Speakeasy forum: Remember that 47% nonsense? The suggestion that 47% of all

If 47M people are on foodstamps, even in households of WORKING families, it's because they are now below the $22K total income level and qualify. Are foodstamps, heating assistance, education assistance for retraining, college tuition for themselves or their kids, medical coverage (medicare or medicaid), and housing (Section 8), and those on extended unemployment benefits NOT considered to be 'entitlements' to you?

I don't know of anyone, including Romney, who has ever said that they sit on their a$$es and don't look for work....but there are 23M who have lost their full time jobs so they are either unemployed or under-employed or have chosen to go into early retirement and are all essentially on government entitlement programs now.

YOU count payroll deductions (it's called FICA)........however, there has been a moratorium on the EMPLOYEE end of those payroll deductions for nearly four years now (even BUSH didn't do that........it's ALL on BO), so there hasn't BEEN any revenue coming from that direction.

I think you would be surprised to find out that on our Federal Income Tax forms, there is a box to fill out in the 'income received' area to fill in the amount you receive from Unemployment Benefits as well as box for income received from Social Security (whether it's retirement or disability, it makes no difference). You have to claim both as income.......and after you fill in your deductions, if you have a tax liability and owe because there are other incomes (pensions, working part-time, rental properties, or you own a small business and file on a personal tax level), your social security and/or unemployment benefits ARE taxed as well.

Granted, there are many elderly on Social Security benefits that depend solely on that check as their only income; however, there are many, many more who DON'T because they have prepared for their 'old age' and that check is a 'supplement' to OTHER incomes. That crap of 'throw granny over the cliff' was and continues to be political garbage to sway votes because there are many of us who wouldn't need that check....in fact, there are many who would love to see the system 'means tested' and have their own personal checks either vastly reduced or done away with completely in order to save the system. But ANY talk of reforming Social Security is immediately seen as a red flag politically and has Democrats/liberals insane and ready for straight-jackets.

How many of those elite money rock star types that BO hangs with are over 65 and collecting a social security check while they have millions in personal wealth? Would any one of them give up that check? I can rattle off three names immediately of well-knowns who refuse to accept a check and have not even applied or have no intention of applying for it....can you do the same?

was that 47% of the population depends on government in some way, shape, or form......and he was right. He never said that they were all lazy a$$es who won't look for work.

And the majority of the people who pay no income taxes DID vote for BO.......but a good number of them are the same people who don't pay income taxes because of BUSH NOT BO and the tax credits BUSH gave to them. But they are also low income people who qualified for those tax cuts (credits) and ALSO qualify for the FREE STUFF that BO gave away during the campaign (by Exec Orders......lowering the requirements for food stamps and Medicaid, and the Dream Act crap, etc). As for not taking personal responsibility for their lives, he was right again........look at the large number of social security recipients who never looked towards their own future and saved any money to SUPPLEMENT that social security check. They depend on the checks as their sole non-livable income........and thus are dependent again on the government for supplemental medicaid, section 8 housing, food stamps, etc.

27% of people have taxes deducted from their payroll. That reduced the number of people to receive benefits to 20%. And that 20% breaks down into Pensioners 53%, Disability 20% Working but not making enough to make ends meet and therefore receiving social assistance or Food Stamps 18%. To pursue this as you do, repeating a discredited lie over and over again suggests that you have an agenda. Who are you trying to persuade. Obviously people too stupid to do the research.

But you are perpetuating a Lie on which you have been called 3 times (plus a second one in this Thread). Four times and I denounce you to the mods for deliberate publishing falsehoods, because I have all the evidence I need to prove you a Liar.

Rob
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and drew for 10 to 15 years?

I'm actually not begruding them, but let's not ignore that part of the SS spending up to now has been on people that barely paid in, particularly non-income generating spouses of the older generation.

That group is actually probably about gone. I know of only half dozen at most right now as far as people I know or their family.

I wonder what the balence is between those that drew nothing and those that drew 10 years or more on the minimum payment required to qualify when social security started. Of course, though some disagree, many acknowledge social security when enacted was of aimed at widows. Not that many of the income producing men live very long past 65.

how many women with children by multiple worthless boyfriends, or how many children "born out of wedlock" are supported by welfare checks? Don't see any connection there? Any social problems beyond having money tossed at it which needs addressing? A continual perpetuating situation? You just look at tossing good money after bad and doing little to change the social situation as solving the problem?

the $500+ per child that I received for the daughters of John was in 1977......Derek's began in 1989......I can't even begin to imagine what those benefits would have been had they been figured at 2012 values instead.

that there would be more incentive for workers to save for their retirement if they knew ahead of time that the only funds they would receive from Social Security was the total amount they actually paid into it during their working lifetime....and raise the percentage of their pay from 6%+ to a higher amount. They can opt later on to take it all as one lump sum or spread out in payments until they died.

I also don't think that survivor's benefits should be determined by what the dead father/mother would have earned in their lifetime but rather what they would have earned during the CHILD's age from the time the parent actually died and when the child could no longer be eligible (18 or out of high school...even if he/she drops out), because those are the only years that the parent would have been responsible for their support. To base the total received on a parent's lifetime potential earned income inflates too heavily the amount the child receives for a short period of time.

many of our grand parents and even some of our parents wouldn't have had enough to buy groceries, much less power and/or gas. And just forget it if they didn't have a house paid for before retirement, if they had rented as so many should be doing instead of buying according to many talking heads.

Retirement planning use to recommend the 3 legged stool, a very stable item by the way since 3 points determine a plane geometrically.

Social Security, pension, and savings.

Pensions are disappearing, even before the last 4 years. I'll agree the decline in fixed pensions are accelerating, how much to which part of the current situation I'm not sure. My own company, under union contracts by the way, is eliminating fixed pension for all new hires. For current employees over 55 or those who's age plus years of service add up to 70 there is a choice between remaining in the fixed pension plan or going with the enhanced 401K play. For all other current employees, their fixed pension is froze at amount for service time as of 12/31/2012. I did a fairly close calculation. Even with the larger match amount, I'd be at a disadvantage after 11 years of retirement if I choose to leave the fixed pension plan. Of course, there is the advantage that after the match goes into your 401K plan it's forever out of reach of the company, just subject to the dangers of investments. Fixed pension plans can be changed at any time, even after you retire on faith that you will get what you were promised for decades of service with the company.

Now there is howling to reduce SS, or even eliminate it (privatizing is basically eliminating SS in favor of tax deferred savings). So that moves SS to the savings leg.

So from a supposedly stable 3 point support we're standing on one leg with a pair of wobbly, weak crutches to keep our balence.

One thing I think is absolutely corrupt and immoral is changing retirement payout after someone retires, be it the government or a corporation. That individual may have been prudent and careful and planned well based on his best information and contracts made with him by employer and society.

How will you like it, how would deal with it now, if your SS is cut 10 to 20 % and your medicare premiums and copays both increased?

Most retired folks would either have to go to work again, move in with family (if they have any that will take them in) or just sink deeper into poverty until they give up and die.

Sin insurance cost (as kin to sin taxes) are increasing for those that smoke. Don't know why they haven't added a medicare tax on top of the other tax on cigerettes and alcohol yet. Interesting enough, obesity is the current tax and insurance premium target, not alcohol or ever drug use.

Oh well, if pot gets legallized widely enough, maybe we can just smoke ourselfs into a coma then death we won't have to deal with it. Can you overdose on pot? if not there is always 151 rum shooters and alcohol poisoning.

The calculation could probably be improved, but any type of support would have to figure in cost of liing increases.

Of course, that is an option for cutting back too, just freeze current benefits and people have to make up the inflation difference somehow themselves.

Often inflation isn't even though. Cost of living increase may be 5%, but if over half of that is cost of food, it's a lot harder for someone to deal with the increase if living on limited income.

In your calculations, how are figuring in everyone that was near retirement when SS started and collected till their death, 10 to 20 years, after paying in for less than 10 years.

Am I reading your implication correctly that you figure that SS has made the US government lots of cash that they are hiding from the public?

but when SS started, those that were already a certain age only had to pay in a minimalistic amount to qualify for SS payments.

There is the fact that all those are dead now, it would have been my grandmother's generation, perhaps even those a bit older. I remember reading when I was looking up some history on SS on a previous debate here, but don't remember the details.

Now SS is based on lifetime, but even when I started working the payout was based on just a few years before you started to draw. That allowed workers in their 50's when SS began to qualify for as much as someone who started paying in much earlier. I think it was around 1980 that changed to lifetime earnings but I'm not sure. It was changed after a recognition that many workers earned less in their last decade of work than they did before because of changing jobs. Some had to take less demanding physically jobs, some changed jobs to move to where they intended to retire (often back to home communities), some couldn't even work or couldnt work full time because of health issues as they aged.

People who for years had earned at a rate that would have qualified them for higher SS ended up with less because of reduced earnings the last few years of their life. So the system was modified so that SS payout was based on lifetime earnings.

That is my understanding anyway.

the last 20 years those prices have swung as drastically as big stocks, so I don't see how they would provide stability.

Now it may be true their inflation % is higher than general inflatrion %, if so they would provide a hedge against inflation.

If you're insisting on the savings rate be applied, again aren't you just calling for tax deferred savings accounts under a different name, with government mandated contributions of course vs voluntary.

Actually given some of your views on government vs private, I would have thought you'd be in favor of the privatizing of SS and letting the individual choose investments and be responsible for his own reward and risk.

Perhaps government mandated contributions to individual IRA like plans should be discussed, as long as we acknowledge we are leaving each to hisself with no safety net.

Not very advanced society IMO, nor acknowledging socially the example of the Good Samaritan, but it may fit well with some belief in the government should be minimal and the individual is solely responsible for his/her well being. In this line, help and aid should be only at the individual or at the most local group level and only for those that someone recognizes the need, chooses to provide it, and can afford themselves to provide it.

He got elected.

take just about any ad that was shown during the campaign, beginning last February before the Rep primaries even began.....and the theme of 'kill Romney' was already taking shape.