Posted on 12/02/2010 11:42:39 AM PST by red meat conservative
If the only legislative option is to vote on the entire report from the Debt Commission, then the changes in Social Security should serve as a poison pill to prevent any Republican from supporting it. While there are definitely some good proposals in the report that call for spending cuts, anyone who calls themselves a conservative cannot support the commission's report as a package deal. It is therefore disappointing to hear that Senators Coburn and Crapo plan to vote for the report unconditionally.
The Hill is reporting that these Senators believe that if something is not done soon we are headed for a fiscal ruin. Therefore, they will vote for any proposal, irrespective of how flawed it is. Coburn declared at a press conference,” I am scared to death of the potential that could unwind this country far greater than anything we've seen before.”
Senator Coburn is correct in asserting that if we don't cut the spending then we will face peril. However, we need to understand that this is not about balancing a budget, it is about limiting government. If our only option of immediate reform is to vote for modest spending cuts in conjunction with dramatic tax hikes, entrenchment of Obama Care, and the perpetuation of the SS ponzi scheme, then it is better that we wait two months so we can propose drastic limits in government spending without any tax increases.
Paul Ryan has already expressed his concern about the provisions in the report that will cement Obama Care and even impose taxes on employer health plans. As Ryan explains to The Hill:
“The plan accelerates and entrenches ObamaCare,” Ryan said. By taxing employer health plans but leaving the rest of the healthcare reform law in place, the plan presented by the chairmen of the deficit commission would push too many people into healthcare exchanges, which Ryan said would balloon subsidies paid by the government."
What concerns me is that there is not enough outrage from conservatives about the commission's plans for Social Security. The commission calls for reform of Social Security by implementing any one, or mix of the following changes; cutting benefits, raising payroll taxes, raising the exemption limit, means testing benefits, and most egregiously raising the retirement age. Unfortunately, some conservatives are applauding this move as a much needed cut in entitlement spending. However, they would be wise to note that this "entitlement" is quite different from most others in that we are forced into it!
Let's get this straight. The government runs a ponzi scheme in which they steal up to to 14% (including the employer's share) of everyone's hard earned money for a supposed retirement plan. Then, they use current workers to pay off those who are retired, while making extra money from eating the contributions of those who die before they can receive it. Finally, when the program goes bust and they are caught, instead of going to prison like Bernie Madoff, they get to force us to contribute more! Worse yet, they continuously raise the age in which we can receive our own money! If this is not tyranny, slaving until you are 70 years old for the government, I don't know what is. How can anyone who calls themselves a conservative even think of supporting this?
I have no problem with cutting down on SS benefits and making it more sustainable for those who choose to participate. But how can we compel every American to contribute a large percentage of their income to a plan that will be means tested and be administered at the mercy of corrupt politicians? This is purely unconstitutional and should be the next civil rights issue for young voters. The bottom line is that none of these changes can be fairly implemented without offering younger voters a way out of this ponzi scheme.
We need to pressure our elected Republicans and fellow conservatives not let the enticement of minuscule budget cuts buy their vote for tax hikes, expansion of government, and entrenchment of Social Security as a permanent form of involuntary servitude.
Timely. I checked on it today. I am turning 62. If you make over 25k a year you get ‘ZIP’. What a scam. I want my money back! They will weasel a way to screw us all.
I will support a rise in the retirement age if it is needed AFTER they get rid of the SSDI portion of Social Security which is nothing but federal welfare. Til then they can kiss it.
Lawyers advertise in inner city neighborhoods - they'll get social security disability for a 'cut' of the action...
Whole families are on it - and those honest hard working Americans who really need it - are going to be sacrificed with the free loaders. That's not fair. This is what congress needs to look at...
SS cannot be properly reformed because the DEMS like the mess that it is ... and many GOPers in congress don’t understand it. Or they don’t care about the program, so they also wanna let the mess continue.
The author is under a major delusion. By stating "while making extra money from eating the contributions of those who die before they can receive it" he shows that he still thinks the money is being invested somehow for future use by the current taxpayers. It isn't. It is 100% spent as soon as it is received. Most for Social Security payments and a portion by the rest of the government where they perform some accounting trickery and claim the money is in a lockbox.
Social Security is nothing more than a welfare program for the old with a camouflage netting of insurance and weak linkage between the amount taxed and the amount paid to try to hide that fact. But don't be fooled: current tax payers pay for current recipients with nothing left over.
Current tax payers have nothing saved in the system other than the hope that there will be enough taxpayers taxed heavily enough in the future to pay for promised benefits. See the first Social Security recipient Ida May Fuller as an example. She paid $24.75 into the system and got almost $23,000 paid to her. There is no way that can exist as a insurance or savings plan, only as a welfare plan with current tax payers paying for current recipients. That is no longer demographically possible because there aren't enough people to pay for future retirees at current tax rates and repayment amounts. The three options are increase taxes by 50%, reduce payments by 33%, or go hat in hand to the Chinese and beg them for more money selling future generations into bondage. There are no other options.
They will never touch SSDI but will deny SS to the “rich” who they will say don’t deserve it. Means testing is coming for SS and Medicare. All productive or once productive people will shovel their earnings and savings to the Democrats’ base.
Sorry, I put a D in that doesn’t belong. I meant SSI, Supplemental Security Income. It is a federal welfare program for people who have not paid enough into Social Security via WORKING. It is where they throw all the disabled children, drug addicts, alcoholics, etc. It is a federal welfare program.
If you haven’t paid in you shouldn’t get squat.
Karlin,
I totally agree with you. There is no slush fund because they spent the money away. This is exactly why i feel that it is unfair and immoral to demand that young workers serve their whole life to dig themselves deeper into a ponzi scheme.
Republicans should be warned, with these proposed changes this opens the door to turning this into another progressive income tax.
If you aren’t going to get the benefits you paid in to the system back then how is this different from the income tax?
You would have been better off investing your own money.
What they should be doing is giving you lump sum payments to leave the system. This is what a private company would do when it is going bankrupt, try to pay people to get out of the contract.
Fretting about Social Security is so 20th Century, don’t you think? The Fed is printing Trillions out of thin air.
The fact of the matter is we have no property right whatsoever to our Social Security “contributions.”
In a U.S. Supreme Court case, Helvering vs. Davis (1937), the Court held that Social Security was not an insurance program, saying, “The proceeds of both employee and employer taxes are to be paid into the treasury like any other internal revenue generally, and are not earmarked in anyway.”
In another Supreme Court case, Fleming vs. Nestor (1960), the Court said, “To engraft upon Social Security system a concept of ‘accrued property rights’ would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustment to ever-changing conditions which it demands.” Again, the Court rejected any comparison of Social Security with insurance or an annuity.
Now the Social Security Administration belatedly is trying to clean up its history of deception. Its web site (www.ssa.gov/history/nestor.html) says, “Entitlement to Social Security benefits is not (a) contractual right.” Adding, “There has been a temptation throughout the program’s history for some people to suppose that their FICA payroll taxes entitle them to a benefit in a legal, contractual sense. Congress clearly had no such limitation in mind when crafting the law.”
Next time you hear a politician call SS an entitlement or contractual right, you will automatically know they are pandering for your vote.
Some suggested alternatives/solutions:
Allow workers to take two or three percent of their FICA taxes and invest them in an approved private investment vehicle.
A bolder step would be to honor our current Social Security obligations and allow any person who chooses to do so to opt out of the program altogether and privately manage their retirement needs. That, of course, would retire funding Social Security obligations out of general revenues for a period, requiring large spending cuts elsewhere. And we know the spending addicts in DC would not want to experience withdrawal symptoms by allowing this.
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