Anyone think Congress is gonna do anything about this mess? I wouldn't hold your breath with the braindead Democrats in power now - they're even dumber on this issue than the Republicans, since they're essentially bankrolled by the AARP.
Screw the kids - make sure today's seniors get paid (and congressmen get re-elected)!
November 09, 2006
Beyond Housing: The Other Great Ponzi Scheme - Social Security
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
53 comments:
You forgot to mention that the tax cuts passed by the republicans over the last 6 years were from the surplus from social security. This was not only a regressive tax policy but is outright foolish fiscal policy.
Problem is, is the system is way out dated, there needs to be a revamp of the system as a whole.
Since when is a junky on the street entitled to S.S.I because he or she decided one day to stick a needle in his/her arm and liked it, and delcared him/her a junky and now entitled to benefits?
Or a person who cant read, gets a check every month beacuse he/she cant read, funny they can sign their names to the check and they know the amount.
Or a person who says they are Bipolar yup checks in the mail..the system is fooked, and dont sit and and tell me these things are not happening..I personally know people in the bottom 2 catagory doing just this.
The Republican tax cut came out of the Social Security surplus? If you adopt a unified budget view, then certainly this is true. But then you'd also have to admit that there's never been any money in the trust fund. Ever.
Since its inception, Social Security has been required by law to invest its surplus in treasury bonds. And since the national debt has always exceeded the value of the trust fund, it's just as fair to say that Congress has been spending the Social Security surplus since the beginning.
Don't lay this at the feet of the Republicans. Neither party can stop itself from spending money. It doesn't matter if the money is earmarked for something else or doesn't even exist.
The real people to blame are the ones who devised Social Security in the first place. Social Security is the single largest drain on people's pocketbooks, not to mention the economy as a whole.
bill woessner is correct, the only thing in the SS account are a bunch of guvmint IOUs. That chart is not correct. SS will be paid by devaluing the dollar. Game over.
Let's not forget that, according to this chart, we'll still be able to pay out 75% of the benefits. So it's not as if the whole thing is going bankrupt (although it will be underfunded).
It was since LBJ lumped it into the general fiund to fund a guns and butter approach to funding his aspirations. But bill, we had a surplus from the Clinton Administration which got pissed away once the republicans took complete control. I stand by my original assertion. Social security revenue is higher than ever due to all the boomers in their peak earning years. This is what props up the budget.
Oh and by the way your idol Ronald Reagan is responsible for this SSI revenue when he pushed for and signed the highest tax hike in the history of the US in 1983.
I'm 52 and retiring in 3 years, meaning I'll be buying my own health insurance for 10 years.
I'm thinking since we now have a Democratic congress, if we get a Democratic President in 2008, I'll get my basic healthcare paid for by the kidz still working when they pass some socialist healthcare legislation.
lol. Thanks kidz.
Social Securitys problems are grossly over exaggerated...needs some tweaking and adjustment for its long term healTh and then : "In the long term we'll all be dead"., so I and most rational people don't give a shit about the "long term".
Take a long look at this pie chart. The government has already spent every penny that SS brings in or will bring in for the next thirty years. The dems and reps are lying to the people.
Does anybody really believe that the Social Security system is ever going to be fixed? It should be obvious to all that this is just not going to happen!
The most practical approach is to start saving and provisioning for your own future now, and to figure out how you are going to take care of yourself. To live your life with the expectation that Social Security will support you in your old age is to sentence yourself to abject poverty during your “golden years.”
-Mammoth
the Democrats INVENTED social security as a way to secure future votes by hold your 'check' hostage.
pure scum
I want to OPT out of this ponzi scheme. i want no part of it, and i will foregoe the check when i am a fossil.
Our treasonous government is hoping to replace all the white kids, that are no longer being born, with criminal mexican invaders. Once legalized, how much do you think they will pay into the system?
This is how it will work for SS. They will increase benefits at 2-3% per year. Meanwhile, inflation will roar at double digits. Ten years from now a pensioner will be able to pay some bills and buy some groceries. It will not be enough to pay off a sixty year mortgage. Reality bites.
>> ...we had a surplus from the Clinton Administration...
WRONG! And proven so by Lou Dobbs in a segment he did last month.
Oh thats right Lou Dobbs is right about everything anonywuss. You said the same crap last month in HP.
Keith, did you ever get around to reading the Coming Generational Storm? I read it a couple of years ago and the implicit obligations of the government (medicare, social security) FAR outweigh the explicit obligations (national debt). And yet there is absolutely no real preparation for it's impact as the baby boomers age. The authors are MIT professors and the analysis is very credible. Scary reading, but not heavily sensationalized (despite the title).
You probably won't like one of their suggestions weathering the storm though. They recommend buying a house (with a fixed rate mortgage) to cushion against the high likelyhood of runaway inflation and an essentially bankrupt treasury.
What Social Security Medicaid funding problems? The Democrats will just steal the money they need from corporate pension funds, IRAs, and 401Ks. There, problems solved. Any questions, rich bastards?
"Start making deals with people, if you are say 40, the government will pay you 30k right now, to invest in your own retirement, no more payroll taxes will be deducted from your check, and the governments obligation is ended. Older people will get full benefits, younger people will get smaller payouts. This is a real simple problem."
LOL x 3! What the hell do you mean "your check"? Don't you get it? That money isn't yours, it belongs to the federal government, and they will decide how much you can keep. Good, loyal Americans will "contribute" and "invest" in this country's future. Only rich bastards and discredited Republicans talk about keeping their so called hard-earned wealth. Everyone knows they made their gains on the backs of the poor.
So bend over, cause here it comes...
borkafatty said...
Problem is, is the system is way out dated, there needs to be a revamp of the system as a whole. Since when is a junky on the street entitled to S.S.I because he or she decided one day to stick a needle in his/her arm and liked it, and delcared him/her a junky and now entitled to benefits?
-------------------------
#1. You Liberals stated that SS is not broke and obstructed SS reform by Bush just 1-2 yrs ago. Short memory, eh? Of course that was a flip-flop from the Dem position during the Clinton yrs. Amazing.
#2. Aparently you have no idea what qualifies someone to get SS judging from your junky example. If you didn't work and pay into SS, you can't draw SS. It's truly unfortunate that people as uneducated as you are allowed to vote.
Social Security can be salvaged. Raise the retirement age a couple years, reduce benefits by 15% and you're there.
Medicare and Medicaid cannot be salvaged, though. That's why nobody in government talks about it. Those of us over at daily reckoning agreed the most likely thing that will happen is that congress stop increasing medicare benefits for inflation, then inflate away.
Result: the $100 or so they will reimburse for a nursing home bed will go from being barely adequate to cover marginal costs to being totally inadequate. It will be a pretty ugly transition as hospitals, doctors offices and nursing homes go broke, before whatever remaining institutions are finally granted the right to deny treatment.
I do personally hope that a few basic medical treatments (such as pain pills for those dying of cancer) will continue to be available. No guarantee of this though.
If anyone has a REALISTIC alternative view, please let me know.
I'm spending the kids' inheritance on a new liver.
Metroplex: There was no budget surplus, just increase tax receipts from the internet bubble and people thought that would go on for 10 to 20 years. It was a new era! A new paradigm! The internet would free us from work, poverty and the budget deficit! Instead, it's much like television, but more interesting.
Aparently you have no idea what qualifies someone to get SS judging from your junky example. If you didn't work and pay into SS, you can't draw SS. It's truly unfortunate that people as uneducated as you are allowed to vote.
Really? I have a seven year old nephew who has never worked and he collects it! All because they say he has emotional problems. I suggest you shut your pie hole as not to look too stupid.
>The illegal Mexican invaders
>already put money into SS.
>However they won't ever see that
>money.
Oh yes they will - check it out for yourself. As a matter of fact there have been cases where their made up SS number matches an existing SS of a real US citizen. SS admin has said they will pay benefits to anyone who has paid in.
That would really bite trying to prove which dollars were the ones you contributed. Makes a lot of sense to check your SS statement carefully every year.
>>Really? I have a seven year old nephew who has never worked and he collects it! All because they say he has emotional problems. I suggest you shut your pie hole as not to look too stupid. <<
Social Security Disability Payments were enacted in the mid 60's by Johnson.
We need to get people like your relatives off the disability train. Sorry he has 'emotional' problems. His parents should deal with it themselves.
If he can walk and talk, he isn't disabled.
Time to end the SS scheme and return the money to the citizens who earned it. LBJ sure f*ked us, didn't he?
Benefits are based roughtly on how much you or your parent (if you are dependent child) put in.
No banking or savings account has actual "money" in it. It ALL is IOUs. It has to be.
Gov't bonds are the most secure investment, that's why SS invests in them.
It's really a problem of definitions. SS should be divorced from the regular budget. IE SS is currently running 'surpluses', but those are needed for future retirees. And they have a "trust fund", but those are basically pension funds for people paying in now as well.
The gov't has control over benefits, it cna cut them. And the gov't combines SS into the general account. So if the debt is quoted as "7 trillion", it's really "9 trillion" as 2 trillion is SS money. SS is counting on that money to be solvent, and the gov't owes it to them. But the gov't confuses people by combingin the two...kind of saying "well the gov't can't owe money to itself, can it?". It can if that money is counted on by current payers who are counting on getting it when they retire. The gov't really owes that 2 trillion to SS "policy holders".
The same is true of deficit. The deficit is quoted as 400B. It's really 500B and 100B is a SS "surplus". Not really a surplus as it is owed to the people paying in, but it's a cashflow surplus this year.
Anonymous said...
Metroplex: There was no budget surplus, just increase tax receipts from the internet bubble and people thought that would go on for 10 to 20 years. It was a new era! A new paradigm! The internet would free us from work, poverty and the budget deficit! Instead, it's much like television, but more interesting...
I think you are confusing two things. The Budget deficit and the outstanding debt. During Clintons Administration the Budget deficit disappeared and a net surplus for the annual budget was achieved.
This entire thread, starting with Keith's post, proves that no, HPers are not more intelligent than the average sheeple.
Time to trim government. All government workers will be converted into 401ks and not recieve any payments from taxpayers for their retirement.
It is wrong for a postal worker to retire with 80% of his last paycheck at taxpayers expense. Same with teachers, fireman, policeman, congressman, the list goes on. No pensions at taxpayer expense except SSI.
If the majority of American workers have no private pensions, no 401ks, then why should government workers?
Same with the military. No pension other than 401k and SSI, contributions by the worker and maybe a small amount by Uncle Sam, and no pension unless disabled or 67, no "I work 20 years and get a pension today" like so many government and civil service workers.
It is a different world than 1940 and things need to change.
To add to what fox suggests, We also need to end ALL welfare for blacks and hispanics. Too many of these "people" seem to become "disabled". Another good idea would be to start billing mexicos' government for any and all medical treatment that criminal invading mexican savages may recieve here. Maybe that would free up some funds for a few good men with shoot to kill orders along the border.
InfidelSix said...
borkafatty said...
Problem is, is the system is way out dated, there needs to be a revamp of the system as a whole. Since when is a junky on the street entitled to S.S.I because he or she decided one day to stick a needle in his/her arm and liked it, and delcared him/her a junky and now entitled to benefits?
-------------------------
#1. You Liberals stated that SS is not broke and obstructed SS reform by Bush just 1-2 yrs ago. Short memory, eh? Of course that was a flip-flop from the Dem position during the Clinton yrs. Amazing.
#2. Aparently you have no idea what qualifies someone to get SS judging from your junky example. If you didn't work and pay into SS, you can't draw SS. It's truly unfortunate that people as uneducated as you are allowed to vote.
-------------
First of all dont call me a libral i work for a living.
Second your right i do not pay SS, I have a state pension that i pay quite hansomly into every week.
Third dont sit here and preach to me your drival, I know what qualify's people for SSI, people who worked all their lives and put into it...so shut your libral ass up, preacher, look in the mirror before you start labeling people, cause the lable you spew (libral) is looking right back at you. Sit here and tell me..
What and I am lying? There is fraud in the system just like there is fraud in the welfare system one in the same.
Ill own up, My own sister has Epilepsy, never worked a day in her 34 years, well maybe a week, and she gets a check every month...dam good money to for a single woman who never worked, more money than joe shmoe who is 75 and worked all his life until he had a heart attack, so dont tell me i am bullsh!tting.
I tell my sister all the time, cause she complains about the cost of things her section 8 housing went from $200 a month to $250 ya there is a real struggle..she moans about this and that, andi tell her all the time
You live on the system you live by the system, no more no less..so STFU!
Actually it wouldn't be hard to solve at all. Lift the cap on earnings, introduce means testing. You'll say that's socialism. Well... then start offering pensions. Or higher pay.
Some day the air force WILL have to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.
Nah, We'll just borrow one of the few thousand we have given to israhell.
And my sister is also on disability, due to emotional problems...ha! She is actually quite intelligent and there are many jobs that she could be employed at, and perform very well. But she is one of these types who never takes personal responsibility for her own actions...it’s always someone else’s fault.
After flipping out at work a couple of times, followed by multiple visits to a therapist, she managed to get herself on disability. She sits on the couch watching TV all day, or spends her time surfing the Internet - and you and I are paying for this. What a racket!
Repeat after me:
THERE IS NO TRUST FUND!
THERE IS NO TRUST FUND!
THERE IS NO TRUST FUND!
THERE IS NO TRUST FUND!
THERE IS NO TRUST FUND!
THERE IS NO TRUST FUND!
THERE IS NO TRUST FUND!
THERE IS NO TRUST FUND!
THERE IS NO TRUST FUND!
"lifting the earnings cap" on Social security reveals a misunderstanding of how the system works.
You get the money you put in BACK in the form of a pension. HIgher wage workers are actually given less of a good deal than lower wage workers...but we'll skip that for now.
So reforming SS by having rich put in MORE is just creating more of a liability to those rich people in the future. How is that fixing the system?
That's like a bank not being able to pay borrowers b/c it's lost money, so it borrows more money. Make sense?
Give Social Security to all of the illegals over 65, after they get amnisty.
The solution to ALL government money problems is:
TA DA!
Print up more money. This will keep happening because there is no way anyone will confront the truth.
By 2040 we will be paying $1,000.00 for a loaf of bread. But I don't care because I'll be dead by then and I don't have kids.
Think "Soylent Green".
You read it here first. Remember that.
Back to personal responsibility and, therefore, personal savings for personal retirement. Social Security? Shoot it like an old horse. I'm 49 and I'd rather they just stop taking my FICA and let me plan my own retirement (and never give me a check even though I paid in 30+ years already). Just kill it and bury it.
>You probably won't like one of their suggestions weathering the storm though. They recommend buying a house (with a fixed rate mortgage) to cushion against the high likelyhood of runaway inflation and an essentially bankrupt treasury.
recently i did some research on what the old timers advised on surviving an economic great depression - same advice, except with paid-off mortgage plus cash/gold stashed in the basement :-(
Whew, there sure are a lot of bizarre people on this blog. Unlike some of you, I'm old enough to recall that the same doom and gloom about Social Security has been spouted by the right wing for many, many years, certainly since the 60s. Before that, there was only the 'it's Socialism!' argument. The truth has always been, the funding problems can be fixed with relatively minor tweaks to the system. And if it is Socialism, bring it on. There have been millions of people whose retirement years have been saved from poverty thanks to SS, and many millions more who were able to stay in the middle class because of it. It's very easy to dismiss SS when you don't need it, or think you won't need it. That's the way I always thought when I was younger. But now I'm glad as hell it'll be there for me. Life doesn't always turn out like you planned. Shit happens. There comes a point when you may think individuals who worked all their lives could actually deserve at least a little bit of the economic protection that corporations get in spades. It's pretty easy to sit back and spout theory that does nothing but support the most venal personal greed. Try spouting that to a couple of old-timers who are scrambling to stay above cat food level, face to face. Oh, right, I forgot. Anyone who is poor or hasn't amassed a fortune in our great land of opportunity only deserves to die in a hovel or be reduced to garbage-picking for food.
"Try spouting that to a couple of old-timers who are scrambling to stay above cat food level, face to face. Oh, right, I forgot. Anyone who is poor or hasn't amassed a fortune in our great land of opportunity only deserves to die in a hovel or be reduced to garbage-picking for food."
Oh man, what a tear jerker! Get a clue guy, the number of workers paying taxes to feed your pet food sniffin' seniors has shrunk over the years, and now it's around 4 workers for every retiree. In 20 years it will be less than three workers supporting each retiree. Every SS check that's cut comes directly from taxes paid by those workers. There is no "trust fund" to pay out benefits because politicians spent all the money starting back in LBJ's term. Nothing there but IOUs, and the amount is so large now, there is no chance in hell it will everty be repaid in dollars that can buy anything.
And do you actually think that young people are going to pay a 30% tax rate to keep old geezers in a lifestyle they think they deserve? Hell no! They will probably just shuttle them off to death camps disguised as old age homes.
Before Social Security, families were responsible for taking care of their elderly members. Now we want Mommmy government to do that for us. Some fools even think it shouldn't cost anything!
Lift the cap on SSI payments so that all income is taxed.
Make those able-bodied unemployed and on welfare (both) to work for their checks even if it is sweeping floors in a government building, hospital, maintenance around housing complexes (gov) fix our parks like the conservation corp during the depression, stand on the side of the road at freeway construction sites with those slow down/stop signs, etc. Then those who really can work will look for something and the rest will at least contribute something to society instead of take. Then the truely disabled will get help they need.
Tax companies that send jobs overseas instead of giving them a tax break. Tax all goods and services they provide from those goods and services (tarriff) and give the tax breaks to those companies that produce jobs in the USA instead.
Penalize Usery. No person in this country should pay 21-28% for any kind of loan. Shut down those payday loan centers that rip off poor people. Cap interest at mayb 4% above prime for the very worst creditors? This should help the poor pay off their loans faster.
Pass a constitutional amendment capping spending by Congress and running deficiets. Death penalty for corruption/fraud/waste and abuse with tax payer money (that should end the pork and over-charging by companies like Haliburton).
Raise the tax on gasoline to reduce consuption and pay off national debt.
Tax pharmacutical companies and penalize doctors who over-utilize drugs and tests (may be accomplished by tort reforms to cap lawsuites among other means). No one would take their car into a shop and let them charge you for twelve repairs when the car only needed one. Instead of fee for service they get penalized for "playing doctor instead of practicing medicine". Throwing a thousand darts at the board to hit a bull's eye isn't the same as a skill.
Maybe reward the doctor for sucesss and no pay for failure. So if a patient goes in and gets well, pay. If he gets worse or dies, no pay. After working in the medical field all I saw was taxpayers spending a million to keep a dead person ALIVE with no responsiblity to the doctor, hospital, insurance plan, and especially THE FAMILY to the cost of WASTE. I'm sorry, unlimited healthcare isn't a RIGHT when millions have NO INSURANCE. To cry that a person who is terminal is having his RIGHTS denied for unlimited care is hypocritical when millions do not have the RIGHT to basic healthcare access.
Families change their tune quite fast when they find out they have some sort of financial liablity. Example, a daughter who wanted "everything done" for her terminal father until she found out that "access" wouldn't pay for him because he had "assets" and was presented with a bill for $80,000 and the realization that it would only go up the longer she pushed for unlimited care. Why? She wanted his estate and he could easily live long enough to deplete the remaining money before he'd be eligible for access to pay for his care. The end result would still be the same, death. Amazing how often you see that scenario, cry, rant, rave, DEMAND, as long as SOMEONE else is paying but once they have to pay they suddenly wake up and recognize that if the end result is death, no matter if it is tomorrow or a month from then, that the amount of money wasted means somthing when it is their money!
You deny care to a patient with a disease that can be cured but because no insurance you let them progress to terminal status and then take care of them? Totally backwards!
Maybe nationalize all resources, water, air, minerals, land, and lease them back at fair market rates instead of giving billions away to big corporations.
Change immigration laws to allow anyone who buys a house and invests in a US business and has assets of say at least $200,000 a green card and maybe $100,000 if they invest in dying towns/cities and stay there five years.
Definitely throw out all Republicans and Democrats from office and elect a third party.
Lift the cap on SSI payments so that all income is taxed.
Make those able-bodied unemployed and on welfare (both) to work for their checks even if it is sweeping floors in a government building, hospital, maintenance around housing complexes (gov) fix our parks like the conservation corp during the depression, stand on the side of the road at freeway construction sites with those slow down/stop signs, etc. Then those who really can work will look for something and the rest will at least contribute something to society instead of take. Then the truely disabled will get help they need.
Tax companies that send jobs overseas instead of giving them a tax break. Tax all goods and services they provide from those goods and services (tarriff) and give the tax breaks to those companies that produce jobs in the USA instead.
Penalize Usery. No person in this country should pay 21-28% for any kind of loan. Shut down those payday loan centers that rip off poor people. Cap interest at mayb 4% above prime for the very worst creditors? This should help the poor pay off their loans faster.
Pass a constitutional amendment capping spending by Congress and running deficiets. Death penalty for corruption/fraud/waste and abuse with tax payer money (that should end the pork and over-charging by companies like Haliburton).
Raise the tax on gasoline to reduce consuption and pay off national debt.
Tax pharmacutical companies and penalize doctors who over-utilize drugs and tests (may be accomplished by tort reforms to cap lawsuites among other means). No one would take their car into a shop and let them charge you for twelve repairs when the car only needed one. Instead of fee for service they get penalized for "playing doctor instead of practicing medicine". Throwing a thousand darts at the board to hit a bull's eye isn't the same as a skill.
Maybe reward the doctor for sucesss and no pay for failure. So if a patient goes in and gets well, pay. If he gets worse or dies, no pay. After working in the medical field all I saw was taxpayers spending a million to keep a dead person ALIVE with no responsiblity to the doctor, hospital, insurance plan, and especially THE FAMILY to the cost of WASTE. I'm sorry, unlimited healthcare isn't a RIGHT when millions have NO INSURANCE. To cry that a person who is terminal is having his RIGHTS denied for unlimited care is hypocritical when millions do not have the RIGHT to basic healthcare access.
Families change their tune quite fast when they find out they have some sort of financial liablity. Example, a daughter who wanted "everything done" for her terminal father until she found out that "access" wouldn't pay for him because he had "assets" and was presented with a bill for $80,000 and the realization that it would only go up the longer she pushed for unlimited care. Why? She wanted his estate and he could easily live long enough to deplete the remaining money before he'd be eligible for access to pay for his care. The end result would still be the same, death. Amazing how often you see that scenario, cry, rant, rave, DEMAND, as long as SOMEONE else is paying but once they have to pay they suddenly wake up and recognize that if the end result is death, no matter if it is tomorrow or a month from then, that the amount of money wasted means somthing when it is their money!
You deny care to a patient with a disease that can be cured but because no insurance you let them progress to terminal status and then take care of them? Totally backwards!
Maybe nationalize all resources, water, air, minerals, land, and lease them back at fair market rates instead of giving billions away to big corporations.
Change immigration laws to allow anyone who buys a house and invests in a US business and has assets of say at least $200,000 a green card and maybe $100,000 if they invest in dying towns/cities and stay there five years.
Definitely throw out all Republicans and Democrats from office and elect a third party.
"Make those able-bodied unemployed and on welfare (both) to work for their checks even if it is sweeping floors in a government building, hospital, maintenance around housing complexes (gov) fix our parks like the conservation corp during the depression,"
Can't happen, ACLU lawyers will stop that in an instant. Guess who pays when Whino Bob has a job-related injury? Yup, you do.
"Tax companies that send jobs overseas instead of giving them a tax break. Tax all goods and services they provide from those goods and services (tarriff) and give the tax breaks to those companies that produce jobs in the USA instead."
All that will do is drive them completely offshore. When you tax something, you get less of it.
"Penalize Usery. No person in this country should pay 21-28% for any kind of loan."
If people didn't borrow at those high interest rates, the banks would have to lower them.
"Pass a constitutional amendment capping spending by Congress and running deficiets. Death penalty for corruption/fraud/waste and abuse with tax payer money (that should end the pork and over-charging by companies like Haliburton)."
Sure, politicians will go for that one. How the hell are they supposed to buy votes if they can't spend money they don't have?
"Raise the tax on gasoline to reduce consuption and pay off national debt."
Raising the excise tax on gasoline will probably result in lower net revenues because people will just use less of it.
"Tax pharmacutical companies and penalize doctors who over-utilize drugs and tests (may be accomplished by tort reforms to cap lawsuites among other means)."
More taxes on drug companies, less pharmaceutical research. Penalize doctors and they will either quit or raise their fees. Taxes won't do anything to help the problem caused by idiot patients who think health care should be free.
"Maybe reward the doctor for sucesss and no pay for failure. So if a patient goes in and gets well, pay. If he gets worse or dies, no pay."
And what if "success" gets defined as the lowest cost to the payer? Euthanasia would solve a lot of problems...
"Maybe nationalize all resources, water, air, minerals, land, and lease them back at fair market rates instead of giving billions away to big corporations."
Get a clue -- the federal government already owns most national resources! In some western states they own 70% of the land and 100% of the mineral rights.
"Change immigration laws to allow anyone who buys a house and invests in a US business and has assets of say at least $200,000 a green card and maybe $100,000 if they invest in dying towns/cities and stay there five years."
And when they vote to expell your pasty white ass, what then?
"Definitely throw out all Republicans and Democrats from office and elect a third party."
Why not just have a revolution and start over? A good civil war with blood spilled all around might be cathartic and neccessary.
Guess then the only solution is to ask China to let us join them. A strong, central government controlling all of us and willing to run us down with tanks if we resist. Joing the Borg, "Resistance is futilel"
Does it really matter then? We can either accept resonsiblity and make the changes now, as painful as they may be, but imposed by our choice instead of waiting until the whole nation is utterly bankrupt and then outside powers impose their will (remember Germany WWI?) and then what?
As far as medical care? Sorry, what gives any human the right to live at someone elses expense? That is just a parasite. In medicine you have to triage resources. What do you think they did at the World Trade Center on 9/11? They pulled those victims to the side that had no hope of survival and made them comfortable and then watched them die while they focused their resources on those who had a chance to live. Throughout history people sacrificed the young and the elderly during drought, famine, war, to ensure at least part of the tribe/family would survive.
If you have 20 lbs of corn to feed 100 people do you let 20% of the people (elderly) eat 50% or more of the food? Liberals have made a jock out of law and rights. They diminish the value of both. They make the victim the criminals, the could care less that resources are limited as long as they can manipulate people at other people's expenses.
If it takes hyperinflation to bring on reform, then bring it on. If it takes a world war to absorb excess capacity, bring it on. They say the oceans will be depleted in 40 years along with so many other resources. Guess it is time we wake up that this planet can not continue to support 6 billion people.
As in all things you can have $100 to split between two people or ten people or 100 people. What gives people the right to say move into the desert where there is water for 100 people and put 1000? Where is the right to have ten kids and then cry poverty and expect a person with no kids to support them?
The whole western world is in decline because they have become soft and morally bankrupt. I may believe western civilization has much to offer mankind but fear the moral weakness will only lead to domination by the strong.
If the constitution isn't working, if people are twisting it to give rights that don't exist, then time to change the constitution.
"What gives people the right to say move into the desert where there is water for 100 people and put 1000? Where is the right to have ten kids and then cry poverty and expect a person with no kids to support them?"
If you believe, as I do, in unalienable human rights, them people should be free to try any damn thing they please. Our system is "broken" because creeping democracy has allowed a rather vocal and clueless group of citizens to force the government to pay for the consequences of their bad decisions.
Annoymous, I agree with you on this point, "a rather vocal and clueless group of citizens to force the government to pay for the consequences of their bad decisions."
If it were as simple as letting people be responsible things would be great. We chose not to have kids, child-free not child-less as if somehow others view us as less-than because we were smart enough to recognize we didn't want kids and that financially we didn't want to be RESPONSIBLE for them.
I can see buying land in the desert with no water if I was willing to live with the land. Cisterns, rain catchment systems, designing the house to work with the environment, xeroscape, composting toilet, etc. Problem is government. If a developer buys 1,000 acres and has to pay for ALL infrastructure, schools, fire, police, roads, and then build the homes how many do you think he'd build? Why do lobbyists push for a freeway and then buy all the land along the right away. They make a quick buck and the taxpayer pays for it.
Breeders? I can see communal sharing for two kids, zero population growth, but if a person has three kids? Shouldn't they pay a larger portion of providing for that extra mouth instead of expecting, demanding the taxpayer pay?
If I didn't have to pay high taxes for others to live off of then I'd need less dollars for myself to live off of.
I'd love for the government to get off all our backs and let each be responsible for themselves. That doesn't mean we don't help those less fortunate than us, we just don't givet them a free ride. As for as "welfare" goes, it should be a product of the community, local charities and churches instead of the government. Charity begins at home. If I had a relative that needed assistance then I should be there to help before a stranger.
Responsibility is something Americans have long forgotten.
"That doesn't mean we don't help those less fortunate than us, we just don't givet them a free ride. As for as "welfare" goes, it should be a product of the community, local charities and churches instead of the government."
I agree 100%. Too bad we've allowed giant federal bureaucracies to assume those roles. They waste over 70% of the tax dollars collected to help the less fortunate.
There was a study back in the '80s that showed the federal government could send all welfare receipients a check for $17K and eliminate all the middlemen who admimister these programs. Nowadays the amount would be closer to $40K, or $160K a year for a mother with 3 children! That might go a long way towards eliminating "poverty", no? Of course it would mean that tens of thousands of bureaucrats would be out of work, and we can't have that.
Very true Annonymous. And then we have to pay pensions to those buerocrats. I guess if the government taxed us less and spent less then we'd all have more money, be richer, and then could help those less fortunate.
To promote the general welfare and security of the nation and to negotiate treaties is just about all our founding fathers expected from Republic. To bad we've strayed so far the past 100 years.
Post a Comment