I hope you will make a good use of it.
If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it."
~John Adams
please click the pic
Help support and sustain the most conservative online site!
Posted on 07/03/2014 11:57:08 PM PDT by quesney
Obamacare has pushed us over the entitlements tipping point. In 2011 some 49.2 percent of U.S. households received benefits from one or more government programs—about 151 million out of an estimated 306.8 million Americans—according to U.S. Census Bureau data released last October.
Currently, around 6 million to 7 million Americans who have signed up for Obamacare are receiving taxpayer-provided subsidies (though the administration’s numbers cannot be trusted, it’s all we have to work with). There are another 3 million who have signed up for Medicaid.
That means some 10 million Americans—or a total of about 161 million—are now getting government subsidies (though the final number might be somewhat lower since some may have been receiving benefits already).
Thus, perhaps 52 percent of U.S. households—more than half—now receive benefits from the government, thanks to President Obama. And Mr. Entitlement is just getting started. If Obamacare is not repealed millions more will join the swelling rolls of those dependent on government handouts.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Oh, I get it, and I’ve gotten it for sixty-four years now. Sure, the payroll tax that was seized from me and my employers for 40+ years was “stolen.” Also “stolen” was all the property taxes, income taxes, sales taxes, etc., etc. from ALL levels of government. It was stolen and used by the political class to buy votes. And so it has been since the invention of the thing called “government.”
But logic dictates that ANYONE who works for the government (as defined by an outlay of labor, or something of value) and expects a government check in return, has no more call on the federal treasury than a Social Security recipient who also put up something of value (money).
...while being forced to aggrandize benevolent government redistribution.
~John Adams
please click the pic
Help support and sustain the most conservative online site!
Once soetoro finishes with his "children's crusade" there will be millions more in the wagon being pulled by an ever decreasing productive class.
Your resentment toward the payroll tax is understandable. I resented having to pay the nearly $200 thousand combined total (employer/employee) in payroll taxes over my working career. Also resented was the tax on “income” that was levied against my earnings. I happen to personally believe that income taxes are inherently immoral.
But the fact remains that as the law now stands, I have a claim against the federal treasury, as do government employees, military servicemen, and people who loaned the government money (bondholders). I didn’t write the SS law, and had I been alive in 1934, I would have opposed creation of the thing.
So the question becomes who do you stiff first? That is the argument.
It is a benefit.
When I have money put into my 401K by my employer, it is called... a benefit. When times get tough, and the employer cuts that program (which is happening a lot and will probably happen to me), that’s life. It was a benefit, not a death pact. I have been making other plans outside of any benefit program because quite honestly I don’t trust the government or corporations to give a rats rear end about me.
SS is a benefit. It is money stolen from workers with a limp wristed promise. It represents the largest portion of the budget deficit. It will change, it will be cut, and it will cause massive pain.
I will never retire. Never. I will have to work to the day I die in order to pay off those who choose to not work. So be it. However, if it comes to making my children starve in order to fund a second adolescence for government workers and retiree’s, I will vote to cut them off. I will save my own first.
I am screwed. I have to pay for your benefits. I will not live nearly as long as my parents did. I will never be able to retire to some nice little condo on the beach and have Uncle Sam pick up the tab for my health care. I will, because I have little choice, have to be responsible for myself.
Eloquent. What a mess.
This current crop of seniors has an easy answer to that question - the young people who are currently working should be stiffed first.
And, each day, we have between 10,000 and 11,000 people celebrating their 65th birthday - each day.
And, they vote.
I have a suggestion as to who to stiff first.
1.) SS Disability. Let’s make absolutely sure that those who collect really cannot work.
2.) Government Employees. Do we really need as many government employees as we now have?
3.) Gold-Plated Government Medical Plans, all taxpayer-funded, of course. Let them deal with Medicaire, just like all the rest of us.
4.) Gold-plated Government Retirements. ALL government employees have to work to 62 minimum before retirement, just like civilians. Also, defined contribution plans, instead of the taxpayer-funded pensions.
After ALL OF THE ABOVE are done, then I say we talk about SS.
I have “donated” about $200,000 to SS and Medicare during my Lifetime. My Wife has “donated” another $100,000 or so.
To this day I still “donate” to SS an Medicare.
Our Financial Advisor did an analysis and estimated that consistent straight line Investing of those Funds for 45 Years would build a Nest Egg of about $3,000,000 or more.
The reality of course is that all that money was never Invested, it was just pissed away. All I have is a promise, if you can call it that, of getting some of it back in small Monthly Installments.
Since I have been battling Leukemia for the past nine years and am currently in the Middle of my Third Chemo Regimen, the odds of me collecting even a “smidgen” of the money confiscated by the Federal Government are slim at best.
The best thing that could happen to keep the Ponzi scheme going is for me to succumb to my Disease before I reach my 62nd Birthday. That way some Old Liberal Democrat can enjoy the fruits of my Labor.
With that plan, there's no risk of us ever talking about SS. You're making my point.
However, when this particularly large generation of grasping seniors finally dies off and quits squeezing younger Americans, the latter may be so sick of government that they may appreciate small government more than their parents. But, for right now, there's an overabundance of senior voters and they have themselves an ATM machine. And, no politician has the nerve to object.
With that plan, there's no risk of us ever talking about SS. You're making my point.
However, when this particularly large generation of grasping seniors finally dies off and quits squeezing younger Americans, the latter may be so sick of government that they may appreciate small government more than their parents. But, for right now, there's an overabundance of senior voters and they have themselves an ATM machine. And, no politician has the nerve to object.
I find the more one is given a check by the govt the more one tends to keep voting for that govt.....thus, the handouts but elections....
once you are getting it, and then told it'll be reduced, look for the howling from the people....look for the protests....lool for the "poor me's"....
its just natural..human nature...to want stuff no matter what the cost to the rest of the nation...
my husband receives a pension guarentee check...not much...and an air guard retirement check...soon he'll get a SS check....then I'll get mine.....
lets face it....WE'RE INVESTED in the crooked govt. like it or not...
Didn’t you get the Memo?
Romney would have been EXACTLY like Obama.
He would be ignoring the Constitution, losing Iraq and Afghanistan, putting more Wise Latina’s and Lesbians (one in the same?) SCOTUS, promoting Transgender’s in the Military, letting the Southern Border evaporate and a myriad of other Obamaunist like Doctrines.
It’s time to get your mind right. /s
Now back to the topic at hand, the Country is dead broke.
So it is MY fault that you are saddled with payroll taxes? I should just forgo my legitimate and legal claim because you asked me to?
Why not direct your ire to all the government deadheads on the payroll? Or the government retirees who get free medical care for life and fat pensions? Why don’t you ask them for relief?
Why is my claim for payment in return for something of value any less legitimate than any other claimants?
Invested is not the correct term. It is involuntary servitude, aka slavery. Income taxes (and payroll taxes are taxes upon income) are slavery.
If the classic definition of slavery is work with no self-reward, then by definition a 100% tax rate is slavery. Any lesser percentage is merely a matter of degree.
I have the same question about SS “benefits”. As I see it, for those who have paid into the system most of their adult working lives, it is an account payable for government. It is not a government benefit.”
They do like to lump SS in as an entitlement when people have paid into it all their lives. And we have a huge baby boom generation who is collecting it now with the smaller X generation working and paying in. And then the often unemployed millenials.
There are a huge amount of people taking benefits such as Medicaid and others, but the military retirements and SS should not be lumped into the same group.
Well, actually, I don't want to personalize the discussion at all, but I guess I should tell you that I don't pay any payroll taxes anymore. I have arranged my personal affairs such that none of my income is earned income now. I will be eligible for SS myself soon, but I won't be needing it and don't plan on taking it.
And, no, I'm not asking you to forgo any of your claims. Instead, I'm hoping that the people of this country come to their senses and either adjust your claims consistent with the needs of those who are working in this country or, in the alternative, terminate the program as being unconstitutional from its inception.
I am a realist. I don't expect much to change soon given the glut of voting seniors that we have right now. But, like I said, time is on the side of our younger Americans - unless our seniors can somehow figure out a way to vote their way out of dying.
Tick tock.
And about 4 million receive military or railroad retirement board pensions. I wouldn't include those in with the takers as well.
Ok,
As I have said, I am screwed. Because of the tantrums of elderly adolescents, I will have to die working in order to fund the second childhood of many who should have known better.
So be it.
But if you (so God help) keep it up and demand food from my table that is going to feed my children to fund it, then there will be problems.
We are heading for a very interesting time. In the 1950’s, a great many people left the work force in order to make way for the Boomers. They did so in order to sacrifice for the new generation, a noble thing. Now we have people demanding that we sacrifice the new generations in order to fund their retirement.
How long will that work out? We have a generation of kids (actually adults in their 20’s) that have yet to be able to enter the work force. I have a job, many of them do not. How long do you think this game will go one?
I expect you honestly don’t care. You want your government benifit, because you were lied to and want it to be made good. I understand.
But the way society is going now, we have to stop be adolescents and be adults. I was promised a great many things, both spoken word and by contract. Reality hit, and those were not fulfilled. In the breach of contract case, there was literally nothing I could do short of suing which for a bankrupt company would have been futile (they had much greater issues than me).
That is the situation we are in. The US is bankrupt. We are hiring mercs (PMC’s) to fight our wars, police our streets, because the benefit packages are so high. We are cutting back on infrastructure projects because the money that should have gone there was looted for all sorts of things.
This is how civilizations die. If we don’t want to go away, we all are going to have to face pain.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
