In GOP war on Social Security, only Trump gets it

MySanAntonio ^ | Aug 18 2015 | Paul Krugman

[WilliamIII]

Republican presidential candidates. who have had to seek contributions from a handful of wealthy contributors, want to cut Social Security. Average Americans love the program; the superwealthy don’t.

Something strange is happening in the Republican primary — something strange, that is, besides the Trump phenomenon. For some reason, just about all the leading candidates other than The Donald have taken a deeply unpopular position, a known political loser, on a major domestic policy issue. And it’s interesting to ask why. The issue in question is the future of Social Security, which turned 80 last week. The retirement program is, of course, both extremely popular and a long-term target of conservatives, who want to kill it precisely because its popularity helps legitimize government action in general. As the right-wing activist Stephen Moore (now chief economist of the Heritage Foundation) once declared, Social Security is “the soft underbelly of the welfare state”; “jab your spear through that” and you can undermine the whole thing. But that was a decade ago, during former President George W. Bush’s attempt to privatize the program, and what Bush learned was that the underbelly wasn’t that soft after all. Despite the political momentum from the GOP’s victory in the 2004 election, despite support from much of the media establishment, the assault on Social Security crashed and burned. Voters, it turns out, like Social Security as it is and don’t want it cut.

[berdie]

I whole heartedly agree!!

[RobbyS]

70 is just about the same as 65 was back in 1935. As written, the act provided only for widows, orphans, cripples, and the truly destitute. Somewhere along the way, the middle class started thinking of it as a retirement fund. Once the Middle Class stopped reproducing at a replacement level, the immigrants started to come into the country to fill more and more jobs.

[ChildOfThe60s]

Bush never tried to privatize. The proposal was to “allow” us(mighty generous of them), the hoi polloi to invest 2% of our SS taxes as we choose. 2%. 2 effin percent. That’s hardly privatizing.

Not that economic facts ever got in the way of Paul “we need more debt” Krugman.

[Yosemitest]

Paul Krugman ,columnist for the New York Times, wrote:

" ... The retirement program is, of course, both extremely popular and a long-term target of conservatives, who want to kill it
precisely because its popularity helps legitimize government action in general.
As the right-wing activist Stephen Moore (now chief economist of the Heritage Foundation) once declared,
Social Security is “the soft underbelly of the welfare state”; “jab your spear through that” and you can undermine the whole thing.

But that was a decade ago, during former President George W. Bush’s attempt to privatize the program, and what Bush learned was that the underbelly wasn’t that soft after all.
Despite the political momentum from the GOP’s victory in the 2004 election, despite support from much of the media establishment, the assault on Social Security crashed and burned.
Voters, it turns out, like Social Security as it is and don’t want it cut.

Mixing LIES with truth is an often used tactic of DemocRATS.
If it was really so popular, the WHY is Galveston Texas still refusing to give up their private retirement system, that they had to option to set up and 'opt out' of Social Security ?

The government raiding of the fictions 'Lock Box' is WHY the Social Security Trust Fund is in such terrible shape.

But let's REMEMBER WHO BROKE the Social Security System !

Only idiots and the evil voted for Obama, or ANY of the Democrats.
They've lied to us, constantly, and really are "Collapsing the System".
And now, these "Useful IDIOTS" who voted for them, are buying the lies that "Obamacare was designed to work." ?
It was designed to fail from the start.
THEN ... THEY GO TO THE "SINGLE-PAYER SYSTEM".

Flashback: Obama's Campaign to Transition to Single Payer Health Care (VIDEO)


obama master plan on health careover the years in his own words--SINGLE PAYER!!! ( 3:38 )

They've been sucking our wallets dry for over four years now on the "Obamacare" LIE.
AND NOW THEY WANT MORE TAXES ?
Our Founding Fathers would have hung them already!

Lets review:

Who was it that cut future funding for Medicare by $575 billion?

...the president and the Democratic Party successfully bamboozle voters... The 2012 election could turn on this falsehood.
The truth is that the Obama health law reduces future funding for Medicare by $575 billion over the next 10 years ...

Mr. Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius frequently make that false claim.
Indeed, even Medicare's mailings to seniors repeat the claim that reducing spending on Medicare will make it more financially secure for future years.
The fact is that Mr. Obama's law raids Medicare.

Who was it that moved Medicare Trust Funds out of the "trust box" and into the General Revenue, replacing them with Government I.O.U.s?
"In early 1968 President Lyndon Johnson [DEMOCRAT] made a change in the budget presentation by including Social Security and all other trust funds in a"unified budget." "

Who was it that expanded Medicare and Medicaid to cover many, many more people than it was originally designed to cover?

The History of Medicare

In 1965, the Social Security Act established both Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare was a responsibility of the Social Security Administration (SSA), while Federal assistance to the State Medicaid programs was administered by the Social and Rehabilitation Service (SRS). SSA and SRS were agencies in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). In 1977, the Health Care Financing Administration was created under HEW to effectively coordinate Medicare and Medicaid. In 1980 HEW was divided into the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The first U.S. President to propose a prepaid health insurance plan was Harry S. Truman [DEMOCRAT]. On November 19, 1945, in a special message to Congress, President Truman outlined a comprehensive, prepaid medical insurance plan for all people through the Social Security system. The plan included doctors and hospitals, and nursing, laboratory, and dental services; it was dubbed "National Health Insurance." Furthermore, medical insurance benefits for needy people were to be financed from Federal revenues.

Over the years, lawmakers narrowed the field of health insurance recipients largely to social security beneficiaries. A national survey found that only 56 percent of those 65 years of age or older had health insurance. President John F. Kennedy [DEMOCRAT] pressed legislators for health insurance for the aged. However, it wasn't until 1965 that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed H.R. 6675 (The Social Security Act of 1965; PL 89-97) to provide health insurance for the elderly and the poor.

On July 30, 1965, President Johnson signed the Medicare and Medicaid Bill (Title XVIII and Title XIX of the Social Security Act) in Independence, Missouri in the presence of former President Truman, who received the first Medicare card at the ceremony; Lady Bird Johnson, Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, and Mrs. Truman also were present. President Johnson remarked: "We marvel not simply at the passage of this Bill but that it took so many years to pass it."

Medicare extended health coverage to almost all Americans aged 65 or older. About 19 million beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare in the first year of the program. Medicaid provided access to health care services for certain low-income persons and expanded the existing Federal-State welfare structure that assisted the poor.

The 1972 Social Security Amendments expanded Medicare to provide coverage to two additional high risk groups disabled persons receiving cash benefits for 24 months under the social security program and persons suffering from end-stage renal disease.

...(continued at link)

So Democrats,

YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE
FOR INSURING THE FAILURE
OF THE MEDICARE/MEDICAID PROGRAM,
and now YOU DEMOCRATS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE INTENTIONAL DESTRUCTION OF THE U.S.A. ECONOMY!!!

So DEMOCRATS ... SHUT UP!!!

You have no integrity!!!

Sen Mark Kirk's statement Thursday, Dec 1, 2011 ...

"There are 55 million Social Security beneficiaries that will see little or no extra cash from this 2012 tax holiday; instead, the dedicated payroll contributions meant to pay for future benefits are being diverted from the Trust Fund
and replaced with Treasury debt that does not even have a AAA credit rating.
Social Security was designed to be independent and free from the danger of Congressional manipulation,
and maintaining the firewall between the Social Security Trust Fund and general government funding is the best way to maintain the solvency of this important program.
Neither bill protects the Social Security Trust Fund
so I voted no. "

It's not our fault that DEMOCRATS raided the Social Security Trust Fund.
Let's remember ...

Not ALL are to blame for the empty lock box.

It's the Democrats Communists.

Let's take a deeper look.

Obama: "I Don't Want the Folks who Created the Mess to do a lot of Talking" "

Okay, then the DEMOCRATS need to shut up!!!

[tumblindice]

Exactly. Gibsmedats would riot. Buuut
retirees have a lot of free time too.

[hopespringseternal]

Eventually, someone is going to get the short end of the stick. The politicians will kick the can down the road as long as they can, but the reckoning will eventually come.

It never should have been set up to put money where congress could spend it. It should have been deposited into an account owned by the contributor from day one. But then it wouldn’t exactly be a government program, which was the main goal all along.

[kagnew]

One big reason that the Social Security program is no longer working is because we, the American Government and people, have killed off a whole generation and then some, with abortion. The American people wanted to have free sex with no consequences and abortion was the easy way out and of course no responsibility.

[Arthur McGowan]

As Herbert Stein said: “If something can’t go on forever, it won’t.”

Economics is actually VERY simple.

[Go_Raiders]

There is no bank. That’s exactly what doomed SS from the beginning. It violates very single rule of sustainable investments. No diversification, no mechanism for growth of principlal, in fact, there are no tangible assets of any kind, just numbers on a ledgersheet. And if they ever had tried to invest any of the FICA revenue into any type of sensible investment vehicle, Krugman and the rest of the Tooth Fairy believers would be stamping their widdle feet and screaming ‘Wwhhaa, Privitization, waaah!’

There was never any possibility that Social Security could be a solvent enterprise. I gave up on it when I was 25, and pursued a career that doesn’t require FICA contributions. 3 decades later I was able to retire with a pension income of 88% of my monthly working income. That pension was funded with the 15% of my income that would have been spent by Uncle Sam invested in a diversified portfolio run by a heavily regulated pension fund.

[Grams A]

IMO government employees should all contribute to SS - including all Congressmen - and be forced to retire on SS benefits at least when they reach 67. No more taxpayer funded retirement plans or multiple retirement sources which they now receive as they move from one government job to another. If that were to happen I can guarantee you that SS income would be in a lock box and not the general fund.

[BAW]

Unsustainable? Here’s an idea . . let’s cut ALL payments to illegals and preserve the Social Security payments to Americans who have paid into the system all their working lives.

[Eric Pode of Croydon]

the system is unsustainable unless you raise taxes, reduce benefits, or a combination of both

You are of course correct, but there is a third plan:

Good luck explaining any of this to the "where's MY money, which is in MY account" crowd.

[GOPJ]

I’ll go one better: cut all welfare payments to illegals AND cut all foreign aid...

Use the money for Social Security...

[GOPJ]

OK, they lied to us. They’re still liable to make good on the promises.

Easiest thing to do is stop any and all payments to illegals, foreign counties and paychecks to congress people who were in on the fraud...

[Eric Pode of Croydon]

If you're walking down the street with $50,000 in your briefcase and some member of Eric Holder's family comes up behind you, whacks you over the head with a tire iron and gets away clean with the cash, I'll tell you three things that are true.

(1) It is not your fault.

(2) It's the perp's fault.

(3) Notwithstanding both of the above, the money's gone and all the wishful thinking on earth won't bring it back. You just have to figure out how to get along without it.

It's exactly the same for Social Security.

[EternalVigilance]

Who are they trying to kid?

They’re all New Deal Democrats, or should I say New Deal Socialists, including all of those now running for president.

And still, Socialist Security remains completely unconstitutional.

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

— James Madison, the father of the U.S. Constitution

[Parmy]

In it’s current form, it’s unsustainable

If the 94 million people in this country had jobs that contributed to the SS program, there might not be a problem.

[BAW]

I’ll go one better: cut all welfare payments to illegals AND cut all foreign aid... Use the money for Social Security...

Still upping the ante here, Cut all payments to illegals, all foreign aid, cancel all funding for "scientific" global warming research, and return all education responsibilities to the states.

[kabar]

Since 1083 all new government employees had to pay into SS. It includes Congress.

[kabar]

Since 1983