Seems like the movie with Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell  http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/01/1luvu.gif.

President delivers a speech on how we should blow a $450 billion wadd that we don't have.  Musta forgot that whole deficit reduction and debt cediling dustup a month or so ago.

Maybe tomorrow we can see a speech offering up a $650 billion package.  yes, that would do the trick.

The President has a better chance of passing a 50-lb kidney stone than this bill ever getting passed.

Talk about "The Great Forgetting"...

No, no, noooo....

He said we were going to pay for all of it (after we borrow it from the Chinese).  And, yes, medicaid is going to be presented as a sacrifice to the Money God.  Maybe it would be good for the billionaires to pitch-in and pay their fair share?  No? Well, we'll talk about it.  We'll throw in some more free trade agreements because they help keep jobs here at home!

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His proposal makes no sense.  Everybody... Dems and Repubs alike... agree that Social Security has a major funding issue.  And so he wants to REDUCE the tax take for SS?  If you want to destroy SS, that's a great way to start.

He's setting the stage for eliminating SS better than any Repub who ever wanted to have a private option ever did...

His proposal makes no sense.  Everybody... Dems and Repubs alike... agree that Social Security has a major funding issue.  And so he wants to REDUCE the tax take for SS?  If you want to destroy SS, that's a great way to start.


I was never gonna see a penny back from it, and as miserable as the markets have been this year, at least I get my beer money back for another year.  


He's setting the stage for eliminating SS better than any Repub who ever wanted to have a private option ever did...


So what's your problem with it? :)

Sometimes I wish Obama would just walk up to the podium and recite the entire Republican party platform verbatim.  Just so I could see the Republicans voting against it.

I was never gonna see a penny back from it, and as miserable as the markets have been this year, at least I get my beer money back for another year.  

So what's your problem with it? :)



According to Lawrence O'Donnal you will see more than a penny.  Fixing SS is no big mystery, just eliminate the cap on FICA

According to Lawrence O'Donnal you will see more than a penny.  Fixing SS is no big mystery, just eliminate the cap on FICA


Ah... another "soak the rich" approach.  yes, sounds familiar.

First off, we should not be using the SS fund as any sort of "stimulus fund" which is precisely what O'bama is proposing.

Two, over the years, the scope of SS was vastly expanded.  You know that SS is even paying child survivor payments for children who were conceived after their father died in some states?  Also there used to be this lady who worked for me... she went out and rented a boyfriend for a night (this is a true story, she posted an ad) and got herself impregnated.  That dude was then out of the picture.  So about 10 years later one of her boyfreinds (neither her common law or wedded spouse or even live-in) kicked the bucket.  She filed for SS benefits for her child because the dead dude "had accepted the girl as his daughter" despite no foster child arrangement, no adoption, not even living in the same house as the kid.  He was not financiallly supporting the kid, because Mom had a decent paying job working for ol' LB. And she prevailed and the kid collected SS payments.

I'm in favor of increasing SS tax rates so that the system is more or less funded by EVERYBODY who participates in more or less the AMOUNT OF MONEY THEY WOULD EXPECT TO TAKE OUT.  And I'm in favor of extending the eligibility ages as people live alot longer now than they did when SS was initially deployed.  But to use this as another wealth-redistribution scheme is just another Robin Hood, forced-charity scheme.

Forced philanthropy is not charity.  It is confiscation.

Ah... another "soak the rich" approach.  yes, sounds familiar.

First off, we should not be using the SS fund as any sort of "stimulus fund" which is precisely what O'bama is proposing.

Two, over the years, the scope of SS was vastly expanded.  You know that SS is even paying child survivor payments for children who were conceived after their father died in some states?  Also there used to be this lady who worked for me... she went out and rented a boyfriend for a night (this is a true story, she posted an ad) and got herself impregnated.  That dude was then out of the picture.  So about 10 years later one of her boyfreinds (neither her common law or wedded spouse or even live-in) kicked the bucket.  She filed for SS benefits for her child because the dead dude "had accepted the girl as his daughter" despite no foster child arrangement, no adoption, not even living in the same house as the kid.  He was not financiallly supporting the kid, because Mom had a decent paying job working for ol' LB. And she prevailed and the kid collected SS payments.

I'm in favor of increasing SS tax rates so that the system is more or less funded by EVERYBODY who participates in more or less the AMOUNT OF MONEY THEY WOULD EXPECT TO TAKE OUT.  And I'm in favor of extending the eligibility ages as people live alot longer now than they did when SS was initially deployed.  But to use this as another wealth-redistribution scheme is just another Robin Hood, forced-charity scheme.

Forced philanthropy is not charity.  It is confiscation.


There are millions of people who receive SS benefits who would rather work for a living.  The free market does not want them.  For every shiftless sonofabitch and gimme welfare mom, there are ten or more who would be working if the capitalists in their Atlas Shrugged wisdom viewed human beings as anything more than cogs.  The underlying message for those who cannot conform and cannot compete is "get thee to the gas chamber."

As for charity versus taxation, you're a roamin Catholic, go talk to your bishop.  He'll tell you it's a damned insane idea rest all society's shortcomings on the collection plate!
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There are millions of people who receive SS benefits who would rather work for a living.


The existence of SSDI doesn't make it a ponzi scheme.  The fact that 10+ workers supported one retiree back in the day, and there will only be 3 workers available to support each retiree when I'm retired, is the problem.

Any scheme that relies on exponential population growth of new "contributors" for the funds to pay out exiting "investors" is a pyramid scheme, and is doomed to collapse.

The existence of SSDI doesn't make it a ponzi scheme.  The fact that 10+ workers supported one retiree back in the day, and there will only be 3 workers available to support each retiree when I'm retired, is the problem.

Any scheme that relies on exponential population growth of new "contributors" for the funds to pay out exiting "investors" is a pyramid scheme, and is doomed to collapse.



A Ponzi scheme is a fraud.  In the case of SS there's no fraud.  Everybody knows what is going on and yes it is unsustainable.

It is a problem with difficult decisions that need to be made, for sure.  But outright "robbing the cookie jar" by declaring an "SS Tax Holiday" and such as O'bama is doing is absolutely insane.  It is yet another example of how the O'bama Administration will leave no purse unsnatched, no pocket unpicked, no account unpilfered in its endless quest for spending of somebody else's money.

Ah... another "soak the rich" approach.  yes, sounds familiar.






Some might say it is asking them to pay their fair share.  If I'm not mistaken FICA is 8% of the first 100k, more or less.  Fine, I always paid that %.  But a 1 million income pays a much lower %.  Why?

Some might say it is asking them to pay their fair share.  If I'm not mistaken FICA is 8% of the first 100k, more or less.  Fine, I always paid that %.  But a 1 million income pays a much lower %.  Why?



Because, like LyricBoy said, it is the redistribution of wealth. But, what LB and many others don't realize that redistribution goes upward NOT downward.



Cat

Where are all the conservatives when wealth gets redistributed upwards?  That's not so bad, now is it!
::)

Some might say it is asking them to pay their fair share.  If I'm not mistaken FICA is 8% of the first 100k, more or less.


12.4% (6.2% from employer, 6.2% from employee, modulo the temporary "2%" reduction currently in place, and I'm too lazy to look up whether that 2% is on employer, employee, or both halves.  If it's on both halves, then your 8% figure is correct.)


Fine, I always paid that %.  But a 1 million income pays a much lower %.  Why?


Well, if it's a tax to provide a welfare-style benefit to someone else, fair enough.  But if that's the case, why not put SS on the federal budget and pay for it with the already-progressive Federal income tax scheme?

But we don't do that.  Not only do we not do that, the little mocking letter I get every year from ssa.gov describes FICA as a "contribution" towards the "contributor's" retirement benefits.  If the benefits are capped at a certain maximum level, and it's not a tax, then surely the "contributions" ought to be capped at a maximum level.  Otherwise some "contributors" would get a higher return on their "contributions" than others.  And we couldn't have that in a fair system, could we?  :)