Posted on 01/02/2011 10:24:47 AM PST by rabscuttle385
Seniors should be older before the receive Social Security and wealthy Americans should receive less benefits across the board, says Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
He made the argument in an interview on Sunday's Meet the Press, but it's a position Graham has advocated for on the stump in South Carolina, including a 2009 stop at The Citadel with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
"What I'm going to do is challenge this country to make some hard decisions," Graham said at the time, telling the crowd of cadets, Tea Partiers, and Graham supporters that they shouldn't give Congress a pass on the tough stuff.
(Excerpt) Read more at charlestoncitypaper.com ...
>If you believe in the forced redistribution of wealth, then you sure as he@@ aren’t a conservative.
If you believe in Social Security, you already believe in forced distribution of wealth. I’m just realistic enough that it will take a lot of work to kill the program. Even if we can’t kill it, at least making it something other than the fiscal train wreck it currently is passes for wisdom.
You’re just blindly advocating the coming wreck by expecting your share of the plunder.
Before that happens, I would support gutting ALL public employee pensions to SS levels, and cutting the federal government to not much more than Dept of Defense and State Dept. Eliminate Dept of Education, HEW, EEOC, ALL federal support for welfare of any kind, and THEN we can talk about cutting SS benefits for people who've paid in for all their lives.
The ENTIRETY of the Welfare State should be utterly eliminate, not just "managed".
That's the approach I support.
“What I’m going to do is challenge this country to make some hard decisions...”
No Social Security for Congressmen/Senators?
Grahamnasty just doesn’t get the equality thing.
That's because it's paying out money to some people FAR IN EXCESS of what they paid in. Match the payout to what was paid in by each individual and the problem would resolve itself.
If you and your employer paid in $100,000 over the course of your working years, then your benefit should consist of the government paying you back as if you had a $100,000 annuity purchased at the time you declared retirement. If you only paid in $10,000 over your working years, then your payout should be as if you had a $10,000 annuity. Plain and simple. And most of all, fair.
What I'm reading here by others is that those that were successful and saved for their own future should be punished so that the drones (mostly democrats) that worked a total of 5 years out of their lives should continue to benefit as if they had paid in 10 times the amount that they did.
That is slander.
I have never advocated for a tax increase and your ad hominem attacks resemble the Marxists you pretend to be opposed to.
You however advocate for continually rising SPENDING in the federal government rather than a principled, conservative approach.
Well then fix it or privatize it or individualize it or end it. Don't increase the redistribution beyond what it already is and call it a solution. Increasing the movement in the wrong direction is not going to correct the problem.
Don't give the commies any more. It's time to push back.
They may be through no fault of their own be wiped out and are too aged or sick to work any more. They will have to rely on SS like many do now.
And these folks who are just getting by on social security monthly checks are not leeches....you probably know many of them. They are responsible and proud aged people who are your relatives, friends and neighbors. You may be one of them some day.
Many on this thread really think they're NEVER going to get old and sick and perhaps penniless even if they were considered "wealthy" when they retired.
Leni
>If you and your employer paid in $100,000 over the course of your working years, then your benefit should consist of the government paying you back as if you had a $100,000 annuity purchased at the time you declared retirement. If you only paid in $10,000 over your working years, then your payout should be as if you had a $10,000 annuity. Plain and simple. And most of all, fair.
Good luck getting that through congress or past most voters. The AARP will be after you with torches and pitchforks.
But aside from that, do you think there really is some kind of ‘lockbox’ with the money it in for all the Boomers waiting to retire? I can assure you there is not. The fund is insolvent. The fund consists of IOUs from a government already hugely in the red.
>What I’m reading here by others is that those that were successful and saved for their own future should be punished so that the drones (mostly democrats) that worked a total of 5 years out of their lives should continue to benefit as if they had paid in 10 times the amount that they did.
The irony here is included in your own post. “Those that successful and saved for their own future” explains why Social Security shouldn’t really even exist. It also explains why means testing is about the only palatable starting step to trimming the program.
Me too. But we have to start somewhere. The two biggies are SS and Medicare. If we cannot even reduce those programs, how do we ever expect to be able to bring the Federal Government to heel?
And when we get around to cutting those benefits we cut them for everyone in proportion equal to their contributions.
We need to get away from this class warfare BS thats killing enterprise in this country.
Go ahead and impose "means testing" on people who are smarter than the bureaucrats.
If having retirement assets means you don't get SS, then the middle class just won't HAVE retirement assets that will trigger the "means testing". Assets will be transferred to kids, stashed overseas, whatever.
I advocate ending SS entirely. You want to continue it AND saddle productive people with a massive backdoor tax increase. Who’s the Marxist now?
Graham is correct.
>The class-warfare kool-ade drinkers here never take into account that seniors who may be considered “wealthy” at the time of retirement because they have what is considered by the commies as “wealth” (meaning a few investments or assets of one kind or another) may overnight be wiped out of their savings in one way or another....catastrophic circumstances, U.S. economy failure, devaluation of the dollar or bad inflation, or whatever.
>They may be through no fault of their own be wiped out and are too aged or sick to work any more. They will have to rely on SS like many do now.
It’s ironic that you claim that other’s are ‘class warfare kool-ade drinkers’ when you are the one trundling out the sob stories about need.
To counter your specious argument about the means tested rich getting investments wiped out, well if those investments all of a sudden go away, then they will again be eligible for Social Security. That’s what means testing is after all.
>And these folks who are just getting by on social security monthly checks are not leeches....you probably know many of them. They are responsible and proud aged people who are your relatives, friends and neighbors. You may be one of them some day.
I don’t recall labeling anyone a leech. In fact it’s the chap who’s against means testing (Meyer) who’s lecturing us on the ‘leeches’.
>Many on this thread really think they’re NEVER going to get old and sick and perhaps penniless even if they were considered “wealthy” when they retired.
Means testing isn’t something done once and then you’re forgotten. If you encounter hardship and can show need, you would be eligible again.
You better decide what you’re arguing about because you’re all over the map.
Don’t argue about ‘need’ when disputing means testing.
This is the Stupidest Political Move any so-called opponent to the Big Government Socialist Express (0bama) could consider.
This plays on the policy of means testing, once this becomes THE Policy of Choice then we can all expect that Political philosophy to extend for EVERYTHING the Government does.
AND Mr Graham, then 0bama will drive his Socialist Experiment right down the Middle Class Throat’s.
Means Test this and Means Test that...pretty soon all the Government will be doing is picking winners and losers 24/7.
Thanks to Lindsey Graham!!!
Hey how about just cutting useless waste FIRST AND ALWAYS you useless A-HOLE!!!!!!!
F off Graham, I have just decided to send a check to your GOP opponent when you run in 2 years.
How Stupid can a person get?
There's a bunch of SS money being drained off under Social Security Disability, to people under 65 who are "disabled" because of drug addiction, faked mental issues, or whatever. They need to be cut first.
>I advocate ending SS entirely. You want to continue it AND saddle productive people with a massive backdoor tax increase. Who’s the Marxist now?
Find me the votes to end Social Security cold turkey and we’ll talk. Since you won’t be able to, you’re just spouting off about pipe dreams.
In the meantime people will actually work on how to trim back the cost of the program and it’s level of support which is the only realistic way of eventually killing it.
“What I’m going to do is challenge this country to make some hard decisions,”
To compensate for the ones you and your self centered politicians have refused to make . . for DECADES
What arrogant POS
How about reducing the benefits for useless politicians? One term in office and they get full retirement benefits. Even our military can’t do that and they put their lives on the line everyday.
AND they will have the exact same MEDICAL benefits as we peasants....
after all that, pay everyone whatever they paid in over the years back, tax free....but then index if you must...those with mulitple govt pensions or fat payouts will get less if anything....
stop paying benefits to illegals...
immigrants MUST have prove their birth....no coming here claiming your 65 when you're only 58....
STOP the dissability scams....if you can work, you must work....even if you only work for small wages, SSDI could pay you a little to make you "whole"...
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