Surely every American must realize any cuts hereinafter made to social security, Medicare, or

[indepat]

Medicaid will serve to pay for the recently enacted permanent tax cuts for those earning from $250,000 to $450,000, permanent cuts in capital gains and dividends to 20%, and an assorted bundle of corporate tax breaks/giveaways. Any cuts to these programs to fund these tax cuts and corporate giveaways would, imho, depict just how brazenly craven our government has become and should, for all time, convince we the people that our government does not operate/govern to promote the general welfare for we the people, but rather to promote the interests of the most affluent and large corporations. Rebuttal invited.

[RKP5637]

1. From me all you get is agreement, the US gov. does not exist to serve "we the people," rather

it has been seized by wealth, corporations and wall street.

[99Forever]

2. Hard to rebut the truth. n/t

[upaloopa]

3. I don't understand the accounting for

Medicare and Social Security. Both are earned entitlements meaning we pay into them over our working years. If payout of those programs is greater than payin, what makes up the difference?
How do those programs add to the deficit?
It seems to me cutting those programs is an act of ideology rather then an act of cost cutting.
Unless the money paid in was spent on other programs and it has to be paid back, then not paying it back may be the reason to cut payouts.

[forestpath]

5. +1

[PoliticAverse]

8. "then not paying it back may be the reason to cut payouts" - exactly.

This concerns paying back the $ 2.6 trillion of debt instruments that are in the trust fund.

The less Social Security pays out the less money the government has to come up with to
pay back the trust fund in the near future.

[bvar22]

11. The President has made THAT very clear!

Nothing else I have seen so vividly illustrates how FAR to the Conservative Right
our Party has drifted in the last 25 years.



[font color=firebrick][center]The Democratic Party is a BIG TENT, but there is NO ROOM for those
who advance the agenda of THE RICH (Corporate Owners) at the EXPENSE of LABOR and the POOR. [/font][/center]

[dkf]

17. The expiration of the trust funds is each programs fiscal cliff.

Upon that date the excess collected has been paid out, thus there should be no assumption you will get what was calculated as your payment. Either it gets cut or you require workers to pay more, or you budget annually for the additional amounts.

Yay a fiscal cliff argument every year! Great.

Can you imagine waiting to see if your SS payment dips 25%, widening as the imbalance gets wider?

So yes, this is where you will be if you haven't properly prepared. And the faster the trust fund drains, the sooner that day comes.

Chained CPI extends that date so that is the positive of considering it.

[Curmudgeoness]

21. Bwahaha, if you haven't properly prepared!!!!

I was just reading this month's AARP newsletter, and they said that right now, with Medicare where it is now, it will cost a couple who are 65 and retiring $250,000 just for health care related expenses over the rest of their lives. Just health care.

Forget food, forget taxes on your home or rent, forget buying a new pair of shoes. How many people who are median wage can "prepare" enough for this, much less cuts that could be made to Medicare and Social Security.

Chained CPI is a bunch of manipulated crap, because the powers that be want to find a way to renege on the promises without actually being obvious about it.

[dkf]

23. I'm speaking about preparing the national programs to adjust for those dates.

Really the best way to cut payments is to not touch either program. Then pow you can really hurt people when the inevitable happens. Yeah for maximum pain we are on the right path.

[Curmudgeoness]

24. I don't buy it. We have money for wars,

money for international aid, money for research into things that the government has no business doing....and if we can't take care of people at the end of their life, after they have worked all their lives and paid into these programs, we might as well be a third world country. The USA would be pathetic.

The inevitable does not need to happen if we are willing to pay for it, just like we pay for all sorts of things.

[dkf]

26. Too many old people with ever expanding life expectancies and uncontrolled medical expenses.

Yeah we won't have any money for anything else. As it is, taking care of the elderly is our biggest expense. If that's the entirety of our country's purpose while all the other countries invest in their young people to grow their economy, then where will we be? Humane but screwed and eating our seed spiraling ever downwards.

[Curmudgeoness]

28. Where did you get your information

that the biggest expense this country has is taking care of the elderly? Defense spending: $689 billion. Medicare spending: $458 billion.



Since I did not believe your premise, I did some searching for information, and I found this awesome article that you should read:

http://www.newthinktank.com/2011/06/fix-social-security-and-medicare/



First of all, I think that it is possible to cut the costs of all health care in this country, although I don't think that we are serious about doing it. There are also ways to cut costs for Medicare without making changes to the program. But even if we can't substantially cut costs, I believe this is a program worth keeping. Look at history. Before Medicare, most older people died from health problems that were easily remedied if they had to money to pay for them....which most people, even young people, do not have.

I assume that you are young?

[dkf]

29. Medicare plus social security, which are both projected to increase as a % of GDP.

I'm young enough to know that the country will be too messed up to do as promised if we stay on this path.

See chart 7

http://www.fms.treas.gov/frsummary/frsummary2011.pdf

[Curmudgeoness]

33. The link will not download for me for some reason.

I think that you will find that you will value Medicare when your parents are old, and cannot afford health care. They may die from easily treated diseases, or they may need to come live with you. Along with your parents-in-law. I still remember when my grandmother died, before Medicare. They were never rich but always worked. But she had to choose between food and taxes and treatment for diabetes. She could not keep up all the treatment that she needed. I don't want that.

[dkf]

34. They are elderly and are double covered from their jobs and Medicare..both of them.

They both retired at 55 from their state jobs and have had a very very nice retirement. The state pays them a check to reimburse them for their Medicare costs. Both are now at a point where they have been retired for more years than they worked.

House paid off, no real expenses, travel travel travel. Mom says she feels very lucky she was born when she was and I tell her yes, she was. I feel slightly bad for my siblings and I, but I feel worse for my nieces and nephew.

[forestpath]

4. K&R You won't get any rebuttal from me.

[bigapple1963]

6. hm...

Would you agree that any cuts made to Medicare/Medicaid (Social Security is more complicated in its link to the general fund) would also go to pay for the permanent tax cuts for those earning below $250,000?

[JoePhilly]

7. So what you are saying is that the BIG money is in the gap between 250 and 400k??

Ok.

[hay rick]

12. Try reading the OP again.

"...those earning from $250,000 to $450,000, permanent cuts in capital gains and dividends to 20%, and an assorted bundle of corporate tax breaks/giveaways"

The BIG money is in the rest of the list. Not mentioned in the OP- capping the top marginal income tax rate at 39.6%. Back in the high-growth 1950s and 1960s, the top rate was 91%...

[JoePhilly]

14. OMG .... Obama didn't raise the top rate to 91% ... clearly he hates us!!!

[hay rick]

16. Or 81%, or 71%, or 61%, or 51%, or 41%.

Yeah, he's losing his socialist cred.

[Skittles]

9. that is correct

[brer cat]

10. No rebutal, just a rec from me NT

[quakerboy]

13. Clarification requested

"permanent cuts in capital gains and dividends to 20%"

Can you expand on this? My understanding was that if nothing had been done, those would reset to 20%, same as the deal that was reached.

[hay rick]

20. Some info.

From the Wikipedia article on dividend taxation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dividend_tax

Had the Bush-era federal income tax rates of 10, 15, 25, 28, 33 and 35 percent brackets been allowed to expire for tax year 2012, the rates would have increased to the Clinton-era rate schedule of 15, 28, 31, 36, and 39.6 percent. In that scenario, qualified dividends would no longer be taxed at the long-term capital gains rate, but would revert back to being taxed at the taxpayer's regular income tax rate. However, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (H.R. 8) was passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in the first days of 2013. This legislation extended the 0 and 15 percent capital gains and dividends tax rates for taxpayers whose income does not exceed the thresholds set for the highest income tax rate (39.6 percent). Those who exceed those thresholds ($400,000 for single filers; $425,000 for heads of households; $450,000 for joint filers) became subject to a 20 percent rate for capital gains and dividends.

I believe the long-term capital gains would have gone up (back to Clinton rates) for all those not in the old/new 39.6% bracket. The rate returns to 20% only for those high earners- everyone else keeps the Bush capital gains tax cut. Of course, the majority of capital gains go to high earners...

[BadgerKid]

15. No rebuttal, but we know

the GOP will portray the Dems as having abandoned the people.

[JDPriestly]

18. Agreed.

Computers and other changes in the workplace have increased the efficiency and productivity of Americans in the workplace. But all the profit goes to the executive suite.

The United States does not lack the money to pay for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, government and military pensions as well as research and education. The wealthy in the nation lack the will to bring their profits home and pay American workers.

I will be so glad when Obama brings the troops home from Afghanistan. I hope we never send any more troops anywhere in the world. War is a waste of human life and of tax money. War destroys our trust in each other and our sense of pride in being Americans.

War is an abomination and a horror. Let's just not fight any more wars.

[socialist_n_TN]

27. To the first part of your post, total agreement. It's not.......

a matter of wealth, it's a matter of the distribution of that wealth and it always has been. I also agree with the second part of your post RE: wars and the uselessness of same. Unfortunately in a competitive system like capitalism, wars of one sort or another are inevitable.

Every Xmas of my reasonably long life I've heard about Peace on Earth. And just about every year we've been involved in some sort of war. I'm thoroughly sick of them. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll ever see the end of this country's wars.

[plethoro]

19. Yes. I was one of the ones who said that when it was being done. And I kept getting comments like

"But, gosh, look what he did get...yada, blah." The Republicans now have leverage to force Obama to cut entitlements. He, in turn, can say he had to do it, and everyone will be fine, except, of course, the American economy, that will suffer mightily by those who will simply stop spending to make up what they are losing in social earnings for themselves and their offspring. And the "gosh" people? They will be nowhere to be seen.

[riderinthestorm]

22. Alas. Nothing to add or subtract from this OP. K&R nt

[socialist_n_TN]

25. I can't rebut what I agree with.......

I'm firmly convinced that the government has ALWAYS been in the hands of the most affluent and large corporations. The only difference is that NOW the owners don't give a rat's ass who knows it.

[indepat]

31. Much more open now about being greedy and screwing the old, infirmed, and poor f/b/o

large corporations and the most affluent. The two TN senators are calling for $1 trillion cuts to social security and Medicare in turn for raising the Federal debt limit by $1 trillion. Although most Tennesseans would be seriously harmed if implemented, the preponderance of those severely harmed would imo blissfully return both to the Senate, should they run again. Go figure.

[woo me with science]

30. K&R

[davekriss]

32. No rebuttal, absolutely agree

[B Calm]

35. Been telling my right wing co workers

this for years. I guess they are more worried about their love affair with their guns.