Posted on 01/06/2013 4:29:26 AM PST by Alas Babylon!
The Talk Shows
January 6th, 2013
Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows:
FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Reps. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio; Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Angus King, a Maine independent; Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif.; Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, leaders of President Barack Obamas now-defunct deficit commission.
FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. McConnell; Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn.; Reps. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Mike Kelly, R-Pa., Rick Nolan, D-Minn., and Matt Salmon, R-Ariz.
THIS WEEK (ABC): Sens. McConnell and Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D.; Reps. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, and Tom Cotton, R-Ark.
STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Heitkamp; Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C.
Caved to Obama on tax increased, but failed to stop gutting of the military through sequestration taking place in March (military is 18% of the budget, yet takes 50% of the cuts)
Failed to initiate ANY entitlement reform at all (entitlements bankrupting the nation)
Not fighting new Obama "gun control" proposals that will instantly lead to millions of Americans becoming over night felons subject to fascist searches, prison terms, and tyranny
Providing zero leadership on the great moral struggles of our age (abortion and homosexuality)
When the debt ceiling/continuing resolution/sequestration TRIPLE CLIFF happens in March, I fully expect these two to fold like a cheap tent. Do you know what Obama did during that last debt ceiling standoff?
He threatened to withhold people's Social Security direct deposit checks the next week, despite Congress saying they would fund those.
That's ALL it took. And that is all it will take for the GOP to fold again.
I don’t know what GOTV is, but it sounds like a method and not a message. There is not one specific action step mentioned anywhere in the entire essay. Is replacing secularism with God based policy and philosophy a good thing? Absolutely, so how do you go about accomplishing that change? You say “we have an entire program then” but you never outline what that program is. This essay sounds more like a mission statement or an outline of goals than an action plan. I am not criticizing the mission or the goals, but I am eager to hear more specifics.
I admire your optimism but you can’t “win” an election if the two choices are hard leftists and euro/Canadian style “conservatives”. It’s over, sadly.
My manual is 18 pages and not completed yet. Until the Party admits it has a problem and needs to go a new bolder direction there is no fixing it. GOTV means Get Out The Vote, something we are terrible at.
Sounds like I should update my manual and get it out. The first step is prayer and the rest becomes easier. What we found works.
Pray for America
Gee, I think that is exactly what I said? The point is we can elect Conservatives as opposed to what the County Club thinks. Why do you think they are trying to kick me out of the Party? This is a threat to the Secular Socialists in our Party.
This has been going around via email (below). I wrote back to the person who sent it to me as being the perfect argument for privatizing social security...
BENEFIT CHECK OR ENTITLEMENT? I PAID INTO THE SOCIAL
SECURITY INSURANCE PROGRAM FOR NEARLY SEVENTY YEARS!!!
SOCIAL SECURITY NOW CALLED ‘FEDERAL BENEFIT PAYMENT/ENTITLEMENT
Have you noticed, your Social Security check is now referred to as a “Federal Benefit Payment”? I’ll be part of the one percent to forward this. I am forwarding it because it touches a nerve in me, and I hope it will in you.
Please keep passing it on until everyone in our country has read it.
The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a “Federal Benefit Payment.” This isn’t a benefit - its earned income! Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did
too. It totaled 15% of our income before taxes. If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that’s close to $180,000 invested in Social Security.
If you calculate the future value of your monthly investment in social security ($375/month, including both your and your employer’s contributions) at a meager 1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 40 years of working you’d have more than $1.3+ million dollars saved! This is your personal investment.
Upon retirement, if you took out only 3% per year, you’d receive $39,318 per year, or $3,277 per month.
That’s almost three times more than today’s average Social Security benefit of $1,230 per month, according to the Social Security Administration (Google it - it’s a fact).
And your retirement fund would last more than 33 years (until you’re 98 if you retire at age 65). I can only imagine how much better most average-income people could live in retirement if our government had just invested our money in low-risk interest-earning accounts.
Instead, the folks in Washington pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madoff ever did. They took our money and used it elsewhere. They “forgot” that it was OUR money they were taking. They didn’t have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them. And they didn’t pay interest on the debt they assumed. And recently, they’ve told us that the money won’t support us for very much longer. But is it our fault they misused our investments?
And now, to add insult to injury, they’re calling it a “benefit,” as if we never worked to earn every penny of it.
Just because they “borrowed” the money, doesn’t mean that our investments were a charity!
Let’s take a stand. We have earned our right to Social Security and Medicare. Demand that our legislators bring some sense into our government - Find a way to keep Social Security and Medicare going, for the sake of that 92% of our population who need it.
Then call it what it is: Our Earned Retirement Income.
Great catch Cheerio. And that's exactly what is happening. Gutting obamacare and telling us to take a pill when we get really sick. Its all about taking our last dime and spending it on amnesty to provide an endless supply of new rat voters forever.
About $2.7 trillion, which is the balance in the SSTF. Of the $16.4 trillion national debt, about $11.4 trillion is publicly held, i.e., is owed to foreign and domestic investors and the Federal Reserve, which buys up treasuries in order to drag down interest rates through quantitative easing and $5 trillion to the Social Security Trust Fund and federal pension systems under "Intragovernmental Holdings."
None of it. Its the only program that is still in the black despite continual raids on it by the government spending of DC politicians .
Not so. SS is a pay as you go program, i.e., today's workers pay for today's retirees, has been running in the red since 2010 and will continue to do so permanently.
Source: CBO Combined OASDI Trust Funds; January 2011 Baseline 26 Jan 2011. Note: See Primary Surplus line (which is negative, indicating a deficit)
Matters are even worse than this chart shows. In December, Congress passed a Social Security tax reduction. Workers are temporarily paying 2 percentage points less, from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent, in Social Security payroll taxes this calendar year. Since the government is making up the shortfall out of general revenues, CBOs deficit projections for the trust funds do not include that. But CBOs figures predict that the payroll tax holiday will cost the governments general fund $85 billion in this fiscal year and $29 billion in fiscal year 2012 (which starts Oct.1, 2011.) Since every dollar of that will have to be borrowed, the combined effect of the tax holiday and the annual deficits will amount to a $130 billion addition to the federal deficit in the current fiscal year, and $59 billion in fiscal 2012.
Social Security has passed a tipping point. For years it generated more revenue than it consumed, holding down the overall federal deficit and allowing Congress to spend more freely for other things. But those days are gone. Rather than lessening the federal deficit, Social Security has at last as long predicted become a drag on the governments overall finances.
As recently as October, CBO was projecting that it would be 2016 before outlays regularly exceed revenues. But Social Securitys fiscal troubles are more severe than was thought, and the latest projections show the permanent deficits started several years ahead of earlier predictions.
Dont be confused by the fact that the trust funds are projected to continue growing for several more years. Thats because Treasury must still credit interest payments to the funds on the borrowings from earlier years. But unless taxes are increased or other spending is cut severely, the government will have to borrow from the public to pay the interest that it owes to the trust funds.
And dont be misled by those who say the system can pay full benefits until about 2037 without making any changes to the law. Thats true, but does not change the fact that Social Security taxes no longer cover those benefits. The government is now borrowing money to pay them, and will do so every year for the foreseeable future. And keep in mind, if nothing is done, when those trust funds are exhausted, benefits would have to be cut by 22 percent in 2037, and more each year after that, according to the most recent report of the systems trustees. By 2084, the system will generate only enough revenue to pay for 75 percent of promised benefit levels.
Doesn't get any better than this. Yard signs are the equivalent of mini-billboards. One of the most effective means of advertising ever developed. If you question their value price some out some time especially in major metro areas.
Brilliant once more bray!
I am one who expected the influence of Old Media to diminish over the last several election cycles, but it hasn't happened, or at least not to the point that neuters them.
The election was won, IMHO, with millions of dollars and paid volunteers (full-time, 4 years)working in swing states, with liberal voting laws that allowed the volunteers to personally identify, one-on-one, corral voters and/or bribe them for their democratic vote, and literally usher them to the polls, or mail their absentee ballot. Add the fraudulent votes harvested from the obit sections. That's one issue.
If low information voters are another issue I'd suggest this attack on the media and its bias:
Many of us, from Rush on down, have been wondering how to combat media bias. Media ad buys may be a tactic to explore.
Pick an issue: Sandy Hook and guns. Run a reasonably financed national ad campaign briefly on the alphabets (and major cable ) Reinforce much less expensively thereafter on the internet. Make our counterpoint effectively and pointedly shiv the media at the same time for their biased coverage of the issue.
Make our point far and wide, and undermine the liberal media. Repeat as the budget crisis reaches decision time. Repeat when Republicans are accused of a war on women. Repeat Benghazi. Repeat debt ceiling. Repeat taxes.
Finance it with contributions from us and every soul fed up with the crap we've seen for 4 years; the Heritage Foundation type organizations, NRO, NRA, Weekly Standard, Newt's Solutions group, the RNC, Sherman Adelson types, Mitt Romney, Steve Wynn. Hot button issues would likely raise lots of cash.
A couple million bucks judicially spent could begin to raise the awareness of the low information voter, which, IMHO, is the goal. Prominent exposure would certainly ignite a media debate which we could then win armed with facts.
The voting information is all available at your state secretary of state (or elections) office or usually on-line.
Gotta disagree.
Boehner really had little wiggle room.
What he got was acknowledgment that the Bush tax cuts were a good thing all along and he got 98% of taxpayers a more permanent tax cut. He actually forced the dems to view the Bush cuts as now a good thing instead of just one more thing they demonize.
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-25/business/36015725_1_bush-tax-tax-cuts-tax-rates
The above from the “Washington Post” of all places, is just one of many articles showing the dichotomy of now approving of tax cuts they once demonized.
Here’s a cut from the piece:
“President Obama has put the extension of the tax cuts for most Americans at the top of his domestic agenda, a remarkable turnaround for Democrats, who had staunchly opposed the tax breaks when they were written into law about a decade ago.”
Its hard not to see this as about the best we could have got from the cards we had to play.
Consider this, a person could pay into SS for 50 years, die the day before he turns 67 and not receive one cent from SS aside from a small burial allowance. His estate would receive nothing if he wasn't married or had dependent children. SS is an insurance scheme, not a pension scheme. And Congress can change the benefits at any time.
Check out brays posts # 57 and 58. He should answer most of your questions there.
Great post and there are ways to attract the low information voters although many of them are simply bought by the left with our money of course.
You can dumb down stuff into sound bites. Hope and change, forward,etc. sometimes it works sometimes not.
Brilliant stuff kabar. I have long thought that one immediate solution is to bump up the eligibility age to 70.
People on SS today will receive far more in benefits than they made in contributions. Why SS is a Ponzi scheme
The current FICA payment is 6.2% each for the employee and employer or 12.4%. This rate has been in effect since 1990. The SS rates have been changed many times since its inception.
The SS benefit is not computed on the basis of contributions.
"Social Security benefits are based on your lifetime earnings. Your actual earnings are adjusted or indexed to account for changes in average wages since the year the earnings were received. Then Social Security calculates your average indexed monthly earnings during the 35 years in which you earned the most. We apply a formula to these earnings and arrive at your basic benefit, or primary insurance amount (PIA). This is how much you would receive at your full retirement age 65 or older, depending on your date of birth."
You "earned" it with a big taxpayer subsidy and putting the tab on your children and grandchildren.
This graph shows that the average man and woman (average defined in the study as average income over their working lives and living to the average life expectancy) who start receiving benefits in 2010 get over 3 times more in benefits than they pay in to the system! Of importance, the study accounts for inflation by calculating all past taxes and future payments in 2010 dollars to provide an accurate comparison. If the notion that Medicare recipients are simply "getting back what they paid in" is false then where is the money coming from? Simply, the excess received is being borrowed from younger generations and the cost is more than we can bear.
The premiums collected for Medicare Parts B and D pay for only 25% of the costs for those programs. By law, the General Fund must pay the other 75%. In FY 2011 this amounted to $222 billion. These costs will continue to increase as 10,000 people a day retire for the next 20 years, which will double our population over 65. It is why Medicare will consume the entire federal budget if not reformed.
Thats why the Simple Macroeconomics of: The More Money Taken Out of the Private Sector, The Smaller the Private Sector, just doesnt Matter in the Democrats Legislation and Regulation.
Thats also why its just fine if Gore sells before tax rates are expected to increase and Kerry can dock his yacht in another state to avoid paying higher taxes. They've already got their wealth and too bad for everyone else who doesn't, go get an education and join the middle class.
SS is actually pretty easy to resolve. Medicare is the real problem and the hardest to solve.
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