Politics

[Brent in Az]

Laken Riley act signed into law..

All the libtards wailing in despair about the deportations of illegal immigrants, but they never say anything about the murders, crime, and mayhem, caused by the illegal riff raff.

 

[deewayne2003]

Nothing matters significantly, to include cutting defense, until an administration has the courage to address social security and Medicare.

Trump has announced very clearly he isn't touching either of them.

My guess is he intends, fueled by oil and natural gas, to grow the economy out of pending insolvency. The long term ratios of debt to budget to GDP look far different if balanced against 5% GDP growth. I should note, GDP growth is essentially what we have been relying upon with respect to deficit spending and debt ever since second half of the 20th century.

I agree with you whole heartedly on the Social Security & Medicare.

However we still have to appease the boomer voter base; I believe Trump will try everything in his power to cut out all other wasteful spending that he can without touching entitlement programs.

After all, ever time I here social security reform brought up around boomers they get uber defensive and blame everything from unchecked food stamp abuse to housing illegals as counter arguments without even considering that SS & MC entitlements are 2/3rds of the budget.

So after cutting everything but entitlement programs and increasing revenue where possible…. Then he can pass it off hopefully to JD to tackle in a second term.

It’s going to take Baby Boomers losing the “off with their heads!” Mindset for anything to happen sooner.

 

[Brent in Az]

Bob Menendez sentenced to 11 years on bribery charges.

 

[WAB]

I agree with you whole heartedly on the Social Security & Medicare.

However we still have to appease the boomer voter base; I believe Trump will try everything in his power to cut out all other wasteful spending that he can without touching entitlement programs.

After all, ever time I here social security reform brought up around boomers they get uber defensive and blame everything from unchecked food stamp abuse to housing illegals as counter arguments without even considering that SS & MC entitlements are 2/3rds of the budget.

So after cutting everything but entitlement programs and increasing revenue where possible…. Then he can pass it off hopefully to JD to tackle in a second term.

It’s going to take Baby Boomers losing the “off with their heads!” Mindset for anything to happen sooner.

That’s easy to say when you haven’t paid into the system for forty years. I’d gladly have kept my money and invested it, I would be far ahead of anything I’ll get from my investment in SS. However, to force me to invest in SS for forty years and then say ‘sorry it’s gone because we mismanaged it’ just doesn’t cut it.

 

[Brent in Az]

I’m going to ask the 50 million dollar question. What person sitting in their cubicle in DC comes up with “we need to send $50 million worth of condoms to a war zone”?
And if someone can come up with something that stupid there’s no telling what other crap they can come up with.

Condom aide, is probably democrat code, for "Hamas slush fund money"

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

That’s easy to say when you haven’t paid into the system for forty years. I’d gladly have kept my money and invested it, I would be far ahead of anything I’ll get from my investment in SS. However, to force me to invest in SS for forty years and then say ‘sorry it’s gone because we mismanaged it’ just doesn’t cut it.

Social Security - the ponzi scheme that makes all others appear inconsequential

 

[sgt_zim]

That’s easy to say when you haven’t paid into the system for forty years. I’d gladly have kept my money and invested it, I would be far ahead of anything I’ll get from my investment in SS. However, to force me to invest in SS for forty years and then say ‘sorry it’s gone because we mismanaged it’ just doesn’t cut it.

It's going to happen whether we want it to or not.

The only way to keep it solvent past 2033 is to begin means testing or to reduce benefits, or both. Coincidentally, 2033 is the year I turn 65. I'm working diligently to increase my RE portfolio to make that realistic. I'm not counting on receiving a single penny of OASDI.

Those of us born in 1968 get screwed the absolute worst on this deal. We'll all have paid in for 40 or 45 years, and will likely get little or nothing. Those born before us will get some of their money back, those born after us will end up paying less in OASDI tax once it's insolvent.

I'm all for ripping off the band-aid.

 

[Brent in Az]

Kristi Noem freezes all grants to NGO's. Many of which facilitate illegal immigration

 

[Brent in Az]

Trump wants an "Iron dome" defense system built for American defense. Similar to what Israel uses

 

[DillonG]

I agree with you whole heartedly on the Social Security & Medicare.

However we still have to appease the boomer voter base; I believe Trump will try everything in his power to cut out all other wasteful spending that he can without touching entitlement programs.

After all, ever time I here social security reform brought up around boomers they get uber defensive and blame everything from unchecked food stamp abuse to housing illegals as counter arguments without even considering that SS & MC entitlements are 2/3rds of the budget.

So after cutting everything but entitlement programs and increasing revenue where possible…. Then he can pass it off hopefully to JD to tackle in a second term.

It’s going to take Baby Boomers losing the “off with their heads!” Mindset for anything to happen sooner.

George Carlin had a very good joke about the boomers. They were the generation of, “Give me that, it’s mine!”

 

[YancyW]

That’s easy to say when you haven’t paid into the system for forty years. I’d gladly have kept my money and invested it, I would be far ahead of anything I’ll get from my investment in SS. However, to force me to invest in SS for forty years and then say ‘sorry it’s gone because we mismanaged it’ just doesn’t cut it.

No one pays into the "system", you paid taxes on money your earned and that money was given to someone else, in return for the promise the .gov would take money from other people and give it to you at some point down the road. I see so many people think they have some account with their money in it, never has been the case.

Since the day the Mrs. Ida May Fuller got her $22 check, people have been taxed and others received the benefit, nothing has changed. It will change, I have been paying max ss for the better part of 20 years, I fully expect to have no benefit from it. That same amount of money taken from me and invested in the most modest of ways would be millions by the time I am mid-60s.

 

[Finprof]

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However, to force me to invest in SS for forty years and then say ‘sorry it’s gone because we mismanaged it’ just doesn’t cut it.

Social Security funds were not mis managed. They were spent.
What I and my employer paid in Social Security went to my mother who lived for [emoji[emoji6][emoji6]] years after she and my father started collecting.

 

[sgt_zim]

Social Security Act of 1935

The Social Security Act (Act of August 14, 1935) [H. R. 7260]
PREAMBLE​

An act to provide for the general welfare by establishing a system of Federal old-age benefits, and by enabling the several States to make more adequate provision for aged persons, blind persons, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, public health, and the administration of their unemployment compensation laws; to establish a Social Security Board; to raise revenue; and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

The case name has long faded from my memory, but there hasn't been a trust fund since about 1938 or 1939. The federal government has been more and more using those bolded options above for things other than social security. As it was designed.

FDR was a charlatan.

 

[rookhawk]

It is all about cost vs gains. I simply will say again, 70 billion is spit in the ocean compared to 6 trillion bleeding dollars. The only reason this is being done in this way is because the average ignorant voter thinks we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on foreign aid and Trump will fix it. Pure political theater.

A few years ago, Kaiser foundation did a survey asking respondents what percentage of the budget goes to foreign aid. The average response was 31%

70 billion is roughly 1.1% of 6 trillion.

It’s a much bigger number when you take out the Farm Bill, Defense, Entitlements, and Interest. (Only $1.7m in discretionary spend, but they also consider Farm Bill discretionary even though it in some part is national security)

The amount of discretionary government expense as part of total budget continues to shrink. The unwinnable game of insurmountable, compulsory spend continues to accelerate.

Foreign aid = 1/25th, or 4% of discretionary federal spending.

 

[Newboomer]

No one pays into the "system", you paid taxes on money your earned and that money was given to someone else, in return for the promise the .gov would take money from other people and give it to you at some point down the road. I see so many people think they have some account with their money in it, never has been the case.

Since the day the Mrs. Ida May Fuller got her $22 check, people have been taxed and others received the benefit, nothing has changed. It will change, I have been paying max ss for the better part of 20 years, I fully expect to have no benefit from it. That same amount of money taken from me and invested in the most modest of ways would be millions by the time I am mid-60s.

I paid into SS from 1953 to 2005 when I turned 63. Figured I better start drawing as soon as I could so I took a reduced rate. Don't know if I paid enough in to break even yet and probably never will before they f**7 it up completely. I look at it as getting some of my money back.

 

[Newboomer]

​

The case name has long faded from my memory, but there hasn't been a trust fund since about 1938 or 1939. The federal government has been more and more using those bolded options above for things other than social security. As it was designed.

FDR was a charlatan.

Who was it that rolled SS into the general fund and caused all the problems?

 

[YancyW]

I paid into SS from 1953 to 2005 when I turned 63. Figured I better start drawing as soon as I could so I took a reduced rate. Don't know if I paid enough in to break even yet and probably never will before they f**7 it up completely. I look at it as getting some of my money back.

There is no chance on earth you will break even when compared to what it otherwise would have been worth had you had been allowed to invest it.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

The problem is the government has "borrowed" from the so called trust fund. The taxpayers have funded Social Security since its inception of course. But then the government borrowed from it to pay for other things. So now the taxpayer has to not only keep paying into the fund for it's intended use, but must also pay back the money to itself that the gov't borrowed for them.

If that isn't a ponzi scheme, I don't know what is.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

There is no chance on earth you will break even when compared to what it otherwise would have been worth had you had been allowed to invest it.

Even if it had been invested in modest positive returns.

 

[rookhawk]

Many days ago on this thread we discussed the military quality drones all over the east coast. Foreign powers? Terrorists?

Trump released a statement yesterday that they were sanctioned drone flights by the US gov’t or their agencies. He didn’t state what their mission was/is, nor did he explain why the gov’t didn’t own up to this while the eastern seaboard citizens were losing their minds in November.

It lends credence that they were sniffer drones looking for a chemical/nuclear/biological in my opinion.