I keep seeing people saying “this election is the last...” Where are they getting this? IMHO, the election they are referring to was, if anything, 4 years ago. We lost. We ain’t gonna get over it. The assumption that “this is the last” implies that something can be done to fix things. I certainly wish anyone who believes that would lay out their plan. Even Ryan and Romney can’t lay out a plan for a solution that will actually work. Ryan has “a plan” which is more than you can say for most but even that ignores the reality of the present. I keep hearing folks say “if we don’t blah, blah, blah Medicare or Social Security (or the gummint in general) will be broke in some seemingly obscure and only minimally uncomfortable distant date. WE ARE BROKE NOW! Medicare has been in the red since 2009. IIRC, they aren’t even collecting FICA anymore. Am I really the ONLY one paying attention in this country?
yep, all those pennies were spent long ago, and worthless paper is all thats in the trust fund...no FICA means 100% of those payouts are being made with borrowed money...
like using those citibank checks to pay the minimum on the discover card statement...
maybe the chicoms will offer us a low *introductory* rate on a new line of credit ???
the only *plan* that r&r are pushing...more of the same debt [death] spiral from DC...
Millions of them now work the minimum quarters on the books of their son's/daughter's small businesses to qualify - and then go right back to getting paid under the table when they do qualify. You can see this easily in the waiting rooms of most any SS office.
We owe now what our entire GDP is for a year now (approximately). That's like owing a years salary in credit card debt. Ask Dave Ramsey about that kind of debt and he'll tell you what to do. Stop running trillion dollar deficits, stop fraud and abuse in SSI and SSDI, and cut entitlement programs and the agencies that oversee them and there is a way out of the hole; a hard one, but not impossible. Stop spending money on anything that isn't necessary (the equivalent of 'roof', 'food', and 'utilities').
The problem is principally of removing the leeches from America's teats and making them work. Stop incentivizing their poverty by giving them EITC, etc. Stop allowing immigrants from being a burden on the entitlements in the US.
Also, they still collect FICA it is 4.2% vs the 6.2% they used to. This was Obama’s way of putting money in the pockets of his few voters that still actually work for a paycheck