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Yes, social security and medicare need to be restructured, because the baby boomers are all retiring now. Naturally, our fine folks in Congress (I'm talking about both Republican and Democrats now!) kicked that can down the road until the deficit will become a real crisis, especially if this tax cut scam goes through. This legislation makes the solutions even worse than what we're looking at right now, and I guarantee that some Republicans are eyeing this as an opportunity to kill off social security and medicare altogether. They're going to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and disabled, period. And as they're doing so, they're going to blame it all on something/someone else.
I agree with the gist of this. Both programs have needed restructuring since forever but everybody kept kicking the can down the road because no one wanted to face the voter backlash for inevitable cuts. Now instead of doing things in a sensible, gradual way that minimized damage in real people's lived we will see these fools just move to gut it all.
But this is what happens when you don't deal with things while you can. Just like ignoring the effect of the death of manufacturing on the rust belt. Everyone kept lying they would fix it but did little or nothing about it, because solutions weren't easy or cheap. Now those folks are angry and lashing out, and everyone's like "but these things you want don't make sense and are bad in the long run.". They may be right but it's too late now, you left a hole and crazy filled it. Oh well.
Everyone can relax on cuts to Mediwelfare and Socialist Security. Talk is just that - talk.
When the rubber meets the road, and votes get counted, thus to be part of the daily congressional record, thus to be used aainst you in a reelection campaign...well, political courage dies an ignoble death. Same for gun control, same for cuts to any legit spending, same for virtually any issue of importance where tangible downstream effects exist. Maintaining the status quo is sooooooo much easier to give rhetorical cover to, and that's why it gets maintained.
Socialist Security and Mediwelfare have been in dire need of serious updates/reforms for at least 30 years. According to the accounting rules of either program when they were first set up, given the changing nature of our population, the retirementage should be more like 75 for both, the tax ceiling should be much higher, and the taxes themselves should be higher. Noneof that will everhappen tough, because they are the two most entrenched, 3rd railed programs we have, and any common sense, mathematically necessary reforms are political suicide.
Serious reforms to either is virtually impossible. The nation will collapse before anyone ever sees proper restructuring of the old age free candy entitlements.
+1 . So true and it's only a matter of time before the average voter -- who don't pay attention to politics like posters here do -- will figure it out. Far too many seniors vote Republican: they put their Social Security and Medicare benefits at risk when they do.
Seniors only care about THEIR OWN social security benefits.
If their children and grandchildren have their future benefits cut, seniors probably won't like it, but they also won't actually do anything about it. They'll keep voting Republican, even though Republicans have made it crystal-clear that their version of "saving Social Security" means cutting benefits for today's young ppl.
Service denials are another way of implementing cuts without saying they are cutting Medicare. I saw it happen to several elderly people I know personally. Those people also had similar stories about friends of theirs going through the same thing. Most of it was nickel and dime stuff. Dr. visits, higher out of pocket costs for specialist etc... The most glaring cut was to medical testing. Waiting weeks or months for a denial having to appeal it etc... going for a cheaper type of test that isn't as accurate. When Obama ordered moved money over to the ACA there was a shortfall in Medicare services.
Everyone can relax on cuts to Mediwelfare and Socialist Security. Talk is just that - talk.
When the rubber meets the road, and votes get counted, thus to be part of the daily congressional record, thus to be used aainst you in a reelection campaign...well, political courage dies an ignoble death. Same for gun control, same for cuts to any legit spending, same for virtually any issue of importance where tangible downstream effects exist. Maintaining the status quo is sooooooo much easier to give rhetorical cover to, and that's why it gets maintained.
Socialist Security and Mediwelfare have been in dire need of serious updates/reforms for at least 30 years. According to the accounting rules of either program when they were first set up, given the changing nature of our population, the retirementage should be more like 75 for both, the tax ceiling should be much higher, and the taxes themselves should be higher. Noneof that will everhappen tough, because they are the two most entrenched, 3rd railed programs we have, and any common sense, mathematically necessary reforms are political suicide.
Serious reforms to either is virtually impossible. The nation will collapse before anyone ever sees proper restructuring of the old age free candy entitlements.
It already happened once, to the baby boomers, in the 80's. They had to suffer cuts that the "Greatest Generation" didn't. The boomers paid FICA taxes to support their elders that they won't see in SS benefits.
And it'll happen again, with the millenials. They'll cut our benefits while making us pay FICA taxes to support the boomers' benefits.
1) Obama didn't have anything to do whether SS recipients got COLA increases. And, in case you're deluding yourself on this score, Trump won't have anything to do with it either. A COLA used to take a specific act of Congress, but in 1972, Congress enacted a more-or-less automatic bureaucratic process which is based on increases/decreases in the CPI-W. No presidential input required. SS recipients know how this works, so I guess you're not an SS recipient. https://www.ssa.gov/news/cola/
2) The ACA integrated certain aspects of Medicare. No one actually knows what the long term effects of this change will be (especially now that Congress is making changes to it), but in the short term, the ACA changes added wellness/preventive benefits for Medicare recipients and started to close that absurd prescription "doughnut hole" enacted under GWBush. The ACA also took steps to institute some cost containment measures for both the ACA and Medicare, something that most people think is necessary if we're ever going to get a handle on health care costs. But I guess if you LIKE Medicare overpayments and fraud and paying for substandard care, this would not make you happy. Oh well. https://www.aarp.org/health/medicare...-care-act.html
Everyone can relax on cuts to Mediwelfare and Socialist Security. Talk is just that - talk.
When the rubber meets the road, and votes get counted, thus to be part of the daily congressional record, thus to be used aainst you in a reelection campaign...well, political courage dies an ignoble death. Same for gun control, same for cuts to any legit spending, same for virtually any issue of importance where tangible downstream effects exist. Maintaining the status quo is sooooooo much easier to give rhetorical cover to, and that's why it gets maintained.
Socialist Security and Mediwelfare have been in dire need of serious updates/reforms for at least 30 years. According to the accounting rules of either program when they were first set up, given the changing nature of our population, the retirementage should be more like 75 for both, the tax ceiling should be much higher, and the taxes themselves should be higher. Noneof that will everhappen tough, because they are the two most entrenched, 3rd railed programs we have, and any common sense, mathematically necessary reforms are political suicide.
Serious reforms to either is virtually impossible. The nation will collapse before anyone ever sees proper restructuring of the old age free candy entitlements.
This is the fault in our system. There is NO incentive to do things that are absolutely necessary but will be unpopular. In fact there is a DISincentive to act. The only way to combat that would be to have a mature, well-informed populace that understands government, but the "well-informed" part at the "understanding how government works" part hasn't been a thing in forever.
I am in no way in favor of slash and burn on entitlements. But we also as a country have to rein in our spending in a smart way. And Medicare/Social Security has been an area that politicians have been scared to touch. Maybe this will get them to finally get together to make some changes to get the system in better financial shape.
I can't see them doing anything drastic as Republican voters as well as Democrats benefit from the system. But maybe we can get some baby steps started on this
Our military spending is 5-10 times that of any other nation on earth... we could slash that budget first. We could stop the endless wars that have defunded the nation...
Rein in spending? umm, the reason SS and other benefits are such a high % of federal revs is that we have starved the Fed for decades, our effective income tax rates are amongst the lowest of the developed nations.
Our corps already pay an effective tax rate in the high teens to low twenties. Our problem is the massive overhead of maintaining a military that is designed to fight multiple wars none of which would be on our shores. We can destroy all non nuclear nations just with our Air Force and conventional weapons.
The USSR bankrupted itself trying to keep up with our military spending. We appear to be bankrupting ourselves now with our endless military spending.
"Kim Jong Un is concerned that his long-standing plan to destroy the United States has been made totally irrelevant by the Republican tax bill."
...
"The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Kim fears that his scheme to turn the United States into an uninhabitable hellhole has been to a large extent upstaged by a similar proposal from congressional Republicans."
Life imitating art. Either way it's a win for Trump. kim is netured, historic tax cuts will take effect mo money in people's pockets #WINNING #MAGA
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. So true and it's only a matter of time before the average voter -- who don't pay attention to politics like posters here do -- will figure it out. Far too many seniors vote Republican: they put their Social Security and Medicare benefits at risk when they do.
