Posted on 01/06/2012 6:38:10 PM PST by DJ MacWoW
KEENE, N.H. (AP) - Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum called Friday for immediate cuts to Social Security benefits, risking the wrath of older voters and countless others who balk at changes to the entitlement program.
"We can't wait 10 years," even though "everybody wants to," Santorum told a crowd while campaigning in New Hampshire and looking to set himself apart from his Republican rivals four days before the New Hampshire primary.
Most of his opponents have advocated phasing in a reduction and say immediate cuts would be too big a shock to current and soon-to-be retirees.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...
Don’t be so naive, it never existed in the first place.
Taken straight from his website: •Reform Social Security and place on a sustainable path by a combination of reforms such as addressing adjusting CPI, dependent benefits and disability income benefits reforms, moving back the retirement age for younger workers, means testing benefits, annual adjustments as needed, and dedicating Social Security payroll taxes to Social Security.
Read 279 and 287. You won’t be taking care of my kids!
How can you suggest it’s a good point when someone tells me -
“YOU SHOULD FEEL THE PAIN - THEY’RE YOUR KIDS!”
You think my kids owe you or him/her anything simply because government said so and created a ponzi scheme to steal from the young for the benefit of the old? If I am blessed to make it that far I am confident that I will enjoy the blessings of the investment and love that I make every day in my children. I won’t need a government that will completely devalue the check they issue me.
Remember the old Fram Oil Filter commercial, “You Can Pay Me Now, or You Can Pay Me Later.”
What people don’t realize is that eventually there will be no choice, SS will have to be cut, and it will be even more painful, than if we start taking some prudent steps now.
But if people are too stupid to realize that, well then, as they say, we get the government we deserve.
There is one other choice for the crooks we call politicians. They will simply print the money they promised and they won’t worry when the money is so devalued that nobody could live on it. That is where we are heading!
The Romanians had the right idea in 1989.
I am you and you are me. I will gladly live, fight and grow in a republic with you. Our stories sound the same. I have the chickens, trees, garden, and the pasture will be ready by the fall. I have my piece of paradise and it can’t take care of family and friends if need be.
Hope you and your family enjoy the hard work because soon we both will be living of the fruit of today’s labor. It won’t come from a transfer payment from young to old via the fedgov. God bless and good weather to you.
Same to you FRiend and God bless you and yours. I have come to love this lifestyle more than watching TV and playing golf! I can’t think of anything I would enjoy more with my children either. Hopefully, we can help those that will inevitably be on the same road we travel.
That is a great story. Do you take the tax write off for your children?
I’ve learned something about some of my fellow freepers and I’m not totally happy about knowing it.
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You’re right. Some of the he remarks made about our elders are heartless.
The remarks about SS being an ‘entitlement’ and socialism is stupid.
Our elders were forced to pay into it.
They worked hard all their lives.
They depend on it.
It’s all they have.
I salute you for fighting the good fight here and pointing out the truth. From experience, I know it won’t get you any love here. People prefer to find some excuse as to why their socialism isn’t really socialism.
To provide more data I did look into the budget a bit closer.
Social Security + Medicare is $1.29 Trillion in the FY2012 budget. The taxes which people pay to cover those programs come to $862 billion. Of the two, Medicare is ridiculously short. It pays out $468 billion on taxes which amount to $202 billion. Social Security is not nearly as bad, though it is certainly already in arrears. It pays out $761 billion while bringing in $660 billion in taxes.
This does not include either medicaid, or the disabled portion of social security. This is just the stuff for retirees.
This is out of $3.73 Trillion, so those two programs are around a third, and projected to grow each and every year for the foreseeable future.
Security costs (defense +FBI, DHS, CIA, etc) comes to $881 billion.
non discretionary spending+medicaid (which appears to group in everything one might consider welfare- food stamps, unemployment, child nutrition, disability payments) comes to $767 billion.
Discretionary non defense spending is $462 billion.
Oh, and to keep it in perspective, as we always hear the nonsense about cutting foreign aid, the budget for that is a whopping $56 billion. While in the lives of normal people that sounds like a lot it is well under 2% of the federal budget.
So, just to put some numbers out there, the biggest spending by the federal government is payments to retirees. It is also growing fast. The budget projections show those two items going up by more than 50% in eight years. Of course those are Obama projections, which are likely to be patently false (as in underestimates).
While people will whine and gnash their teeth when some politician is honest enough to point out the truth, it still remains the truth. Sadly though, they are likely right that the truth will cost people elections.
Though how about a simple analogy? If hired a financial planner who you knew was writing you IOUs over the years as your retirement account, without any actual backing in capital or securities, wouldn’t you get a bit leery and provide a bit more somewhere else? This is especially the case if that financial planner lived high on the hog, and always seemed to be in debt. Yes, I know Social Security is a mandated financial planner, but nonetheless the signs of fiscal doom have always been there.
Us “relatively” young folks are just as forced to pay into it, too.
>The remarks about SS being an ‘entitlement’ and socialism is stupid. Our elders were forced to pay into it.
I’m curious. Can you find me a form of socialism in which people aren’t forced to pay into to? Cause as I understand it, that’s part of the very definition.
So take your kids or grandkids out of public school and stop stealing from your neighbors.
Do you take the tax write off for your children?
Sure. I still pay plenty in taxes. I work hard and worked harder to get where I am at. I am good at what I do. My father worked his butt off as did his parents. I am glad that some of it rubbed off and was blessed to grow up in my family. I contribute. I am putting plenty of effort into my kids with high hopes that they will do the same.
My Mother always told me there are always people better off than you and worse off than you. I watched my late B-I-L battle Esophageal Cancer. I was there when he was diagnosed and when he took his last breath five years later. What I have had to deal with is nothing compared to what he went through. I am very fortunate.
I've told the story before, but when I found out about my “supposed” life expectancy, I told the Dr. “you mean I'm getting ripped off by S.S. and Medicare”? He looked at me like I was nuts, not that he wasn't that far off, and he didn't know what to say.
My Wife, in tears at that point, was not amused although she wasn't really surprised by my response. I have always been a realist, which is probably one of the reasons I despise Liberalism. Touchy feely holier than thou doesn't give anyone the power to steal someone else's property to help those they think are worthy.
As usual, I'm off point. Just want to thank you for your kind thoughts. Many other FReepers, Jeff Head comes to mind, have dealt with much more serious conditions than I have. As far as I'm concerned, I'm the luckiest guy walking.
I just try to do my best for my Family and Friends as I'm sure others here do. Thanks for your concern and kindness. May God Bless you as I have been blessed.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich has called for using two-thirds of the projected $1.5 trillion dollar surplus in the
Social Security trust funds over the next decade to pay for tax cuts.
http://www.ctj.org/images/gingpr.pdf
He is support taffis and voting agaisnt Nafta was going to hurt him in florida, this will finish him off
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Nafta hurts America and Tariffs would help US fight off the Communist Chinese. Right on Santorum.
Millions of our seniors depend on SS that they have paid into all their working lives. They only got a very small cost of living increase this year after three years.
With the rise in cost of rent, groceries, gas, etc, most are just barely getting by.
My family does a lot of charity work with elders. I know this to be a fact.
One lady we know has had a low paying job during her working years. She only gets around $650.00 a month. She has no other income. She is sick and alone.
Would you like to see her meager income cut? Just let her die to save a few bucks? After all, she’s 82. What use is she? (Well maybe we won’t have to worry about her and others like her when Obamacare and the death panels go into effect)
Regardles of what you call SS- ‘entitlement’, socialism
WHATEVER, our seniors had money withheld to take care of them in their senior years.
So it was spent? So?
They still paid, and the d*mn government better give it back.
They earned it.
It’s ALL most of them have.
Cut the d*mn welfare, food stamps, subsidised housing,
Kick the illegal aliens who are sucking the U.S dry out.
Stop throwing billions down Islamic sh*t holes as Omuslim has been doing.
The LAST place they should look to cutting expenses is off the back of our seniors!!
.
Serves as a cautionary tale as to what happens when you put your trust in government.
Hell no! I would fire him and take him to court for fraud. What kind of dummy would keep paying a financial planner who did that and go pay someone else to try to cover for it with yet another plan?
Well, the point is, they DID. NOW what? Let ‘em roll over and die?
Any candidate who supports saving a few bucks off the backs of our seniors is doomed to fail.
If Santorum said that, his a$$ is grass- as it well should be. Seniors both Conservative and Demorats will flood to the polls in droves.
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