Posted on 03/24/2016 6:46:24 AM PDT by Hojczyk
Hillary Clinton’s Brussels response was basically boilerplate, calling for solidarity with Europe and playing chess with Trump to paint him as a greenhorn and hothead.
Bernie Sanders (whom I support and contribute to) had little to say, beyond conveying condolences to the Belgian people, because foreign affairs have unfortunately remained a sideline for him. Neither Sanders nor Martin O’Malley ever went after Hillary’s disastrous record as Secretary of State with the tenacity that they should have—a failure of strategy that has proved costly in the long run.
Trump may be raw, crude and uninformed, but he’s also smart, intuitive and a quick study who will presumably get up to passable speed as he assembles a brain trust over the coming months. Whether Trump can temper his shoot-from-the-hip impetuosity is another matter. There is a huge gap between the teeth-gnashing fulminations of the anti-Trump mainstream media and the perfectly reasonable Trump supporters whom I hear calling into radio talk shows.
The machinations of the old-guard GOP establishment to thwart Trump voters and subvert the primary process are an absolute disgrace. But it’s business as usual for tone-deaf party leaders who, barely more than a day after the discovery of Antonin Scalia’s corpse last month, stupidly proclaimed there would be no hearings for an Obama nominee to the Supreme Court.
Republicans need to wake up and realize that Trump’s triumph is not due to some drunken delusion by a benighted rabble but is a direct result of the proven weakness of their other candidates. Ted Cruz, the last one still standing, is bombastic, sanctimonious and coldly sharkish behind that forced smile.
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
Please see post #24. While there are many seniors with high incomes, they are not the majority that I misremembered.
Still, we must get Social Security spending under control if we are to get the budget under control.
Realistically, that means that we must stop the growth in Social Security benefits.
I think Cruz was dead the moment he blamed Trump for his supporters being attacked by Black Lives Matter.
Those “greedy Senior Social Security recipients” are, for the most part, just getting back the money they paid into the system over the course of their lifetime of labor. And, they didn’t have a choice, the gov’t confiscated their (my) money for the system.
“So, I’m greedy because I nearly worked myself to death all my life and had a chunk of my paycheck stolen every week at gunpoint that if I had been allowed to invest in a simple index fund would have made me a millionaire and would be mine to pass along to my heirs, but now I receive a pittance from the SS administration that goes poof the second I die, even if I die the next day after starting payments? That makes me greedy?”
No, what would make you greedy is an unwillingness to allow any reduction of proposed Social Security increases, no matter how much your income is.
We have to get Social Security spending under control.
Yes, Social Security was and is bad policy.
“Those “greedy Senior Social Security recipients” are, for the most part, just getting back the money they paid into the system over the course of their lifetime of labor.”
We are reaching that point, it appears. The primary beneficiaries of a Ponzi scheme are the first in.
But, we cannot maintain Social Security on its current course.
To be unwilling to stop the projected increases in Social Security is greedy.
“We’ll be sadistically trapped in an endless film noir, with Trump as Citizen Kane, Don Corleone and Scarface and Hillary as Norma Desmond, Mommie Dearest and the Wicked Witch of the West.”
Sophisticated, yes.
Not intelligent.
Says cutting things about people that are amusing to the junior-high-school bitchy girl in everyone.
Would laugh and dismiss the core beliefs of 99 percent of the rock-solid, basic, hardworking cops/engineers/working stiffs/health care workers/good guys and gals in this country.
She has utter contempt for conservatives and Christians, but loves Sanders and his chic atheist Socialist ways enough to contribute to him.
Were Sanders' Socialists to gain power, she and her flaky friends would be the first rounded up for the death camps.
Amazing that people think she is smart and cool.
I’ll name several....Iowa, Wisconsin, Nevada, Maine, Colorado, Ohio,and likely Pennsylvania, Florida and New Mexico.
That's the take away.
I’m a senior currently collecting SS. I find myself conflicted on the SS issue.
I agree with you insofar as SS has to be gotten under control, and too many of us seniors whine endlessly, as if it is the ONLY government program that should be paid attention to and can’t be touched. However, IIRC, there’s been only one modest increase in the past 6 or 7 years. During that time other costs of living have increased so the lower end of the economic spectrum has suffered.
Means testing is often brought up but looked at objectively it’s absolutely unfair. If X has a large salary, s/he is taxed at a higher rate and has more FICA withheld. Yet, when time comes to collect SS, s/he is punished again because s/he collects less because he earned too much?
I’ve read a long time ago that our payments into SS are paid back in 4-5 years. Can’t guarantee that’s true or not. Yes, we could have (theoretically) taken the same FICA withdrawal amount and invested those funds at our own discretion, but most of us would have found ourselves at 60+ with not much remaining in that investment. What were ‘blue chip’ stocks in our youth are gone, worthless or near worthless. In that case, what options would be available? Full bore welfare?
Not sure what the solution might be, but I do know that none of my 30-something adult children expect to collect a dime from SS.
You are correct. Life is unfair.
The enablers of the runaway Ponzi scheme we call Social Security are mostly dead and cannot be held accountable.
We have to deal with the mess that they made. It is classic something for nothing “democracy” peddled as an “insurance” scheme.
A system where the increase in benefits are reduced, and probably means tested, is certainly “unfair”. But there is no way to get out of the current insanity that we are in that is completely “fair”. Life is not fair.
I believe we can do it in a way such that it is not catastrophic. That may be the best we can hope for.
The system needs to be fixed, but to characterize those who had their earnings confiscated and are trying to get the money back as greedy, is just wrong.
I have a better idea: rather than cutting into a system that working people have paid into for generations, how about we STOP DEAD all welfare programs that facilitate underclass women having lots of babies they cannot afford to feed, and who will most likely grow up to expand the underclass further?
When no underclass or illegal immigrant is getting government funding, THEN let's talk about SS.
It is a scam for people who pay in there whole lives and die before 62
“No, what would make you greedy is an unwillingness to allow any reduction of proposed Social Security increases, no matter how much your income is.”
So you’re a Marxist, then. Steal from me who earned it and then GIVE it to others who didn’t earn it. So my money gets stolen TWICE from me at gunpoint. Once when they steal it from my paycheck, with promises to give a little bit back to me right before I die, and then they break that promise and say, “Sorry, we’re gonna give your money to other people who didn’t work hard like you did. Sorry.”
They should set up accounts where you own it
The money is invested in a group of funds and you cannot touch it till you retire
You can pass it on to someone if you die
Forced saving
So how do we characterize people who have greater than average wealth, who insist that those with less money pay them entitlements?
That is the fact of a great many Social Security recipients. The money they put into the system was spent immediately.
Yes the money was part of a Ponzi Scheme. Yes, many are victims of that scheme. But so are the people who had no say in the system that are being destroyed by the taxes and spending that it requires.
But this is what happens in “democracy” where the majority demands that more and more of limited resources be given to them. It is unsustainable.
“The day Congress declares a major reduction in their salaries and the $millions they get in perks and benefits EVERY YEAR, I might consider acquiescing to a SS cut.
Until that day, go suck eggs!”
You won’t have me disagreeing with considerable cuts most places.
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