The GOP doesn't give all the money to the too 1%.
They earned it.
The democrats however want to take away their personal property and "redistribute"
ok hannity.
Name calling is not ok. Please read posting guidelines. I don't want to report you because if yuo get banned from Posting I think you might get VERY angry.
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
chris christie knows his way around a cheesesteak, and he will probably know a heart attack in the next 10 years. i think that is one of the reasons he is not running, as the presidency is stressful and stress and obesity is a recipe for disaster in the form of sudden death....
ows does represent anger not just at obama, but at congress, the senate, and the banks and those on wall street. it represents anger at the congress and the senate being unable to agree or compromise on anything to actually fucking help this country... also lack of jobs at home while the wars continue, corporate profits through the roof while they ship jobs overseas, banks get bailed out and none of them get charged with anything while consumers get fucked. to me it represents the anger at the failure of capitalism in that it is predatory in nature.
and ows is REALLY going to escalate when the republicans allow the payroll tax to expire, thus raising taxes on the middle class by $1000...they are ok with raising taxes on the middle class, the people hurting the most, while they protect the wealthy from any tax increases. unfuckingbelievable!!! :twisted: :twisted:
us in the middle class, the republican party does not care about us. they hate us. they see us as an inconvenience and a burden on the system and a roadblock for what they really want to do. they view ows as the peasants rising up against them. like when the slave owners would not let slaves learn to read and write for fear of them communicating with each other to overthrow the slaveholder. if you don't believe me that the gop hates you, then vote for them. vote for all of them and watch this country sink even further into the crapper.
What I find funny is people are always telling republicans to stop voting with their wallets. And then the democrats are running specifically on those wallets and the people voting for the democrats have always done nothing but vote for their own wallets.
Nobody hates you. Quit being so dramatic. Oh, and nice touch with the personal attack on Christie, you are high class.
The dirty truth is the Democrats are not willing to reduce spending to where it needs to be for the country to be healthy and the Republicans are not willing to increase taxes in areas where it is needed in order for the country to be healthy.
Each have some good points and some bad points, but the republican "leadership" in Congress unwillingness to compromise and Barrack Obama's class warefare cry has created an environment where nothing happens and the people start turning on each other.
Well done idiots. I will not vote for a single incumbent. I've decide I'm going to give Mitt a try. I hope he doesn't let the far right in his own party ruin what could be a good presidency.
I still don't see how the title of this thread makes any sense. I'm sure Obama has added to many peoples anger, but I can't see how any one would really believe that in of itself is all that OWS represents.
Still scratching my head.
They voted for him.
Utopia has not materialized.
They are frustrated, and don't understand who it is that has fucked us all.
No Bush to blame, only the product of their misguided vote: Obama, a clearcut Marxist.
This is the frustration that comes from failed Socialist experiments.
The dirty truth is the Democrats are not willing to reduce spending to where it needs to be for the country to be healthy and the Republicans are not willing to increase taxes in areas where it is needed in order for the country to be healthy.
Each have some good points and some bad points, but the republican "leadership" in Congress unwillingness to compromise and Barrack Obama's class warefare cry has created an environment where nothing happens and the people start turning on each other.
Well done idiots. I will not vote for a single incumbent. I've decide I'm going to give Mitt a try. I hope he doesn't let the far right in his own party ruin what could be a good presidency.
:thumbup: , I would love to vote for Ron Paul, but i don't think he has a chance in hell, i also don't think Mitt has the personality to win either although he seems a good guy, Newt's a Nightmare, so i'm gona give Obama 4 more years and pray. Now if Christie would run, we would really have something to talk about.
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,430
I still don't see how the title of this thread makes any sense. I'm sure Obama has added to many peoples anger, but I can't see how any one would really believe that in of itself is all that OWS represents.
Still scratching my head.
They voted for him.
Utopia has not materialized.
They are frustrated, and don't understand who it is that has fucked us all.
No Bush to blame, only the product of their misguided vote: Obama, a clearcut Marxist.
This is the frustration that comes from failed Socialist experiments.
Ask Europe.
I said, " I can't see how any one would really believe that in of itself is all that OWS represents". That seems obvious to me. This thread title makes no sense to me.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
I still don't see how the title of this thread makes any sense. I'm sure Obama has added to many peoples anger, but I can't see how any one would really believe that in of itself is all that OWS represents.
Still scratching my head.
They voted for him.
Utopia has not materialized.
They are frustrated, and don't understand who it is that has fucked us all.
No Bush to blame, only the product of their misguided vote: Obama, a clearcut Marxist.
This is the frustration that comes from failed Socialist experiments.
Ask Europe.
I said, " I can't see how any one would really believe that in of itself is all that OWS represents". That seems obvious to me. This thread title makes no sense to me.
Oh, my bad- I see what you're saying.
Well, I agree, in that sense, because I don't think OWS really has a congruent message.
Also, goes to my post above, BO thinks all the ills will be solved by taxing the rich.
Can you enlighten us as to when a tax cut for the rich solved anything?
No. You said "taxing the rich has worked."
I still want to know where and when.
Eisenhower's presidency (1953 - 1961), the rich were taxed at 91% and it remained at that. Balanced the budget, created a moderate surplus, kept inflation near zero and unemployment low, steady job in all sectors, and created nearly 4 million jobs.
When Clinton came to office, the top tax rate was 31%; he raised that to 39.6% and it remained that his whole presidency. Balanced the budget and created the largest surplus in American history. Created 22.5 million jobs, the most ever by a single administration; 92% of those jobs were in the private sector. The economy grew for 116 consecutive months, the longest in history. Unemployment was at its lowest level in 30 years. Inflation dropped to its lowest level since JFK's administration. The poverty rate declined to its lowest level in 30 years.
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Note: Under the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, the 3 percent normal tax and the surtax rates were combined in a single set of rates. (a) Under the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, the maximum tax was 87 percent of taxable income.http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/fed_ ... ne2010.pdf
Also, people making ZERO dollars to $4000/year were taxed at %20. Like to see that today...
Also people WORKED. Now, %50 don't. %50 take for free.... and it takes the other %50 just to keep this country going- and its about to break.
Eisenhower's tax structure, if applied to America today, would only expedite the construction of the handbasket...
Note: Under the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, the 3 percent normal tax and the surtax rates were combined in a single set of rates. (a) Under the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, the maximum tax was 87 percent of taxable income.http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/fed_ ... ne2010.pdf
Also, people making ZERO dollars to $4000/year were taxed at %20. Like to see that today...
Also people WORKED. Now, %50 don't. %50 take for free.... and it takes the other %50 just to keep this country going- and its about to break.
Eisenhower's tax structure, if applied to America today, would only expedite the construction of the handbasket...
1. 20% or 20% of taxable income? Deductions? Massive difference. Also $4,000 was a hell of a lot more money in 1954 than 2011, no?
2. Please stop with the 50% pay nothing nonsense. I'm sure you know a very large portion of the "50%" are retirees and others on Social Security, many of whom worked their whole lives and put money into system. Painting 50% as freeloaders is not fair at all.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win ."
Note: Under the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, the 3 percent normal tax and the surtax rates were combined in a single set of rates. (a) Under the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, the maximum tax was 87 percent of taxable income.http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/fed_ ... ne2010.pdf
Also, people making ZERO dollars to $4000/year were taxed at %20. Like to see that today...
Also people WORKED. Now, %50 don't. %50 take for free.... and it takes the other %50 just to keep this country going- and its about to break.
Eisenhower's tax structure, if applied to America today, would only expedite the construction of the handbasket...
1. 20% or 20% of taxable income? Deductions? Massive difference. Also $4,000 was a hell of a lot more money in 1954 than 2011, no?
2. Please stop with the 50% pay nothing nonsense. I'm sure you know a very large portion of the "50%" are retirees and others on Social Security, many of whom worked their whole lives and put money into system. Painting 50% as freeloaders is not fair at all.
Those retirees, pay property taxes, and plenty of others. Many of those who were planning on retiring, have not been able to.
So, no, I will not stop telling the truth just because you find it inconvenient.
50% of this country is on the gubmint tit, and I'm sick of paying for it.
Note: Under the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, the 3 percent normal tax and the surtax rates were combined in a single set of rates. (a) Under the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, the maximum tax was 87 percent of taxable income.http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/fed_ ... ne2010.pdf
Also, people making ZERO dollars to $4000/year were taxed at %20. Like to see that today...
Also people WORKED. Now, %50 don't. %50 take for free.... and it takes the other %50 just to keep this country going- and its about to break.
Eisenhower's tax structure, if applied to America today, would only expedite the construction of the handbasket...
1. 20% or 20% of taxable income? Deductions? Massive difference. Also $4,000 was a hell of a lot more money in 1954 than 2011, no?
2. Please stop with the 50% pay nothing nonsense. I'm sure you know a very large portion of the "50%" are retirees and others on Social Security, many of whom worked their whole lives and put money into system. Painting 50% as freeloaders is not fair at all.
Those retirees, pay property taxes, and plenty of others. Many of those who were planning on retiring, have not been able to.
So, no, I will not stop telling the truth just because you find it inconvenient.
50% of this country is on the gubmint tit, and I'm sick of paying for it.
So retired people getting social security benefits, that they paid into their whole working lives, are on the "gubmint tit" and "take for free"?
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win ."
I said, " I can't see how any one would really believe that in of itself is all that OWS represents". That seems obvious to me. This thread title makes no sense to me.
Oh, my bad- I see what you're saying.
Well, I agree, in that sense, because I don't think OWS really has a congruent message.
Yeah, I know what you mean. The unhappiness/anger seems to run across all lines
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
With most of Washington locked in a debate over just how big a bite should be taken out of a (relatively small) portion of overall government spending, one group of senators is pushing forward to face the larger budget challenge.
President Barack Obama has kept a cautious distance from the recommendations issued last year by his own commission on fiscal responsibility — particularly when it comes to entitlements like Social Security. But this bipartisan group of six senators, led by Sen. Mark Warner, D- Va., and Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R- Ga., is keeping the commission's proposals alive and drafting them into legislation.
Fiscal retrenchment, including reining in entitlement spending, can no longer be delayed, they argue. “If we put this off, we are approaching financial Armageddon," Warner told an audience in Richmond, Va., this week.
This week, commission co-chairman Erskine Bowles put Social Security — and its often-misunderstood trust funds — squarely in the center of the debate.
Slow down Social Security benefit growth
The commission, co-chaired by Bowles, President Clinton’s former chief of staff, and former Senate Republican Whip Alan Simpson, recommended slowing the future growth of Social Security retirement benefits, particularly for higher earners, increasing taxes on higher earners, and raising the eligibility age for collecting benefits, except for workers with physically demanding jobs.
But skeptics wonder: why pick on Social Security? Since Social Security will be solvent until 2037, why must it be part of any fiscal overhaul now?
Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., a member of the Bowles-Simpson commission who voted against its recommendations, has accused Republicans of wanting “to raid Social Security to pay for their past failures to balance the books.”
He said Social Security has “$2.6 trillion in reserves dedicated to paying the retirement, disability and survivor benefits that American taxpayers have earned” and that $2.6 trillion “doesn’t add to our deficit.”
At a Senate Budget Committee hearing this week, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., quizzed Bowles about why his proposed Social Security changes must be such a central part of any fiscal reform.
What's in the trust fund?
“What people sometimes forget is that when somebody my age goes to collect on their Social Security I want money, cash,” Bowles, who is 65, replied. “And I go to present that obligation to the Social Security trust fund and it doesn't have cash. What it has is the government IOUs there which are as good as gold. But the government has to go out into the marketplace and borrow the money. And so it increases the national debt.”
The gross national debt is now equal to about 100 percent of gross domestic product, the highest level since right after World War II, and it will grow as more Americans retire and collect Social Security and Medicare benefits.
The controversy hinges on the nature of the Social Security trust funds. They aren’t trust funds like wealthy investors leave for their grandchildren. So what are they?
Some people, such as Bowles, refer to one fund but there are in fact two of them: the Disability Insurance fund and the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance fund.
Most analysts look at the system’s finances as a whole and aggregate the two funds. The Social Security Administration displays all the trust fund data on its site.
Where does the excess money go?
For most of the past 30 years, since the reforms designed by the 1982 Greenspan Commission to extend Social Security’s solvency, the system has collected more in revenue from Social Security taxes on workers than it has paid out in benefits to retirees, widows, orphans, and the disabled.
The excess revenues did not go into “an ironclad lockbox where the politicians can't touch them,” as Al Gore proposed as a presidential candidate back in 2000.
As a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report explained in 2000, “Contrary to popular belief, Social Security taxes are not deposited into the Social Security trust funds ... Along with many other forms of revenues, these Social Security taxes become part of the government’s operating cash pool, or what is more commonly referred to as the U.S. treasury. In effect, once these taxes are received, they become indistinguishable from other monies the government takes in.”
But the Social Security revenues are “accounted for separately through the issuance of federal securities to the Social Security trust funds … but the trust funds themselves do not receive or hold money. They are simply accounts.”
By the end of last year, those securities, or bonds, amounted to $2.6 trillion, the number Becerra used.
he bonds earn interest. That interest — essentially paid by the federal government to itself and amounting to $117 billion last year — helps pay for the benefits.
Last year — partly due to high unemployment and the aging of the population — Social Security taxes collected (nearly $640 billion) were less than the benefits paid out (more than $701 billion). The system had a “negative net cash flow.”
Cashing in the bonds
That reversal points to the future of Social Security when the $2.6 trillion in bonds will need to be cashed in to pay the benefits promised to future retirees.
According to the latest Social Security trustees report, about 14 years from now, the interest earned on the bonds won't be sufficient to cover the annual difference between benefits and tax revenues.
At that point, the trust funds will be drawn down — the bonds will be cashed in — until the bonds are gone in 2037. If Congress does nothing before 2037, benefits would need to be cut by 22 percent to keep the system in balance.
“What often confuses people is that they see these securities as assets for the government,” the CRS report said.
Or as the Congressional Budget Office explained in a report to Congress, “The balances in the trust funds (in the form of government securities) are assets to the individual programs (such as Social Security) but liabilities to the rest of the government.”
“When an individual buys a government bond, he or she has established a financial claim against the government,” the CRS said. But “when the government issues a security to one of its own accounts, it hasn’t purchased anything or established a claim against some other person or entity. It is simply creating an IOU from one of its accounts to another.”
The bonds are a promise to pay benefits in the future — but not the ability to pay those benefits.
Effect on the rest of the federal budget
“The redemption of those bonds can only occur out of current income,” explained Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad, one of the Warner-Chambliss “Gang of Six,” last month.
“The general fund has been borrowing from Social Security and we've borrowed well over $2 trillion,” he said. “That money has got to be paid back. How's it going to be paid back? It's going to be paid back by the other general expenditures of the federal government having to be reduced to make way for the payments that we're going to have to make on those bonds.”
It may also require increasing taxes, which the Bowles-Simpson report recommends and which the gang has not ruled out.
With the need to cash in the bonds held by the trust funds, Conrad said, “we’re going to see a dramatic impact on budgets” because the rest of the federal government’s operations, from Navy aircraft carriers to National Park Service rangers, have been “enjoying in effect a subsidy from the Social Security trust fund of several hundred billion dollars a year.”
He concluded, “Instead of having several hundred billion dollars a year coming in from Social Security that we could send somewhere else, those days are over.”
Would this gloomy picture have been different if Gore had been able to create his “ironclad lockbox”? No.
As the CBO has explained, “Even with the securities held by the trust funds and with a dedicated future stream of revenues, by 2039 those resources will be insufficient to pay the full benefits that will accrue under current law.”
“Some of this is just math, you know,” Warner said recently. “Sixteen workers for every one retiree 60 years ago… and now it’s three (workers for each retiree). It’s not a Democrat or Republican problem, it’s just math.”
And the math is pointing to higher taxes and a reduction in future benefits.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
What I find funny is people are always telling republicans to stop voting with their wallets. And then the democrats are running specifically on those wallets and the people voting for the democrats have always done nothing but vote for their own wallets.
Nobody hates you. Quit being so dramatic. Oh, and nice touch with the personal attack on Christie, you are high class.
i am not being dramatic. i am standing up for my people. the middle class and the poor. because someone has to.
and thanks for sarcastically pointing out my level of "class". i have class. i am just sick and tired of people blaming democrats and liberals when it is the same policies that the conservatives had put forth the last 30 years. the gop are hypocrites if they raise taxes for the middle and low classes and not for the rich.if nobody will stand up for the middle class i will run for congress myself.
at this point i would have to apply the ethics of doing the greatest good by the greatest number of people. there are a hell of a lot more workers that are "middle class" making $50,000 a year that can not afford a $1000-1500 tax increase than there are millionaires and billionaires...
Post edited by gimmesometruth27 on
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
the republicans are not going to cut spending on defense and war and oil subsidies, which are the biggest non-essential drain on our system. we have been in perpetual war for 10 yearsd. when and where does it stop??it stops when we stop paying for it with money that we do not have.
obama never used the words class warfare until the gop started calling obama's proposed economic policy "class warfare". the gop has a nice way of labeling things with a negative connotation. i will give them that much.
i don't think mitt can win unless he courts the far right of the party. plus he passed something really similar to obama's health insurance reform and now he has to defend it, which makes him a flip flopper on his greatest achievement as governor....kinda hard to run with that on your record as a republican...
The dirty truth is the Democrats are not willing to reduce spending to where it needs to be for the country to be healthy and the Republicans are not willing to increase taxes in areas where it is needed in order for the country to be healthy.
Each have some good points and some bad points, but the republican "leadership" in Congress unwillingness to compromise and Barrack Obama's class warefare cry has created an environment where nothing happens and the people start turning on each other.
Well done idiots. I will not vote for a single incumbent. I've decide I'm going to give Mitt a try. I hope he doesn't let the far right in his own party ruin what could be a good presidency.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
Harvard Professor Calls OWS Protesters “Inchoate”
After being asked about the walkout of a few of his students from his Economics 10 class on November 2, Harvard professor Greg Mankiw (left) responded with an open letter in the New York Times. The walkout involved only about 30 or 40 of the 750 students who usually attend, he noted. In addition, some other students entered his class as a “counter protest,” and at least one of the original protesters returned to his class because he didn’t want to miss his lecture.
His biggest disappointment, he said, was “at how poorly informed the ... protesters seemed to be. As with much of the Occupy movement across the country, their complaints seemed to me to be a grab bag of anti-establishment platitudes without much hard-headed analysis or clear policy prescriptions.” He allowed that perhaps the protesters “were motivated by an inchoate feeling that standard economic theory is inherently slanted.” (Emphasis added.)
"Inchoate" is defined as “imperfectly formed or formulated.” And indeed that is the proper descriptor of the Occupy Wall Street movement. From its de facto website one learns such “anti-establishment platitudes” as
OWS is fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations.... [OWS] aims to fight back against the richest 1% of people that [sic] are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future.
Inchoate, indeed. Cornel West, the liberal Princeton professor and supporter of OWS, couldn’t determine exactly what it stands for, calling it a “democratic awakening” that couldn’t be “translated” into “one demand or two demands.” Financial Times couldn’t find a unified aim for the movement either, while Bloomberg BusinessWeek said that the protesters want more and better jobs, more equal distribution of income (socialism), bank reforms, and (once again) a reduction of the influence of corporations on politics.
Even the best description that Adbusters, the founder of the OWS movement, could come up with was “to protest corporate influence on democracy [sic]” and “the main thing we want to see is for people to be in control of their government, not corporations.”
Mankiw said, “I don’t view the study of economics as laden with ideology. Most of us agree with Keynes who said: ‘The theory of economics does not furnish a body of settled conclusions.... It is a method rather than a doctrine.’” He added, "The recent financial crisis, economic downturn and meager recovery are vivid reminders that we still have much to learn.... A prerequisite for being a good economist is an ample dose of humility."
Perhaps that is what Mankiw’s students need. As Dr. Kenneth McFarland said, “There is no arrogance more vicious than the arrogance of ignorance.” Some observers say that it appears that all that happened in professor Mankiw’s class was a temper tantrum by intemperate, ignorant, and immature young people who have been educated beyond their intellect.
Maybe if the "corporations" or "people" raised wages and benefits, the Obama administration wouldn't have to redistribute the wealth. The family that owns Walmart possesses more wealth than 35 million Americans combined. The wealth of the top 1% is up over 200% since 1975, while average wages have remained stagnent. "Corporate" or "people" profits have also increased significantly since 1975 while wages have remained relatively stagnent, even while the American worker has raised their productivity by close to 60% in that time. And the "corporations" or "people" also use public roads, bridges, police, fire and other TAXPAYER funded goods and services to become what they are. IMO, we all suck from the teet of government. The 1% don't exisit in a vacuum nor are they completely responsible for their success.
Its time to start spreading the wealth. The 1% could do it voluntarily as Warren Buffet recommends or the government can do it. We know what works and what doesn't and republicans just saying no to everything is not working.
Comments
Stop trolling
I won't feed you.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Woot
Night night. Baby just woke up.
:? :? :?
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
What I find funny is people are always telling republicans to stop voting with their wallets. And then the democrats are running specifically on those wallets and the people voting for the democrats have always done nothing but vote for their own wallets.
Nobody hates you. Quit being so dramatic. Oh, and nice touch with the personal attack on Christie, you are high class.
Each have some good points and some bad points, but the republican "leadership" in Congress unwillingness to compromise and Barrack Obama's class warefare cry has created an environment where nothing happens and the people start turning on each other.
Well done idiots. I will not vote for a single incumbent. I've decide I'm going to give Mitt a try. I hope he doesn't let the far right in his own party ruin what could be a good presidency.
I would like to know when redistribution of wealth has EVER worked, ANYWHERE?
Can't wait to hear this...
I think you are referring to TAFT.... not Teddy...
No. You said "taxing the rich has worked."
I still want to know where and when.
They voted for him.
Utopia has not materialized.
They are frustrated, and don't understand who it is that has fucked us all.
No Bush to blame, only the product of their misguided vote: Obama, a clearcut Marxist.
This is the frustration that comes from failed Socialist experiments.
Ask Europe.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Oh, my bad- I see what you're saying.
Well, I agree, in that sense, because I don't think OWS really has a congruent message.
When Clinton came to office, the top tax rate was 31%; he raised that to 39.6% and it remained that his whole presidency. Balanced the budget and created the largest surplus in American history. Created 22.5 million jobs, the most ever by a single administration; 92% of those jobs were in the private sector. The economy grew for 116 consecutive months, the longest in history. Unemployment was at its lowest level in 30 years. Inflation dropped to its lowest level since JFK's administration. The poverty rate declined to its lowest level in 30 years.
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Also, people making ZERO dollars to $4000/year were taxed at %20. Like to see that today...
Also people WORKED. Now, %50 don't. %50 take for free.... and it takes the other %50 just to keep this country going- and its about to break.
Eisenhower's tax structure, if applied to America today, would only expedite the construction of the handbasket...
1. 20% or 20% of taxable income? Deductions? Massive difference. Also $4,000 was a hell of a lot more money in 1954 than 2011, no?
2. Please stop with the 50% pay nothing nonsense. I'm sure you know a very large portion of the "50%" are retirees and others on Social Security, many of whom worked their whole lives and put money into system. Painting 50% as freeloaders is not fair at all.
"With our thoughts we make the world"
Those retirees, pay property taxes, and plenty of others. Many of those who were planning on retiring, have not been able to.
So, no, I will not stop telling the truth just because you find it inconvenient.
50% of this country is on the gubmint tit, and I'm sick of paying for it.
So retired people getting social security benefits, that they paid into their whole working lives, are on the "gubmint tit" and "take for free"?
"With our thoughts we make the world"
Me too brother!
The money that is sent out every month, RIGHT NOW, is borrowed from China.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
If it's solvent until 2037, why pick on Social Security?
If nothing is done, benefits would need to be cut by 22 percent to keep the system in balance
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41997468/ns ... -security/
With most of Washington locked in a debate over just how big a bite should be taken out of a (relatively small) portion of overall government spending, one group of senators is pushing forward to face the larger budget challenge.
President Barack Obama has kept a cautious distance from the recommendations issued last year by his own commission on fiscal responsibility — particularly when it comes to entitlements like Social Security. But this bipartisan group of six senators, led by Sen. Mark Warner, D- Va., and Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R- Ga., is keeping the commission's proposals alive and drafting them into legislation.
Fiscal retrenchment, including reining in entitlement spending, can no longer be delayed, they argue. “If we put this off, we are approaching financial Armageddon," Warner told an audience in Richmond, Va., this week.
This week, commission co-chairman Erskine Bowles put Social Security — and its often-misunderstood trust funds — squarely in the center of the debate.
Slow down Social Security benefit growth
The commission, co-chaired by Bowles, President Clinton’s former chief of staff, and former Senate Republican Whip Alan Simpson, recommended slowing the future growth of Social Security retirement benefits, particularly for higher earners, increasing taxes on higher earners, and raising the eligibility age for collecting benefits, except for workers with physically demanding jobs.
But skeptics wonder: why pick on Social Security? Since Social Security will be solvent until 2037, why must it be part of any fiscal overhaul now?
Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., a member of the Bowles-Simpson commission who voted against its recommendations, has accused Republicans of wanting “to raid Social Security to pay for their past failures to balance the books.”
He said Social Security has “$2.6 trillion in reserves dedicated to paying the retirement, disability and survivor benefits that American taxpayers have earned” and that $2.6 trillion “doesn’t add to our deficit.”
At a Senate Budget Committee hearing this week, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., quizzed Bowles about why his proposed Social Security changes must be such a central part of any fiscal reform.
What's in the trust fund?
“What people sometimes forget is that when somebody my age goes to collect on their Social Security I want money, cash,” Bowles, who is 65, replied. “And I go to present that obligation to the Social Security trust fund and it doesn't have cash. What it has is the government IOUs there which are as good as gold. But the government has to go out into the marketplace and borrow the money. And so it increases the national debt.”
The gross national debt is now equal to about 100 percent of gross domestic product, the highest level since right after World War II, and it will grow as more Americans retire and collect Social Security and Medicare benefits.
The controversy hinges on the nature of the Social Security trust funds. They aren’t trust funds like wealthy investors leave for their grandchildren. So what are they?
Some people, such as Bowles, refer to one fund but there are in fact two of them: the Disability Insurance fund and the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance fund.
Most analysts look at the system’s finances as a whole and aggregate the two funds. The Social Security Administration displays all the trust fund data on its site.
Where does the excess money go?
For most of the past 30 years, since the reforms designed by the 1982 Greenspan Commission to extend Social Security’s solvency, the system has collected more in revenue from Social Security taxes on workers than it has paid out in benefits to retirees, widows, orphans, and the disabled.
The excess revenues did not go into “an ironclad lockbox where the politicians can't touch them,” as Al Gore proposed as a presidential candidate back in 2000.
As a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report explained in 2000, “Contrary to popular belief, Social Security taxes are not deposited into the Social Security trust funds ... Along with many other forms of revenues, these Social Security taxes become part of the government’s operating cash pool, or what is more commonly referred to as the U.S. treasury. In effect, once these taxes are received, they become indistinguishable from other monies the government takes in.”
But the Social Security revenues are “accounted for separately through the issuance of federal securities to the Social Security trust funds … but the trust funds themselves do not receive or hold money. They are simply accounts.”
By the end of last year, those securities, or bonds, amounted to $2.6 trillion, the number Becerra used.
he bonds earn interest. That interest — essentially paid by the federal government to itself and amounting to $117 billion last year — helps pay for the benefits.
Last year — partly due to high unemployment and the aging of the population — Social Security taxes collected (nearly $640 billion) were less than the benefits paid out (more than $701 billion). The system had a “negative net cash flow.”
Cashing in the bonds
That reversal points to the future of Social Security when the $2.6 trillion in bonds will need to be cashed in to pay the benefits promised to future retirees.
According to the latest Social Security trustees report, about 14 years from now, the interest earned on the bonds won't be sufficient to cover the annual difference between benefits and tax revenues.
At that point, the trust funds will be drawn down — the bonds will be cashed in — until the bonds are gone in 2037. If Congress does nothing before 2037, benefits would need to be cut by 22 percent to keep the system in balance.
“What often confuses people is that they see these securities as assets for the government,” the CRS report said.
Or as the Congressional Budget Office explained in a report to Congress, “The balances in the trust funds (in the form of government securities) are assets to the individual programs (such as Social Security) but liabilities to the rest of the government.”
“When an individual buys a government bond, he or she has established a financial claim against the government,” the CRS said. But “when the government issues a security to one of its own accounts, it hasn’t purchased anything or established a claim against some other person or entity. It is simply creating an IOU from one of its accounts to another.”
The bonds are a promise to pay benefits in the future — but not the ability to pay those benefits.
Effect on the rest of the federal budget
“The redemption of those bonds can only occur out of current income,” explained Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad, one of the Warner-Chambliss “Gang of Six,” last month.
“The general fund has been borrowing from Social Security and we've borrowed well over $2 trillion,” he said. “That money has got to be paid back. How's it going to be paid back? It's going to be paid back by the other general expenditures of the federal government having to be reduced to make way for the payments that we're going to have to make on those bonds.”
It may also require increasing taxes, which the Bowles-Simpson report recommends and which the gang has not ruled out.
With the need to cash in the bonds held by the trust funds, Conrad said, “we’re going to see a dramatic impact on budgets” because the rest of the federal government’s operations, from Navy aircraft carriers to National Park Service rangers, have been “enjoying in effect a subsidy from the Social Security trust fund of several hundred billion dollars a year.”
He concluded, “Instead of having several hundred billion dollars a year coming in from Social Security that we could send somewhere else, those days are over.”
Would this gloomy picture have been different if Gore had been able to create his “ironclad lockbox”? No.
As the CBO has explained, “Even with the securities held by the trust funds and with a dedicated future stream of revenues, by 2039 those resources will be insufficient to pay the full benefits that will accrue under current law.”
“Some of this is just math, you know,” Warner said recently. “Sixteen workers for every one retiree 60 years ago… and now it’s three (workers for each retiree). It’s not a Democrat or Republican problem, it’s just math.”
And the math is pointing to higher taxes and a reduction in future benefits.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
and thanks for sarcastically pointing out my level of "class". i have class. i am just sick and tired of people blaming democrats and liberals when it is the same policies that the conservatives had put forth the last 30 years. the gop are hypocrites if they raise taxes for the middle and low classes and not for the rich.if nobody will stand up for the middle class i will run for congress myself.
at this point i would have to apply the ethics of doing the greatest good by the greatest number of people. there are a hell of a lot more workers that are "middle class" making $50,000 a year that can not afford a $1000-1500 tax increase than there are millionaires and billionaires...
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
obama never used the words class warfare until the gop started calling obama's proposed economic policy "class warfare". the gop has a nice way of labeling things with a negative connotation. i will give them that much.
i don't think mitt can win unless he courts the far right of the party. plus he passed something really similar to obama's health insurance reform and now he has to defend it, which makes him a flip flopper on his greatest achievement as governor....kinda hard to run with that on your record as a republican...
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Harvard Professor Calls OWS Protesters “Inchoate”
After being asked about the walkout of a few of his students from his Economics 10 class on November 2, Harvard professor Greg Mankiw (left) responded with an open letter in the New York Times. The walkout involved only about 30 or 40 of the 750 students who usually attend, he noted. In addition, some other students entered his class as a “counter protest,” and at least one of the original protesters returned to his class because he didn’t want to miss his lecture.
His biggest disappointment, he said, was “at how poorly informed the ... protesters seemed to be. As with much of the Occupy movement across the country, their complaints seemed to me to be a grab bag of anti-establishment platitudes without much hard-headed analysis or clear policy prescriptions.” He allowed that perhaps the protesters “were motivated by an inchoate feeling that standard economic theory is inherently slanted.” (Emphasis added.)
"Inchoate" is defined as “imperfectly formed or formulated.” And indeed that is the proper descriptor of the Occupy Wall Street movement. From its de facto website one learns such “anti-establishment platitudes” as
OWS is fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations.... [OWS] aims to fight back against the richest 1% of people that [sic] are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future.
Inchoate, indeed. Cornel West, the liberal Princeton professor and supporter of OWS, couldn’t determine exactly what it stands for, calling it a “democratic awakening” that couldn’t be “translated” into “one demand or two demands.” Financial Times couldn’t find a unified aim for the movement either, while Bloomberg BusinessWeek said that the protesters want more and better jobs, more equal distribution of income (socialism), bank reforms, and (once again) a reduction of the influence of corporations on politics.
Even the best description that Adbusters, the founder of the OWS movement, could come up with was “to protest corporate influence on democracy [sic]” and “the main thing we want to see is for people to be in control of their government, not corporations.”
Mankiw said, “I don’t view the study of economics as laden with ideology. Most of us agree with Keynes who said: ‘The theory of economics does not furnish a body of settled conclusions.... It is a method rather than a doctrine.’” He added, "The recent financial crisis, economic downturn and meager recovery are vivid reminders that we still have much to learn.... A prerequisite for being a good economist is an ample dose of humility."
Perhaps that is what Mankiw’s students need. As Dr. Kenneth McFarland said, “There is no arrogance more vicious than the arrogance of ignorance.” Some observers say that it appears that all that happened in professor Mankiw’s class was a temper tantrum by intemperate, ignorant, and immature young people who have been educated beyond their intellect.
OWS represents anger George W Bush has caused.
Its time to start spreading the wealth. The 1% could do it voluntarily as Warren Buffet recommends or the government can do it. We know what works and what doesn't and republicans just saying no to everything is not working.
Peace.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Good for them. Keeps more money in working class families pockets. Sure, the mom and pop shops are gone but, you vote with your dollar everyday right?
Tax/ steal from the winners/doers/creators?
War