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So go open an IRA you dumb brat! In this country you have to pay taxes in order to hire police, build bombers, start wars, and feed old poor people.
I like the next page where the kid turns into a teenager and spends it all on dope and gambling.
So, the plan is to just increase income tax rates by the social security witholding rate, and tell everybody to go get their own retirement fund?
They can start it with all that extra money everybody has lying around anyway, right?
What a novel idea: call the taxes "taxes" and shaft the young to benefit the old. At least he’s honest. Stupid, sure, but honest.
I was going to leave it at that, but I want to clarify something: the key word in the first line above was "poor". There’s already a plan to feed poor people, and it’s called Welfare. There’s no excuse for having a second program with the same function. Fix one, toss the other. Don’t get me ranting or I’ll be here all night.
This is an idiotic cartoon. When you buy a Treasury bill, the safest investment in the world, all you get is basically a fancy IOU. Same with a mutual fund, or a COD, or a money market, or even when you deposit your paycheck in a bank. (Even your paycheck itself is an IOU.)
For that matter MONEY ITSELF is an IOU – "I owe you the value represented by one dollar, be that value in sheep, goats, skins, labor, time, or anything else."
The entire world of finance is based on IOU’s. Now, does the author of the cartoon have some reason to believe that the US Treasury has bad credit? Because if he does we really need to know, right now.
The private accounts as proposed can’t be accessed until retirement age, so no dope and gambling.
> The private accounts as proposed can’t be accessed until retirement age, so no dope and gambling.
So much for the "personal freedom" argument. It’s still the government telling you how to invest.
Yes, but the money belongs to the investor, the government won’t be able to spend it, and you’ll be able to pass it along in the event you die. Much better than the state of affairs today.
> Yes, but the money belongs to the investor, the government won’t be able to spend it, and you’ll be able to pass it along in the event you die.
As the system stands now, your benefits get passed on to your surviving dependants until they themselves enter the workforce and accrue SS credits.
Better yet, they earn benefits based on what you would have made, not what you were able to save. That’s way better than what you’re proposing.
Mr. Evil, I can’t believe you found someone who defends social security!
We’d be better off burying our money in our back yard. It’s too collective. I want an account for my family and my dependents. We (as a country) have too many dependents.
If you think they are deserving of the handout, try fostering kids for a while. More often than not, you will see able bodied parents spending our tax money on drugs.
I pay social security grudgingly, always have.
> I want an account for my family and my dependents. We (as a country) have too many dependents.
So, what you’re saying is, we as citizens of the richest country on Earth have no responsibility, whatsoever, to the misfortunate among us? That it’s not just that they’re somebody else’s problem – they’re nobody’s problem?
Maybe you’d like to open your Bible and see what it has to say about that. I have to say that I find that casual dismissal of the welfare of other human beings indicative of borderline sociopathy. I’d ask you to imagine yourself in the shoes of someone who’s pension savings were wiped out by corporate mismanagement/fruad, but it’s pretty clear that you have no ability to do that.
As it happens, the vast majority of Americans aren’t as big an asshole as you – they’ve determined that we do have a responsibility to people in shitty situations, mostly because any one of us could be next.
Not to put words in Key’s mouth, but yes, there are too many dependents in this country. Sure there are some who are "misforturnate" as you say, and they deserve our help.
However, there are far greater numbers that have just decided to sit back and live off the government’s handouts. They are not the misfortunate (or "less fortunate" as many call them) they are lazy. They screwed around in high school barely graduating or dropping out, while making fun of and picking on those around them that were applying themselves and getting good grades. I knew plenty of people like that in high school, and you just knew they weren’t going anywhere. In some cases, they were just lazy, in many others it was that they decided skipping school constantly to hang out with their friends and smoke pot was the way to go. "Don’t you know school is for losers, dude?"
So they may or may not have a high school diploma, and they certainly don’t have a college degree. So what prospects do they have for earning a decent living? None. And how is that my fault? Your life is the sum of the choices you make, and people like that who make bad choices get what’s coming to them. And many of them just end up on food stamps and welfare. And if their choice was to have unprotected sex and spit out a baby, WIC, Medicaid, Head Start, and a host of other government programs for the irresponsible.
But the Democrats NEED dependents. They need as many people as possible to be dependent on government to keep any semblance of power. Why do you think they’re making such a stink about taking a tiny fraction of the SS tax and putting it in private accounts? Because that’s less dependece on government, and that’s bad for them. Senior citizens are a huge voting block, and they vote like clockwork (unlike the 18-24 year olds who all say "Vote or Die!" then turn out at a consistent rate of 19%). The more senior citizens who are dependent on Social Security, the better for the Democrats. If the Rebublicans want to reform the outdated system and make it work better, or God forbid slow the growth of the Imperial Federal Government, the Democrats can say the Republicans are trying to take away their Social Security benefits and scare them into voting for Democrats. That has been in their playbook for ages. A few years back they even said that seniors were going to have to eat dog food to make ends meet if the Republicans got their way.
Since LBJ and the "Great Society" programs got started back in the 60′s, nothing has changed. The percentage of people living in poverty in this country is still the same even with all the entitlement programs they started. The Democrats know their policies don’t work, so all they have to resort to now is keeping as many people dependent on government as possible, and scaring them into voting for Democrats.
Sad state of affairs.
Heh, I may not be the High Priest of the Church of the Painful Truth, but you can tell I’ve been listening to his sermons.
> However, there are far greater numbers that have just decided to sit back and live off the government’s handouts.
And you’ve based this on, what, exactly? An in-depth survey of people living under the poverty level? US Census figures? Case histories of hundreds of thousands of representative individuals?
Oh, right. You haven’t actually done any of that. You just want it to be true, it has to be true, or else you’d have to face the fact that you’re a major asshole.
> Your life is the sum of the choices you make, and people like that who make bad choices get what’s coming to them.
Get what’s coming to them. I love that. You literally hate the poor, don’t you? You can’t even conceal it. Your staggering, spitting hatred for the people who have the sheer audacity to not be lucky consumes you. Because otherwise you might have to ask yourself what you could do about it, which would require getting off your ass and doing something besides updating your blog.
> Why do you think they’re making such a stink about taking a tiny fraction of the SS tax and putting it in private accounts?
Because it’s going to screw us all, as I’ve showed. That’s why.
I base it on my life’s experiences. I don’t need case histories to validate what I see with my own two eyes.
Yes, they get what’s coming to them. I don’t hate the poor, I’ve been poor, it sucks. What I don’t like are able-bodied people who are too lazy to get up off the couch, turn off the TV and get a job. So they sit there and collect a government check that comes from money that I worked my ass off for. Your lack of ability to discern the needy from the lazy astounds me.
And there’s nothing lucky about it. That’s the same tripe that Richard Gephardt was spewing awhile back. I’m not lucky, I worked hard to get where I am today. People who win a lottery jackpot are lucky. People who go to school, get an education, and work hard to earn their money are in no way lucky, they earned it.
People who are lazy, do drugs, have babies at 16, don’t go to school, and generally piss their life away aren’t unlucky, they put themselves in that situation, luck has no part in any of it.
And you haven’t showed anything but your lack of understanding about how Social Security actually works.
> I don’t need case histories to validate what I see with my own two eyes.
The plural of "anecdote" is not "data." Your "own experiences" have nothing to do with the reality of being poor in America.
> I’m not lucky, I worked hard to get where I am today. People who win a lottery jackpot are lucky. People who go to school, get an education, and work hard to earn their money are in no way lucky, they earned it.
Oh? You never, say, came up short on the rent one month and had to shake down your parents? What if you didn’t have parents?
I ask because that’s happened to me, it happens to most people, and you said you "used to be poor." The fact that you had friends or family who could lend a hand is just plain luck; it’s a function of the dice roll that led to you being born to the family and community you were. Not everybody has that option.
> People who are lazy, do drugs, have babies at 16, don’t go to school, and generally piss their life away aren’t unlucky, they put themselves in that situation, luck has no part in any of it.
How many of the poor do you think that description fits? All of them? Most of them? Why don’t you look it up – sombody’s done the research, I assure you – and get back to me.
While you’re at it, look up the number of people under the poverty line who are working one, two, or even more jobs. According to you it should be none, right? Look it up.
> And you haven’t showed anything but your lack of understanding about how Social Security actually works.
I don’t need to take that from somebody who can’t read a Trustee report, doesn’t know anything about the research on poverty, and apparently hasn’t heard that even George Bush doesn’t think private accounts are going to fix Social Security. Seriously. Get a handle on reality before you tell me I have a "lack of understanding" on Social Security. You’re the one that didn’t know that the holdings of the OASI were Treasury instruments, after all.
And you’re claiming the OMB is lying. Get a grip.
I’d like to say I’m disappointed, but sadly your "reasoning", if it can even be called that, is all too typical of conservative thinking. "Hey, I got mine, and it was hard. If somebody else is in trouble it must be their own fault."
Don’t you ever get tired of hating so many people? I know I would.
I dont’ hate anyone. However, I don’t expect to have to pay anyone for their laziness. And the fact that I have to do it at gunpoint is even worse.
And your "reasoning", no, feelings, are typical for a liberal. But then again, I know that personal responsibility is a foreign concept to liberals, so I won’t hold that against you.
> And your "reasoning", no, feelings, are typical for a liberal.
They’re called "compassion" and "charity", and they’re actually pretty common sentiments for us lower forms of life called "Americans." Thank God.