Things you can look forward to…

Lao Tse said:
trump has explicitly said he will not touch social security.
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Trump also promised to build a wall Mexico would pay for. He promised a "beautiful" healthcare plan to replace Obamacare. He promised to show his taxes. He promised each of his wives he would honor them and be faithful. He lied to so many banks about the value of his assets that many of them will no longer do business with him.

So, yeah, I'll just wait and see.

Lao Tse said:
he's reducing foreign wars and payments to illegals for trans surgery instead.
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He'll reduce at least one foreign war (Ukraine) by giving it wholesale to Putin, his buddy.

Lao Tse said:
you;re welcome, old ingrate.
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Your work here is done spreading misinformation on the internet. Good job. Now why don't you give it all a rest now?
 
cawacko said:
Without fail (that I can remember), every single election Democrats claim Republicans will end S.S. and Medicare. And yet somehow it's still here (even though it's in financial trouble because no one will acknowledge the truth about the S.S. fund not having enough money).

And what's most funny/sad. Sorry *ss Trump ran on a platform of not only not touching S.S. and Medicare, he attacked Republicans who have acknowledged the truth (at any time in the past) and suggested reforms. Yet he still is being accused of wanting to end it.

Like my man Archives says, Democrats want to demagogue the issue.
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It looks like repubs will have all three houses. If Congress passes a bill to touch SS and Medicare, do you think trump would refuse to sign it? I don't.
 
christiefan915 said:
It looks like repubs will have all three houses. If Congress passes a bill to touch SS and Medicare, do you think trump would refuse to sign it? I don't.
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They have very small majorities in Congress.

For the sake of discussion, let’s say they really wanted to eliminate S.S. or cut it in half or something more extreme like that (which people are claiming they want to do) there is about zero percent chance that would ever get through both chambers. It’s just not going to happen.
 
cawacko said:
They have very small majorities in Congress.

For the sake of discussion, let’s say they really wanted to eliminate S.S. or cut it in half or something more extreme like that (which people are claiming they want to do) there is about zero percent chance that would ever get through both chambers. It’s just not going to happen.
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Here are some numbers I found about SS. Migrants pay billions in taxes, including SS, and get very little back. Anti-immigration people don't think about how this helps our economy.

"Research organizations and experts have found that illegal immigration benefits the Social Security system by adding money to its funding pots from workers that are not eligible to collect retirement, disability or survivor benefits.

"Illegal immigration unambiguously benefits the Social Security and Medicare trust funds," the nonpartisan Center for Immigration Studies said in a 2023 report on the subject."

www.newsweek.com

Undocumented immigrants' payments into Social Security detailed in report

Undocumented residents paid £25.7 billion into Social Security funds and $6 billion into Medicare in 2022.
www.newsweek.com www.newsweek.com
 
christiefan915 said:
Here are some numbers I found about SS. Migrants pay billions in taxes, including SS, and get very little back. Anti-immigration people don't think about how this helps our economy.

"Research organizations and experts have found that illegal immigration benefits the Social Security system by adding money to its funding pots from workers that are not eligible to collect retirement, disability or survivor benefits.

"Illegal immigration unambiguously benefits the Social Security and Medicare trust funds," the nonpartisan Center for Immigration Studies said in a 2023 report on the subject."

www.newsweek.com

Undocumented immigrants' payments into Social Security detailed in report

Undocumented residents paid £25.7 billion into Social Security funds and $6 billion into Medicare in 2022.
www.newsweek.com www.newsweek.com
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Nice research -- thanks. Alas, you can lead a MAGATard to facts, but you cannot make him think.
 
cawacko said:
They have very small majorities in Congress.

For the sake of discussion, let’s say they really wanted to eliminate S.S. or cut it in half or something more extreme like that (which people are claiming they want to do) there is about zero percent chance that would ever get through both chambers. It’s just not going to happen.
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The majority of Republicans are seeking to protect the benefits. It's the Freedom Caucus, supporters of Project 2025, who are against it.

Regardless, our Do-Nothing Congress isn't protecting SS since the money will run out in less than 10 years. Only fucking morons believe we can cut taxes and increase benefits without penalty.
 
cawacko said:
They have very small majorities in Congress.

For the sake of discussion, let’s say they really wanted to eliminate S.S. or cut it in half or something more extreme like that (which people are claiming they want to do) there is about zero percent chance that would ever get through both chambers. It’s just not going to happen.
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It's not so much the idea of "eliminating" it. It's the move to PRIVATIZE it. Turn it into a for-profit thing. That's attractive to psychopaths in BOTH parties. And if pushed to the wall the Dems would cave if enough pressure was put on something else. Because it's not outright eliminating SS.

But the end result will be the exact same. SS will be dead within a generation.

The dems don't fight dirty enough. The dems let Moscow Mitch steamroll them on SCOTUS appointments. They'll let MAGA roll through and put up a little defense but not enough.

Which is also why in two years the legislature will flip. It often does.

That will be the only brakes getting pumped. In the interim the man whose own bought-and-paid-for SCOTUS has given him king powers.

A lot of damage can be done in 2 years. Assuming Trump doesn't just piss his advantage away settling personal grudges.
 
Daylight63 said:
It's not so much the idea of "eliminating" it. It's the move to PRIVATIZE it. Turn it into a for-profit thing. That's attractive to psychopaths in BOTH parties. And if pushed to the wall the Dems would cave if enough pressure was put on something else. Because it's not outright eliminating SS.

But the end result will be the exact same. SS will be dead within a generation.

The dems don't fight dirty enough. The dems let Moscow Mitch steamroll them on SCOTUS appointments. They'll let MAGA roll through and put up a little defense but not enough.

Which is also why in two years the legislature will flip. It often does.

That will be the only brakes getting pumped. In the interim the man whose own bought-and-paid-for SCOTUS has given him king powers.

A lot of damage can be done in 2 years. Assuming Trump doesn't just piss his advantage away settling personal grudges.
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What's the difference between privatization and pure socialism? Whose pocket gets all the money. In both cases, the average citizen loses.
 
christiefan915 said:
Here are some numbers I found about SS. Migrants pay billions in taxes, including SS, and get very little back. Anti-immigration people don't think about how this helps our economy.

"Research organizations and experts have found that illegal immigration benefits the Social Security system by adding money to its funding pots from workers that are not eligible to collect retirement, disability or survivor benefits.

"Illegal immigration unambiguously benefits the Social Security and Medicare trust funds," the nonpartisan Center for Immigration Studies said in a 2023 report on the subject."

www.newsweek.com

Undocumented immigrants' payments into Social Security detailed in report

Undocumented residents paid £25.7 billion into Social Security funds and $6 billion into Medicare in 2022.
www.newsweek.com www.newsweek.com
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From 30K ft it's a really interesting (global) debate. On one hand you hear people saying the planet is over populated and we can't feed everyone and we're using too many of the Earth's resources as a result, thus it's bad for the environment etc.

But then there's the economic argument for why more people are good. In theory it's possible to have less people and still have higher growth if productivity increases. But look at Europe and how slow their growth has been. That's in big part to demographic issues (aging population, not enough younger workers). Hard to believe a place like China has issues in that regard but they do as well. As a result of their one child policy they don't have enough young workers.

And yes, we have the same issues in the U.S. where with an aging population we need more younger workers ourselves. The way to address it though, imo, is through immigration reform to make it easier for those who want to work here to come. The flood we had across the border in more recent times isn't the way to do it.

From a political perspective, and this sounds hard to believe today, go back 15 to 20 years to some Congressional Democratic campaigns where they were accusing Republicans of being soft on the border and letting illegals in which was hurting American workers. Now they were not using the deportation rhetoric of Trump but it's the same idea, let's people here (illegally). But no one accused them of harming S.S. by taking that stance.
 
Daylight63 said:
It's not so much the idea of "eliminating" it. It's the move to PRIVATIZE it. Turn it into a for-profit thing. That's attractive to psychopaths in BOTH parties. And if pushed to the wall the Dems would cave if enough pressure was put on something else. Because it's not outright eliminating SS.

But the end result will be the exact same. SS will be dead within a generation.

The dems don't fight dirty enough. The dems let Moscow Mitch steamroll them on SCOTUS appointments. They'll let MAGA roll through and put up a little defense but not enough.

Which is also why in two years the legislature will flip. It often does.

That will be the only brakes getting pumped. In the interim the man whose own bought-and-paid-for SCOTUS has given him king powers.

A lot of damage can be done in 2 years. Assuming Trump doesn't just piss his advantage away settling personal grudges.
Click to expand...
The S.S. trust fund (or whatever it's called) is scheduled to run out within a decade. If we do nothing benefits will automatically be cut something like 25% (or some amount) in 2034 (give or take a year).

So something has to be done. But even though it's out there in plain sight for all of us to see, politicians are afraid to even acknowledge this reality. There are the normal facile calls for raising taxes. But that alone won't do it. And the government calls S.S. an entitlement program but people get upset by that because they think it means you're getting something for nothing, instead of 'I paid into S.S. my whole working life'. But simply raising taxes on the rich, which they would not get back in the form of higher S.S. when they retire rather it be used to give to others, would turn S.S. into a true entitlement program.

We (America) basically chooses to bury out head in the sand here until 2034 when we won't have a choice.
 
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