Social Security

How about being a self-employed business owner and paying 15.3% of your GROSS income in SS and medicare taxes and then being told that the SS fund is broke (because the crooks ion congress stole it) and there may be no funds there when you get too old to work let alone think about retiring!

The dumbocrats are just as guilty!

Well bullwinkle, if they actually ever  do  burn your safety net I'll be marching to Washington with you.

That's what you get for constantly voting in the Globalist parties time and time again.

Fool me once and keep on fooling me again and again and again and again.........

Except SS isnt in trouble.  We could seriously not change a single thing and there is no problem.  Unless it is repealed by law, there will be money there, in a hundred years.  In 500 years, &c.

The reason there is cap on Social Security is because if people like Romney put more in they won't be able to live long enough to collect all of their payments back in retirement. Romney would probably already have to live to 200 years old to get it all back.

Remember Social Security was designed to force people save for their own retirement, because they weren't putting enough money away by themselves.

When "progressives" say they want to remove the cap on Social Security they are really declaring that they want some people to pay for another persons retirement. Don't forget every dollar a man receives without working for, another man has to work for without receiving.

This, in essence, is nothing short of slavery, and something our country is fundamentally against. If democrats want to distort this original intention of SS then that is a debate we need to have on a National level.

Calperson, I think it is in our civic interest to have no homeless people and no seniors who are broke.  Poverty and broken society is expensive, so we all do better when things work for us all.  In the case of SS, the cap has not risen with inflation; but it is also part of the fact that SS has been sold as an insurance program we pay into rather than as a national insurance program against a bad society.  I have no problem asking the rich to contribute to the national interest and common good.  They also benefit from having healthy and happy neighbors, and they have more than enough for themselves.

I like the idea that we are all responsible for the weakest link in the chain.  If someone needs our help, it ought to come easily rather than with your bitterness.  While I agree totally on the waste of war, the principle that we all pay for the national defense ought to extend to health care and how we treat seniors and others who cannot support themselves.  Grow up.

Democracy is coercive, news at 11.  Cry more.

While I fundamentally side with DRC on this, Cal has a point. But Cal, there is a caveat - it's not that people are unwilling to save for retirement ( though people lean so heavily on the grasshopper side of the grasshopper/ant scale few people would if they could ) it's that since about 1970 certain aspects of our economic structure have inflated at more than wages. And the more unavoidable aspects - housing and health care especially - are the worst. How can someone save for retirement when he makes $26,000 a year and pays $1400 a month in rent? Me, I would prefer having a cost of living more consistant with my income ( I would actually prefer lower prices to higher wages ) but in the end I have to admit that Social Security is at the very worst a necessary evil.

How can you save for retirement when the GOPimps and banksters force you into Wall St. securities and then let them steal the pensions?  Most of us work hard, are frugal and still face working and not really retiring.  Two professionals where one could do it for a family before Reagan.  The War on the Middle Class is no myth.

Speak of fools......http://youtu.be/8Ux3DKxxFoM

Ok you've said this twice so it's not something you just mistyped.  Get your obfuscation right.

You don't pay SS and medicare taxes on your gross income.

W's fool

The cap might be raised to the Reagan level when 90% of all earnings were susceptable to FICA. Now about 80% are vulnerable.

Romney's fica was not from his carried interest, he paid that on his speaking fees.

Slavery? Really? I think it's called an increase in taxes.

Taxes is something our country is fundementally for.

Slavery is when someone owns you - and thus can tell you what to do. Taxes says you must pay something to the government.

Most people are smart enough to know that it is necessary to save for the future.  The cost of living has gone up faster than has average incomes.  At the same time, with the decline in the value of homes, homeowners have in many cases lost on their investment in real estate as they borrowed more than the house is now worth.  The cost of health care can easily prevent someone from being able to save as much as they might otherwise like to.  Cars cost as much or more than some houses once did within my lifetime.  Food has and is going up. 

People helping others is basic to Christianity.  Why is it that the people who are the most opposed to Christianity's most basic aspect often are Christians themselves, or should I say alleged Christians?  Maybe I'll stick with Buddhism, or with the Bahai faith.  They have a beautiful temple in Wilmette, IL.

Conservatives often are not the business experts they claim to be.  Risk management is found in the commodities futures field, options, which could be on stocks, futures contracts, or even real estate, and is part and parcel to what insurance is.  A lack of competence in risk management is why so many banks needed federal bailouts, as did AIG.  Adequate insurance premiums, or payroll taxes, mean that benefits can be paid to all beneficiaries no matter what their income. 

No, they're not.  That's why we need social programs. That's why we need regulations, for example, to prevent people who aren't smart enough from getting conned into borrowing more money than they will earn in two lifetimes.  Because when enough people who aren't smart enough do something bad, the rest of us who are smart enough have to pay for it.

Sorry it is this "we know how to save you from your own stupidity and irresponsibility" attitude that has gotten us in trouble in the first place.  You do not want to let elected officials doing these kinds of things, otherwise we all get stuck with giant Ponzi schemes like Social Security.  Everyone who is paying into SS right now is getting TOTALLY SCREWED.

Let me take care of myself, I can do that a lot better than you can! 

No, it is obvious to everyone that you can't.

The only way SS can be a "Ponze Scheme" is if its accounts are raided by the shitheads on Wall St. and we lack the power to hold them accountable.  Blaming the politicians for the sins of the banksters and the vultures is either giving cover to the crooks or myopic.

As I have said time and again, those who are doing well in a successful economy do pay to cover the losers so their golden goose does not stop laying the golden eggs they are gathering.  If you pose risk as the way capitalism works, then you have to cover the losses to keep the economy and the society intact, and so you can reap your risk rewards.  You do not get to make the losers walk the plank just because they, for reasons of luck, wisdom or structural injustice do not have what it takes to live.  This is not a game of Monopoly, and were it that, the "redeal" would confiscate all the money from the winners so we could start the next round.  Give up the moralism and learn something about economics.

   During the 2000 Bush vs. Gore debates, Gore suggested the social security lockbox, and Dubya Dumbutt ridiculed him for it. Then after DD took office he talked about handing it over to Wallstreet. But soon after that, other more lucrative opportunities occured.

   Speaking of the analogy of the game Monopoly and the economy, one distinct comparison that holds true is that the Banker usually CHEATS. Also the game is seldom, if ever finished, due to attrition, or WAR.

If you don't know it already, Calperson's comments were taken directly out of the Neocon Manifesto. That is exactly what they hawk so trying to dialogue with him/her is the same as trying to do so with Rush Limbaugh and the rest of that ilk.

Monopoly was created as a game to portray a dysfunctional 'capitalism.'  Economies ought to be boring and not really produce "winners" and "losers" so much as different degrees of success and a way to recover from failure.  Makes a bad game, but a good society.

The problem with modern libertarian type conservatives is they don't understand the difference between, say, seat belt laws and Hitler's fascism. They only see extremes. In actually, the proof of their didactic thought patterns can be refuted easily if they would simply open their eyes to the world around them.

Social security is not in a trust fund any longer it is part of the General budget and has been since LBJ.  The social security administration sends out notices before your birthday every year.  the letter I got this year said that by 2016 they fund will pay out more than it takes in, by 2037 the fund will be exaughsted and only able to pay out 75 cents on every dollar that I have paid in. 

The government does not pay out what you have paid in, they pay out what they think you need to barely scrap by. 

everyone should be saving and investing like Mitt Romney did so that when they are ready to retire they will be able to outside of goverment control. 

if the money in SSI was yours like when it was first set up.  taxing the rich would do nothing to keep the fund going as the more I pay in the more I should get back besides it is my money right. 

In a broad participation economy and democracy, we would all be saving and investing in the creation of real value rather than casino games.  SS could operate as an insurance program for society, and our contributions would be acceptable premiums.  However, remember that this insurance program also covers the disabled and unable, not just the workers who have paid in.  We insure ourselves against a society of poverty and inequity, not just our own retirement and/or disablement.  By extension, we could have insurance against having the homeless on our streets because they would get housing.  We could protect ourselves against the desperate who would not need to engage in crime to live.

SS was sold as social insurance instead of a European style social investment.  The fact that the trust fund has been raided does not mean that we need to treat Government bonds as worthless, and while it does involve a political struggle to get the thieves to the bar of judgment where they give it back, it is not as if their crimes are OK or unaccountable.  Those who have made out like bandits may actually be bandits, but they all need to give up what was gained immorally.

i am not saying that we should not help the poor or the disabled but that should be a charitable decision not one made at the end of the government gun. 

You can't polish a turd.

We have charities set up right now.  More than we have ever had in the history of this country.  We also have government programs for the poor and disabled on top of that.  Still we have tens of thousands starving to death in our own country.  You propose that it will make things BETTER if we REDUCE the help we already give.  That is truly the thought pattern of an ignoramous.

This is not true. The Social Security Trust Fund was enacted into law in 1983 on the recommendation of the Greenspan Commission.

Jones, the mandate of the state is the common good and security of the country.  Keeping the forces of Commerce socially responsible is part of this; and so is caring for those 'left out' by the forces of economic power.  If you object to the state and want it all to be private charity, you have a hell of a task to demonstrate that you can get what needs to be done.  The apparatus of democracy seems to me to be the most effective way to share the burden and to insure that the job is done.  Sorry about being your brother's keeper, but we all are.  We will even take care of you if you need it.  Could happen, you know.

Romney didn't save and invest his own earnings. Romney parlayed his father's good name into a job as a vulture capitalist, and used other peoples' money to loot American companies, get tax incentives, sell the machinery to China, run up the debt of the company to unsustainable levels and finally force the original owners to buy back with borrowed money. This was illegal in 1980. In fact, if you tried any of Romney's tactics on Main Street, you go to jail for fraud, and the lenders put a lien on your home. But because it was done by White men wearing suits, that makes it all ok.

Further, any guesses on how much investors in Enron, or Worldcomm will be paid in 2037? What are the 40 year returns for people who began working in 1970, and retired in 2012 is looking at, after inflation? 

parlayed his fathers name into a job...

which means he worked for the money that he invested. those investments made him more money.  This is a good plan for retirement that everyone should be trying to achive.  work hard save and invest your money make more money retire.  no need for the government to confiscate 6 percent from you and 6 percent for your employeer to pay for retirement, but only to the level they think you deserve, because you have to support strangers that were to lazy or to stupid to save for themselves. 

yes the stock market has big run ups and big looses however that is your responsibility to take care of yourself and your money.  you should be doing 30 mins of research per week per stock that you have purchased in order to see the cycles so that you can buy low and sell high. 

but than again why not just live in slavery by letting the government force you to support others who do not wish to work.

Until you've got probably $3 million in todays dollars you are, for all intents and purposes,  a slave.

The public debt of our governments at the national, state, and local levels has to be paid by somebody.  Basically 50% of us have nothing, and the top 10% can move their money out of the reach of American tax collectors in 5 minutes.

So the assets owned by the persons in the range of 50% to 90% will be taken.  What's left over you can spend over the remainder of your lifetime without needing work.  I pulled the $3 million number out of my but.  You see my point.  All this debt and concentration of wealth is a poison pill for the rest of us.

Good luck, Tobie.

Yes. About 33% of the American public thinks this way. A small sub-group of hard-core fringe-thinkers looked like it was going to be a serious force, but have retracted into a nearly invisible demographic.

Who is it that does not want to work?  If you have to choose between doing something that creates value and making money with inherited money, I guess the latter choice is not to work.  Not if work has value creation in its definition.  Those who do not choose volunteer slavery where the fruits of their labor are stolen by less than a living wage may have a different view of work than you.  Work may not be the way to accumulate the wealth to invest for them.  It may not even be the way to get out of debt.

When the revolution or the crash happens, most of the debt will have to be forgiven.  The banksters will take a big haircut because the needs of real human beings will have to come first.  Read David Graeber's DEBT to appreciate that this is the way of the world and the traditional means for a new emperor to win the public support needed to reign in the Roman Empire.  Or, go to the Bible and read up on the Jubilee Year and why it was needed.  The problem of the rich not being able to make the reinvestments in society needed is not a modern invention; but the ideology of Supply Side is.

Further, any guesses on how much investors in Enron, or Worldcomm will be paid in 2037? What are the 40 year returns for people who began working in 1970, and retired in 2012 is looking at, after inflation? 

the people that invested in enron would have taken a loss when the company folded that is part of the risk reward, also they should have had a more diverse portofolio so that the loses would not have been as bad.  the other thing is if you were paying attention and not trying to be greedy you would have sold out of enron as it peaked or at least as it fell.

inflation is caused by government besided that the current retirees would not need to worry about inflation if the government would not have confiscated their hard earned money.  they could have taken that hard earned money and put it into a savings account that generates more of a return than the SSI fund does. 

so chiilidog what happens to mansions owned by the union leaders and the hollywood A list if they move their money? do those assests get gobled up by the government or do they just come after the people in the middle?  the people at the bottom will also be up in arms because they will not longer receive free money. 

I don't think that most people, not just Democrats or Progressives, know how that cap works.  The politicians keep coming up with new names like "Lockbox" or "Cap".

The real reason that FDR wanted SS is because there were so many elderly poor that had nothing and were living hand-to-mouth and begging for their existence.  It was very humliating to see those people.  You couldn't believe how low the right would go to deny benefits for the least of us.

I hate to bring Christianity into it but Jesus did say that taking care of someone's basic needs was like taking care of him.   That kind of behavior is not easily seen coming from the evangelicals and right-wingnuts.  Giving to some people is hard for them because they don't understand how it demonstrates selflessness which is a good thing.

If you hate to bring Christianity into it, then don't.  Because Jesus looks at people's intentions, and the intention of the Democrats is to buy peoples votes with tax money.  They couldn't care less about the poor, all they want is their votes.  Letting a bunch of policians who are just trying to get reelected do our charity work is a prescription for disaster.  This is how we got stuck with the Ponzi scheme called Social Security in the first place.

Are the Republicans just trying to get reelected?  Of course!  But at least they do not blantently try and buy the votes of the masses with tax money that has to be borrowed. 

I hate to bring Christianity into it but Jesus did say that taking care of someone's basic needs was like taking care of him.   That kind of behavior is not easily seen coming from the evangelicals and right-wingnuts.  Giving to some people is hard for them because they don't understand how it demonstrates selflessness which is a good thing.

another misconception of the progressive left wing freedom haters that conservatives do not care about the poor. Conservatives give more of their money to charities than the left wing progressives that are so inept at life that they need the government to do everything for them. including force them at the barrel of a gun to donate money for the poor even though most of it will get used up in the maze of government agencies that will never help the poor they way a good non profit charity can.

Yes Jesus said that we need to take care of the least amoung us, however, he did not want the government to force you to do it you are supposed to do it on your own because it is the right thing to do. 

An example would be mitt Romney giving 15 percent of his capital gains to charity, how many democrats give that much money to charities per year,. but than again the progressives need the government to take care of them because they are just like little children. They move out of their parents house but still have the government to pick up the slack just like when they were toddlers

you could always open an IRA or just a brokerage account so you can invest in what you think is right.  they have this thing called the internet on the wonderful technology you can invest your money without ever talking to anyone. You are in charge and run the account as you see fit.  The other option is to do nothing and hope that government gives you back half of what they have stolen from you.

Jones, you actually think that people should take care of themselves and not depend on the goverment to bail them out for their own stupidity and irresponsibilities?  How hard hearted of you!!!!!  Don't you know that the goverment knows how to spend your money beter than you do?  Don't you know that history has shown that the best form of goverment is where we all turn all our money over to them and let them decide where we live, what car we drive, what doctors to see, what clothes to wear, etc, etc!! 

That form of goverment certainly would have the most simple of tax forms.  Line one would be "How much money did you make last year".  Line two would be "Send it in".  How much simpler could that be?

You obviously are completely misinformed and have a lot to learn! 

People are so naive when it comes to taxes. Your employer is the one who decides what you pay in taxes.  Your employer decides how much to pay you.  If you get paid $500 a week the nasty government takes let's say 15%.  That leaves you with $425 out of "YOUR" $500.  However if your employer paid you $590 a week you would then be left with $501.50.  That's more than you were grossing before taxes before.  If that were to happen tomorrow you'd still be bitchin about the government stealing "your" money even though you'd be netting what you are now grossing without doing any more work than you did before.  The money that you net in your paycheck is "your" money.  That is all determined by your employer, not the government.

In reality your labor produces your income, your taxes, your employer's income, your employer's taxes, your employer's money for expenses.  Who is REALLY in charge of what you get to keep of your hard earned money?

Link?

here you go there are a lot more out there however ABC news should be a creditable source.

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2682730&page=1

The government sets the tax law not your employer, your employer fallows the rules and deducts what he is told to deduct.  Yes you as the employee can sell your labor to a different company if you choose.  however at the new employment the employer will still deduct what the government tells him to deduct from your check. 

yes your labor be it mental or physical produces your income this income can from your negotiating a salary,  than the government comes along and confiscates anywhere from 10 to 40 percent of your income.  some of which is needed for the 18 jobs they are supposed to cover and the rest is to support people who are unwilling to support themselves.

You don't get it.  I was once an employer of two different businesses.  One employee, "Tom" used to do nothing but complain about how Uncle Sam was ripping him off all the time just so some lazy ass could live on welfare and foodstamps.  I sat him down and said I'll make you a deal, I'll adjust your pay so that your net pay will equal what your gross pay before taxes is now.  He was obviously happy as a lark.  He was very appreciative and really a good worker.  About a month later I run into him on a Saturday morning with a picket sign in his hand outside our Senator's local office that read something to the manner of "Stop spreading my wealth",  "Your stealing OUR money!". 

I could have given him another raise to compensate for taxes again and he's still be out there.  I scratch my head sometimes at the true intelligence of some of my fellow Americans.  If employers simply hired you based on what they would pay you in net pay and you never knew how much they sent to Uncle Sam on your behalf then nobody would even care about how much money the government was taking because it wouldn't be their problem.  It would look as if it were the employer's contribution to taxes and not their's.  It really has nothing to do with how much you pay in taxes, it has to do with how much your employer wants to keep from your labor.  I don't know why I bothered writing this because it will just fly right over your head.

yes your labor be it netal or physical produces your income, this income comes from you negotiatiing a salary with your employer.  Than the government comes along and confiscates anywhere from 10 to 40 percent of that income.  some if it is to support the 18 jobs that the constitution mandates to the federal government. the rest is to support people and programs that support people who are unwilling to support themselves.

how is that

Ultimately, employers pay all taxes. When taxes go up, wages follow. When taxes go down, so do wages.

Denmark has pretty high taxes on income. However, their minimum wage is $16 an hour.plus loads of social goodies....from the taxes. Concerns over medical care, higher education and the like just aren't matters to be concerned with.

Union scale for German auto workers is $60 an hour. U.S. scale is $30 an hour. Germans pay higher taxes out of a higher income....and get the social  goodies as well.

Ultimately, employers pay all taxes. When taxes go up, wages follow. When taxes go down, so do wages. When economies aren't falling all to hell to feed financiers, wages adjust to  reflect the  take-home pay correlated with costs of living..

Retired Monk -"Ideology is a disease"

If the "lot more out there" are as "creditable" as this story, don't waste my time.

Let me help you out: your assertion can be neither proved nor disproved.  When you give stuff to charity, they don't check a box that says "liberal" or "conservative."

And I'll give you one more: I'm fairly certain that there are many more conservatives than liberals that tithe at organized churches, and the aggregrate is greater.  100% of that tithe counts as "charitable donations," but does 100% of it really go to "charitable giving?"  The Salvation Army doesn't have very fancy buildings or very fancy costumes.

In any case, here is a more relevant link:

http://www.jesuswalk.com/lessons/20_45-21_4.htm