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If you noticed a few years back, sometime after 9/11/2001, the $40,000 figure was tossed about as part of a "reparations" program to all African Americans. So there was discussion about what was "fair." And I remember an email that was circulating, because one of my friends worked at the Treasury Dept (he is AA) and he sent me a copy of the email, as he was worried that this type of ridiculous message was being passed around via email.
And if I remember correctly, folks were actually speaking to the issue in black communities and churches, telling people there was a congressional movement (I think supposedly started by the black congressional caucus) to get everyone $40K in tax credits and one time payments, etc. I think some folks really believed it.
In any case, I have seen that $40K figure mentioned in re: to "reparations" for a decade or more and I think that may be where all this got started.
Wouldn't giving that much money to seniors cut into the foreign aid budget that we give to countries that don't like us ?
The Middle East wars are spending the billions that we send over faster then we can give it to them.
Wouldn't giving that much money to seniors cut into the foreign aid budget that we give to countries that don't like us ?
The Middle East wars are spending the billions that we send over faster then we can give it to them.
I hear a lot of folks saying things along this line -- and most are not Seniors.
I think people started really thinking about the government sending them a chunk of cash after 2008, when so many people found themselves out of jobs and getting ESC checks, or having to go on some type of assistance, or after having to declare bankruptcy.
And I can see how people would look at foreign aid and the cost of wars and think - if we just cut all that out, we could "give back" tax dollars to everyone in the country.
But here's the problem . . . we may be sending money all over the globe and spending money on war infrastructure and on waging wars . . . but it isn't real money. It is borrowed money.
So even if we somehow magically waved the wand and became a totally isolationist country tomorrow, we still couldn't mail everyone a check for $1, without borrowing it from China or Dubai or whatever country is loaning it to us these days.
And somewhere along the line, we are going to have to pay back the TRILLIONS of dollars of debt we have incurred.
I hear a lot of folks saying things along this line -- and most are not Seniors.
I think people started really thinking about the government sending them a chunk of cash after 2008, when so many people found themselves out of jobs and getting ESC checks, or having to go on some type of assistance, or after having to declare bankruptcy.
And I can see how people would look at foreign aid and the cost of wars and think - if we just cut all that out, we could "give back" tax dollars to everyone in the country.
But here's the problem . . . we may be sending money all over the globe and spending money on war infrastructure and on waging wars . . . but it isn't real money. It is borrowed money.
So even if we somehow magically waved the wand and became a totally isolationist country tomorrow, we still couldn't mail everyone a check for $1, without borrowing it from China or Dubai or whatever country is loaning it to us these days.
And somewhere along the line, we are going to have to pay back the TRILLIONS of dollars of debt we have incurred.
Wow I did not know there were any second graders on CD.
This idea is similar to the one I made at six that everyone be given a million dollars each and we'd end povery and we'd ALL be rich.
RICH, RICH!
Do you hear me? RICH!
Wouldn't giving that much money to seniors cut into the foreign aid budget that we give to countries that don't like us ?
The Middle East wars are spending the billions that we send over faster then we can give it to them.
No it wouldn't, you are being grossly naïve. It's a trickle. Whatever political agenda you have and are against, the revenue savings from it would not even begin to support this. Our ENTIRE military budget for a year - salaries, maintenance, medical, weapons purchases, etc, if we TOTALLY ELIMINATE OUR MILITARY (of course, unfeasible in itself) - it would not make up 1/3 of what is required to fund this per year.
Our foreign aid to Afhiganistan was $12b in 2012. A sizable sum (some of it are loans I believe), but you would need more than 100 times this amount to fund what the OP is discussing.
40 milllion in the US over 65 years old. Total 1.6 trillion dollars a year. That would be $1,600,000,000,000. Annual tax receipts are only 2.8 trillion a year. In order to fund this the US would have to either eliminate half of it's budget (the entire social security, Medicare, and Medicaid program, other stuff like interstate maintenance, national park funding, etc), or raise taxes to astronomical amounts, or print out money. Each will have corresponding negative effects to the economy or social programs that would eliminate any benefits - massive inflation, loss of social programs to the non-aging (in other words - you would have to eliminate entitlements to the poor and sick to give entitlements to the aging), I cannot begin to even predict what the job loss effect would be to an increase in tax, etc.
Of course, also, the population is aging. This 1.6 is just the start.
How much is currently being spent on wars? Maybe some of that could be used for social programs?
Since the original topic originated in thin air, about all that's left is to get political.
There's another forum for that, I believe and it's discouraged on this one.
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