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Warren’s Profligate Sop to Seniors
Wall Street Journal ^ | September 24, 2019 | John F. Cogan

Posted on 09/25/2019 7:39:03 AM PDT by karpov

It’s a strange campaign season, loaded with fantastical promises of government handouts for health care, college and even a guaranteed national income. But Sen. Elizabeth Warren ’s Social Security plan takes the cake. With trillion-dollar federal budget deficits and Social Security heading for bankruptcy, Ms. Warren proposes to give every current and future Social Security recipient an additional $2,400 a year. She plans to finance her proposal, which would cost more than $150 billion annually, with a 14.8% tax on high-income individuals. If Franklin D. Roosevelt were alive, he’d surely wonder why anyone calling herself a Democrat would want to turn Social Security, his signature creation, into another unearned entitlement program.

Ms. Warren says she wants to lift senior citizens out of poverty, and her plan includes several provisions that would direct assistance toward low-income seniors. But the plan’s main component is its $2,400 permanent annual benefit increase. It’s hard to imagine a costlier and less efficient means of achieving her goal. Only 7% of 46 million senior citizens who receive Social Security live below the poverty line. So the majority of Ms. Warren’s proposed Social Security bonanza would go to middle- and upper-income seniors. About $51 billion would go to the 21 million seniors who are in the top half of the U.S. income distribution. Seniors with income in the top 20% would receive $17 billion; more than twice what would go to seniors in poverty.

I estimate that the $2,400 Social Security handout will lift above the poverty line only about 1.6 million seniors who are currently living below it. The plan would cost taxpayers about $70,000 for each senior citizen lifted out of poverty. Limiting assistance to impoverished elderly Social Security recipients [...] would cost taxpayers far less

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: socialsecurity; taxtherich; warren; warren2020; warrenss
The author mentions means-tested Social Security benefit increases, but that creates a disincentive for people to save during their working years.
1 posted on 09/25/2019 7:39:03 AM PDT by karpov
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To: karpov

Hey Warren, how about we give you $20 to go see a movie and get lost??? Just go away....quietly if you can.


2 posted on 09/25/2019 7:43:39 AM PDT by EagleUSA
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To: karpov
The demonic-rats should replace the $13.4T they removed form SS.
3 posted on 09/25/2019 7:43:45 AM PDT by mountainlion (Live well for those that did not make it back.)
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To: karpov

Why not increase the monthly payment to $2000 and be done with it?


4 posted on 09/25/2019 7:43:57 AM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: karpov

They are going to buy as many votes as humanly possible.

Look for EVERYBODY to be promised loan forgiveness, benefit increases and other goodies.


5 posted on 09/25/2019 7:44:39 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog (Patrick Henry would have been an anti-vaxxer.)
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To: Buckeye McFrog

Vote Santa Claus. Its hard to say no to freebies.


6 posted on 09/25/2019 7:46:43 AM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: karpov

Only $2,400? Why not $24,000? Or More? At the next Donkey debate they could have an auction.


7 posted on 09/25/2019 7:51:30 AM PDT by RightGeek (FUBO and the donkey you rode in on)
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To: karpov

Another day, another looter.

https://usdebtclock.org

DISMANTLE CFPB, squaw flailing arms.

https://www.usa.gov/federal-agencies/


8 posted on 09/25/2019 7:51:59 AM PDT by PGalt
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To: All

They should return the SS to private funds and take it out of the general. It’s nothing more than a pile of IOUs at this point. I’ve got 3 more years and i’ll be retiring, but i’m not counting on SS to live on. Nobody should!


9 posted on 09/25/2019 8:06:42 AM PDT by gimme1ibertee (Yeah, let's GO THERE. I'm ready...)
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To: EagleUSA

heard about her new book?

‘Fleecing colleges and funds by
posing as an Indian FOR DUMMIES’
- Pandering Gray Beaver


10 posted on 09/25/2019 8:07:40 AM PDT by Diogenesis ( WWG1WGA)
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To: karpov

Hey, Gray Racid Beaver...how about you and your demonrats give back the $13 plus Trillion you all have stolen from Social Security first?


11 posted on 09/25/2019 8:18:54 AM PDT by WKUHilltopper
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To: goldstategop
Vote Santa Claus. Its hard to say no to freebies.

The gibmedats have us outnumbered. The Dems problem is that they're too lazy to get off the couch.


12 posted on 09/25/2019 8:20:58 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog (Patrick Henry would have been an anti-vaxxer.)
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To: Buckeye McFrog
Ms. Warren proposes to give every current and future Social Security recipient an additional $2,400 a year.

I remember when you could buy a vote in Chicago for a 5 cent cigar and a beer.

13 posted on 09/25/2019 8:28:43 AM PDT by Don Corleone (Nothing makes the delusional more furious than truth.)
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To: karpov

I believe there are laws against buying votes.


14 posted on 09/25/2019 8:33:50 AM PDT by Brian Griffin
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To: goldstategop

It just might work! It’s a numbers game. Not that many rich people and a whole lot of old people and college kids in deep debt.


15 posted on 09/25/2019 9:11:09 AM PDT by refermech
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To: goldstategop

“Why not increase the monthly payment to $2000 and be done with it?”

Because the system is going broke as it is due to liberal raids for other programs like healthcare. Raising it would just speed the insolubility of the system up.

She’s talking about pulling seniors out of poverty when only 7% of the US seniors actually are involved. If she wants to do some good, don’t fish for more money, make the money you have now worth more. This is why we were better off when the DOW was at 4000 and now it is at almost 27,000. But the cost of things has inflated to match the market. And a fixed income to determine poverty level with a fluctuating market is inconsistent. To make it consistent, they will have to raise the payments at each flex like a variable mortgage. And since you can’t bleed a turnip, where is the money going to come from? And at that point we are in wealth redistribution and the money gets tightened.

All our gains over the last year and a half will go down the toilet and the efforts of the GOP will be shot in the foot. And we will be just as broke, again, as we were under Obama and getting worse.

rwood


16 posted on 09/25/2019 10:11:00 AM PDT by Redwood71
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