Posted on 05/16/2005 7:43:10 AM PDT by Choose Ye This Day
"I wish someone on our side would come up with a catchy Flash ad to tell the truth on Social Security."
I doubt it would help much. If you believe that the government can spend money and still treat it as an interest-bearing asset, then there ain't much the presentation can do for you.
Thanks for the invitation to observe yet another MoveOn.org creation, but I'll have to pass.
My doctor told me scrubbing myself down with Clorox bleach after every exposure was going to have severe health side effects.
So I'll take your word for it, and spare myself the Clorox treatment to get rid of the filthy feeling I get every time I'm exposed to their deceit.
Yep, and there ain't nothin' wrong with United's pension plan either. The only difference is that in the corporate world, the company must (by law) hold enough cash to cover their pension liabilities in an actual "lock box" and the government is not. If we think that major problems exist in private pension plans of large corporations, we must realize that these problems are exponentially larger with SS.
Something I learned by watching the libs protesting the nuclear plant where I worked: When they take 10 seconds to threaten your children, it takes 2 hours to explain why they are lying.
A mighty good point. Also what the public does not understand is - after working for so many years, what is the cause of the problem now?
Exactly why a pro-reform ad would be helpful. Explain to Americans what a Ponzi scheme is and how the Congress has been cheating us by dipping into the till all these years. Those should be part of the ad.
Here's a solution to the social security "problem" that will work better than any that the Dems have proposed, and costs us nothing: Get Congress to enact a bill doubling the amount of the IOU in the trust fund.
It also has the added side benefit that it illustrates what a fraud the social security trust fund is.
The problem is, the hard left would probably believe this to be a viable solution.
Somebody's got some 'splainin' to do:
How can they claim to be progressive when they resist change so darn much?
If lefties are too stupid to handle their own finances and such, why do we give them their own party and voting rights?
Are liberals really concerned about old people being poor, or about their parents being too poor to give them money when they're broke?
Of course the liberals have a solution, raise taxes on one group of people to support another. And this will sound attractive to many. It would be better to wait till SS starts to draw on general revenue, then raise taxes on the middle (and above) class, then explain to them that it only covers: 1) the poor, 2) congress, 3) federal employees, that they are still on their own after paying. They need to understand their role in this game. Also point out that Democrats claiming that SS is guaranteed is a big lie, that Pelosi and Reid have only guaranteed their own retirement which is why they want to raise taxes.
No. They want to increase taxes. If there is no tax increase in it, they will oppose it.
Of course, they just plan to spend the additional money on other things anyway, and merely increase the amount of the IOU, so the tax increase does nothing to shore up social security. The only part of their plan that makes any effort to shore up social security is the increase in the amount of the IOU, and you don't need to increase taxes to do that.
What? You don't appreciate the subtle points of logic and argument that shows Grandma forced to eat cat food because of the eeeeeeevil Republicans?
I know what you mean. I'm using turpentine, myself.
"I wonder what the truth really is? One little secret about social security never mentioned is "totalization".
We now have totalization agreements with 20 countries. In the year 2004, social security paid $2.4 Billion to foreigners who never worked 10 years in the US. So far as I know, Bush nor the Dems. never mention this little fact. More countries are on the table for it.
http://www.gao.gov/htext/d05250.html
This is a long read but if you will take your sidebar and go down the page approximately half way and look for the paragraph that has "footnote 6" at the end, this paragraph has the stats.
Since we have a totalization agreement with Canada and she is in NAFTA, this is the excuse for Mexico to be totalized.
Yep. That is the gist of the whole ad: Let's turn Social Security completely into what we all know it always has been: a wealth-redistribution welfare Ponzi scheme. They want the wealthy to pay for everyone else who never saved for their own retirement.
OK - But it's always been a Ponzi scheme but the Ponzi scheme has worked so far so that is not the current problem.
If Congress dipping into the 'locked box' is the current problem, then that is what should be addressed. Current causes of the problem must be addressed before their solution is viable.
The Ponzi scheme has worked so far only because the numbers have worked thus far: there have been plenty of people putting $ in (enough that the Congress could spend the rest). In the next 20 years, the numbers won't work so well. There will be far too many people receiving checks.
So, it's a future problem as well as a current problem.
The fact is that most Americans don't understand the Ponzi nature of the scam.
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