If Bush would have had his way and Social Security privatized.

[Decker]

No way.
Not buying it.

Everybody can save money, no matter where you are or how much you make. Funny how all the low-enders that need all this help all the time can still somehow afford cigarettes and Bud Light, have a Dish-TV hooked up the the side of the trailer and fancy rims on the SUV...

While that may happen, your protests sound like Reagan's fictional welfare cadillac queen.  What if these low end earners are struck with a health problem?  What if there child gets sick and the insurance carries a high deductible (if they are insured at all) that makes the person choose btn food and health?  There are endless scenarios.

For some reason, you fixate on the worst possible example of free loaders living it up at your expense.  That's just not the case.

Financial crisis happen.... yes. However YOU need to cover YOURSELF for when these happen.

How?  By squirreling away a little more of the 20K paycheck...that's already going towards a cafeteria plan/sec 125 plan, 401k plan, health insurance premiums, life insurance premiums and all the other costs attendant to funding one's own way.

Side note: I used to have a boss that drove a 140K motorhome, and joked about getting the SS check every month.... siad he deserved it for paying in all those years...

He paid in and he got a benefit.  That's how it works.

This is just another example of this sense of entitlement that prevades in this country. If you can't hold your own.... fall out. It is not my, nor anyone elses responsibility to make sure you are kept out of 'abject poverty'. Just because my 'fellow man' happens to exist within the same geo-political region as I do does not make him my responsiblity.

No man is an island nor should he want to be. 

Your argument sounds strangely familiar:

We can't afford to make idle people wealthy. I have been forced to support them through taxation, and God knows they cost more than they're worth. Those who are badly off must have only themselves to blame.

What else can I say when I live in a world full of fools babbling "Free Pensions" at one another? What're handouts but an opportunity for a free ride at another's expense? There's nothing free in that to me. If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with "Free Pensions" on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a steak of holly through his heart. 

For these leeches on society, are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?
________________________ _____
That's a play on A Christmas Carol.

Why do you think that people needing help should be denied help and portrayed as freeloaders reveling in the free fruits of others?

Don't you think you're being a bit harsh?

Are you not your brother's keeper?

[Hereford]

I doubt the non-hackers will figure it out.  

Nor do I. But at the very least it would create a detriment to laziness, don't you agree?

Maybe they could just get jobs?  if the ones who are panhandling now aren't, what makes you think more of them will?

At least I have the option of saying 'no' to a panhandler.

Not arguing appeasement.  Just being realistic. More poor people in a country equate to more crime.  

Build more prisons then. It will create more jobs!  

What's taken out of money isn't enough to kill the average middle class person.  What's taken out is by democratic rule.  Is it not?

I, at no time, have recalled voting on what they can tax and spend on and for in this country. Seriously... Put welfare programs up to a vote, and see what survives and gets voted in. Go and see just how many people really think supporting the low-end of society is a good value of their hard earned dollar...


If you feel that strongly, start a campaign to get it changed.  If not enough people want it, then maybe you are in the wrong country of people.

I am too bust actually working for a living. I do not have the time to do things like go to Denver and assault police officers and cry about how much I hate George Bush....

[Decker]

So anyway, we have a few people that think the privatization of SS would have been bad with where we are at now?  And some who just want to argue against SS alltogether.

You've hit it on the head.  All politics is based on values.

People in the Hereford camp think they are being screwed by a system that benefits the entire society and not just them personally.

The law of the jungle belongs to the jungle.  We are civilized.  

[Hereford]

While that may happen, your protests sound like Reagan's fictional welfare cadillac queen.  What if these low end earners are struck with a health problem?  What if there child gets sick and the insurance carries a high deductible (if they are insured at all) that makes the person choose btn food and health?  There are endless scenarios.

Ummmm Don't have kids of you can't afford to properly take care of them?
 

[Decker]

While that may happen, your protests sound like Reagan's fictional welfare cadillac queen.  What if these low end earners are struck with a health problem?  What if there child gets sick and the insurance carries a high deductible (if they are insured at all) that makes the person choose btn food and health?  There are endless scenarios.

Ummmm Don't have kids of you can't afford to properly take care of them?
 

Really?  That's such an arrogant and shortsighted statement I am certain you said it to show your tough libertarian streak.

So if mom or dad develops cancer and can't work anymore or has to go on reduced hours then its all his or her fault? 

Surely you can't mean what you type?

Are you omniscient?  No one knows what fortune/fate has in store for them. 

Your over-the-top sense of personal responsiblity is just cruelty dressed up as principle.

[Hereford]

You've hit it on the head.  All politics is based on values.

People in the Hereford camp think they are being screwed by a system that benefits the entire society and not just them personally.

The law of the jungle belongs to the jungle.  We are civilized.  

I don't recall seeing the entire society going out and working their collective asses off to support my family. I saw only me out there doing it. I do not see the social dregs that you leftists coddle contributing much of anything, yet receiving benefit at the expense of hard-working Americans.

If you want to support and empower them, due to the fact you have some warped sense of nobility, then please, go right ahead. DO NOT, however do so at the detriment of those who work for what they want, and want to preserve what they have.

[Decker]

I don't recall seeing the entire society going out and working their collective asses off to support my family. I saw only me out there doing it. I do not see the social dregs that you leftists coddle contributing much of anything, yet receiving benefit at the expense of hard-working Americans.

If you want to support and empower them, due to the fact you have some warped sense of nobility, then please, go right ahead. DO NOT, however do so at the detriment of those who work for what they want, and want to preserve what they have.

SS supplements life, disability and retirement.  Only those paying into the system get something out.  Where is the free ride at your expense, matey?

Your superficial selfishness blinds you to the fact that there are societal needs and interests.  Your price of admission on for society's interest in pensions....social security. 

So pay up.  People need it.

[Hereford]

Really?  That's such an arrogant and shortsighted statement I am certain you said it to show your tough libertarian streak.

So if mom or dad develops cancer and can't work anymore or has to go on reduced hours then its all his or her fault? 

Surely you can't mean what you type?

Are you omniscient?  No one knows what fortune/fate has in store for them. 

Your over-the-top sense of personal responsiblity is just cruelty dressed up as principle.

How is that arrogant? What is so F*ing shortsided about being expected to support your offspring?

"So if mom or dad develops cancer and can't work anymore or has to go on reduced hours then its all his or her fault?"

Not necessarily, but tell me... how is it mine?

"Are you omniscient?  No one knows what fortune/fate has in store for them."

Right, so plan ahead. Don't rely on your government forcing your neighbors to do it for you.

Actually Decker....

My truck is in the shop right now because I didn't bother to do basic maintenance.  Why don't you bring me your car so that I have something to drive to the beach and mall with? The fact you won't have a car is irrelivant because, well hey, we're all in this together, right?

Does that help?

[Hereford]

SS supplements life, disability and retirement.  Only those paying into the system get something out.  Where is the free ride at your expense, matey?

Your superficial selfishness blinds you to the fact that there are societal needs and interests.  Your price of admission on for society's interest in pensions....social security. 

So pay up.  People need it.

WTF?!?!?  "Only those paying into the system get something out" Are you f*ing high???

Check again my friend. Just about every handicapped person (physical and mental) in this country is on full SSI.

"Where is the free ride at your expense, matey?" 

It takes the form of those line-item deductions that I see on every paystub that I have ever got.

Actually Decker... I want you to PERSONALLY gaurentee that when I get old, Social Security checks will show up in my mailbox. Of course, by then the eligible age will probably be... what.... 106???

[Decker]

How is that arrogant? What is so F*ing shortsided about being expected to support your offspring?

No one's arguing that parents shouldn't care for their children.  The average household income in this country is in the $50k neighborhood.  Think about the multitudes of family beneath that average.  Bad luck happens.  Many families are one financial hazard away from the streets.

"So if mom or dad develops cancer and can't work anymore or has to go on reduced hours then its all his or her fault?"

Not necessarily, but tell me... how is it mine?

It's yours to the extent that you keep paying those FICA taxes funding the disability portion of Social Security.  I can't speak to your loathsome sense of humanity.

"Are you omniscient?  No one knows what fortune/fate has in store for them."

Right, so plan ahead. Don't rely on your government forcing your neighbors to do it for you.

Are there no societal interests?  Are we just an amalgam of individuals competing against each other for our daily bread?  Or are we more than that?

Actually Decker....

My truck is in the shop right now because I didn't bother to do basic maintenance.  Why don't you bring me your car so that I have something to drive to the beach and mall with? The fact you won't have a car is irrelivant because, well hey, we're all in this together, right?

Does that help?

No one makes 100% of his money by himself.  Even you.  Individuals depend on a wide array of government services to support the very free market in which they earn their money. Without these supports, there would be no free market in the first place. 

It looks like you are steering this discussion in the direction of Welfare.  Fine.  Comparing your laziness in maintaining your truck to the bare survival of low-end wage earners facing financial crisis just illustrates your over-the-top selfishness.

To you, it seems, any tax dollar from your pocket seems to be a a dollar wasted.

[Decker]

WTF?!?!?  "Only those paying into the system get something out" Are you f*ing high???

Check again my friend. Just about every handicapped person (physical and mental) in this country is on full SSI.

"Where is the free ride at your expense, matey?" 

It takes the form of those line-item deductions that I see on every paystub that I have ever got.

Actually Decker... I want you to PERSONALLY gaurentee that when I get old, Social Security checks will show up in my mailbox. Of course, by then the eligible age will probably be... what.... 106???

Check the meaning of the word "beneficiary" under SSA.

SS's pension is fine until 2041.  Reagan prefunded SS in the 1980s with the single largest tax increas in history.  Then he borrowed that money to fund all sorts of illegal and legal activities.  Then when the gov. recouped the monies after the Clinton years, Bush pissed it all away with an irresponsible tax cut. 

[Eyeball Chambers]

B/c it is in the interest of the country to not have our streets cluttered with impoverished old people.

Not all people can save enough for retirement.  The world needs ditch diggers too.  Sometimes people are hit with bad luck as well.  Financial crises happen to people who cannot withstand them.  Try buying a new furnace for the house on $20k a year.  There's food, electricity, water, gas, insurance bills ....and on and on.

You are 'forced' to pay to help your fellow man stay out of abject poverty.  The imposition of a payroll tax to meet these demands is sensible.  And it is the human thing to do.

Everyone that pays into the system gets a benefit.

This also makes sense.

[w8tlftr]

Sweet! 

I don't get it... why are we REQUIRED to pay it?

That's easy.

They have all the guns, 240. 

[240 is Back]

B/c it is in the interest of the country to not have our streets cluttered with impoverished old people.

Not all people can save enough for retirement.  The world needs ditch diggers too.  Sometimes people are hit with bad luck as well.  Financial crises happen to people who cannot withstand them.  Try buying a new furnace for the house on $20k a year.  There's food, electricity, water, gas, insurance bills ....and on and on.

You are 'forced' to pay to help your fellow man stay out of abject poverty.  The imposition of a payroll tax to meet these demands is sensible.  And it is the human thing to do.

Everyone that pays into the system gets a benefit.

It's a fact many ppl overlook.

"Cut welfare and all public assistance tomorrow.  No more free hospital treatment!"

You do that and I guarantee a lot of people start sticking guns in your mouth on your front porch for money for food.  I guarantee public disease skyrockets.  I guarantee the value of your home goes down with children begging on every corner. 

Hereford... You have exposed yourself here.   Even most right-wing guys agree SOME public assistance is necessary for the survival of society.  "End all the handouts" is what a 10th grader without critical thinking skills says.

[Hereford]

It's a fact many ppl overlook.

"Cut welfare and all public assistance tomorrow.  No more free hospital treatment!"

You do that and I guarantee a lot of people start sticking guns in your mouth on your front porch for money for food.  I guarantee public disease skyrockets.  I guarantee the value of your home goes down with children begging on every corner. 

Hereford... You have exposed yourself here.   Even most right-wing guys agree SOME public assistance is necessary for the survival of society.  "End all the handouts" is what a 10th grader without critical thinking skills says.

Aah yes. The old liberal mindset, "We don't want to regulate people"...

I would invite any of your liberal, low-class bretheren to try to stick a gun in my mouth on my front porch.

This is classical appeasement. "We need to keep the lowlifes happy so they don't run batshit".

How can you leftist socialists seriously believe this BS?

I think it gives you that feel good, fuzzy feeling down deep in your soul, but just so long as it's off the backs of decent Americans, eh?

"Comparing your laziness in maintaining your truck to the bare survival of low-end wage earners facing financial crisis just illustrates your over-the-top selfishness."

Yea, I'm selfish because I want to keep what I earn, and not have it going to social paracytes... 

[240 is Back]

Aah yes. The old liberal mindset, "We don't want to regulate people"...
I would invite any of your liberal, low-class bretheren to try to stick a gun in my mouth on my front porch.
This is classical appeasement. "We need to keep the lowlifes happy so they don't run batshit".
How can you leftist socialists seriously believe this BS?
I think it gives you that feel good, fuzzy feeling down deep in your soul, but just so long as it's off the backs of decent Americans, eh?
"Comparing your laziness in maintaining your truck to the bare survival of low-end wage earners facing inancial crisis just illustrates your over-the-top selfishness."
Yea, I'm selfish because I want to keep what I earn, and not have it going to social paracytes... 

I don't like paying for it either.


Are you saying that if we cut all support to millions of elderly (social security) and weak (welfare), we wouldn't have all sorts of social problems/crime?

[Hereford]

I don't like paying for it either.


Are you saying that if we cut all support to millions of elderly (social security) and weak (welfare), we wouldn't have all sorts of social problems/crime?

I don't think the elderly are going to start rioting if they get cut off. Unless it's like that Southpark episode....

Welfare does not = weak.    Welfare = Lazy and/or irresponsible 9 times out of 10.

[240 is Back]

I don't think the elderly are going to start rioting if they get cut off. Unless it's like that Southpark episode....

What do you think they'll do? 

Do you believe there will suddenly become 50+ million available jobs for people who are frail and slow?

[Hereford]

What do you think they'll do? 

Do you believe there will suddenly become 50+ million available jobs for people who are frail and slow?

Assuming that we are talking only about old people...

No, I think that ...

1. The 50+ million that follow them might plan a little better.
2. 40+ million might be forced to adjust their lifestyles to better match their financial capabilities.

[240 is Back]

Assuming that we are talking only about old people...
No, I think that ...
1. The 50+ million that follow them might plan a little better.
2. 40+ million might be forced to adjust their lifestyles to better match their financial capabilities.

Forced to adapt from 1000 a month to 0 a month?

You don't see any societal ripples?

You think tens of millions of old weak peoeple will just invent jobs?

I can't argue this anymore.  This is high school shit.  Go eat a banana dude.

[Hugo Chavez]

  Go eat a banana dude.

LOL

[Hereford]

Forced to adapt from 1000 a month to 0 a month?

You don't see any societal ripples?

You think tens of millions of old weak peoeple will just invent jobs?

I can't argue this anymore.  This is high school shit.  Go eat a banana dude.

Hey, go write them a personal check then stud.

[OzmO]

I bet you think all people who don't share your views are poor huh?

[Decker]

WTF?!?!?  "Only those paying into the system get something out" Are you f*ing high???

Check again my friend. Just about every handicapped person (physical and mental) in this country is on full SSI.

....

The eligibility requirements for disability under SS are consistent:

The Social Security disability insurance program pays benefits to you and certain family members if you worked long enough and paid Social Security taxes.
http://www.ssa.gov/d&s1.htm

I don't bring this up to rub it in your face that you were wrong.  I bring this up b/c SS is not a welfare program.  Anyone working and paying into the system will see a benefit.  You don't work...you don't get a benefit.  It's a social insurance program.

[shootfighter1]

I understand both arguments but if we are paying taxes to support others, there should be regulations on what they can use the $ for (ie...house, food, utilities, basic needs).  There's just too much abuse in the social welfare programs, I think thats why there's so much resentment.
Who hasn't seen the welfare family that buys their kids expensive clothes and nice cars...thats just not what welfare is suppose to be and it happens all the time because many people on social programs make bad decisions.  It all goes back to that sense of entitlement.