

Point, set, match!