SEARCH
68 Percent of Voters Frown on ‘Phasing Out’ Social Security
Attention, Rand Paul in Kentucky, Joe Miller in Alaska, Sharron Angle in Nevada and all you other Republican congressional candidates flopping around on the far right banks of the mainstream! Phasing out, privatizing or otherwise eliminating Social Security does not sit well with the vast majority of the voting public.
The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that 68 percent of voters are “uncomfortable” with candidates who espouse such notions. Uncomfortable is putting it nicely. It’s downright painful to listen to U.S. Senate wannabes and other Republican hopefuls “babble into the vapors” about phasing out Social Security (turnabout’s fair play, Alan Simpson!).
Of course, Simpson, as co-chair of the federal budget deficit commission, is one of the leading howlers baying about the coming demise of Social Security (check out its real long-term health here) and the need to raise the retirement age and make other painful cuts. You might say he is one of the biggest enablers of phase-out crowd.
Thanks to Bill Scheer at the Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) for highlighting the poll.
 |
Become a Fan on Facebook |  |
Follow Us on Twitter |  |
Subscribe to YouTube |  |
Subscribe to Blog RSS | ||||
37 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
We need to privatise Social Security. Many countries have already. If Chile can do it why cannot the USA? When the government takes our Social Security tax money what does it do with it? Well it does two things. It either pays it out in benifits or it invest it in tresury bonds. I can invest it in treasury bonds and have my own account. The good thing about your own account is that at death you can leave it too a love one. Another thing is that right now you are only getting about 2% on your money. You can double that by buying a long term treasury bond paying 4%. social security is really screwing you with its low pay outs.
I have read many of your blogs. All you do is spew hate. You are against anything that is good for the people. You are against health care, social security, allowing the bush tax cuts to end for the top 2%, unions, re-stimulating the economy, wall street reform, regulating business, stem cell research, public education, and God knows what else. To have all of these things would mean people would not have to worry about getting sick and losing everything, having some form or retirement money so they don’t have to work forever, trusting that the food,air, water etc. are clean and healthy, and being educated so that they understand the vaules of these things. Stem cells and a few adult stem cells have the potential to cure spinal injuries, re-grow lost limbs, and tons of other things. Unions help to insure that everyone has benefits and decent paying jobs. When the millionairs and billionairs have to start paying their fair share of taxes again we can begin to pay off the deficit. This along with regulations will put America back to work. But you don’t want any of these things. I believe people like you have a much deeper reason for this. There are several possible agendas you may have for wanting to keep people poor and uneducated. You might be a religious funatic. In this case you might want to see a holy war between the Christians and Muslims. Putting people out of work and making them destitute would then cause many people to join the armed forces for a living or start going to churches for help where people like you can personally brainwash them. Destroying the public school system will mean kids will have to go to private schools where you can teach your ways. Maybe you are a white supremecist and can not stand to see minorities in the government and will do anyting to stop it. Or maybe you are just a spoiled brat who likes to see people suffer because it gives you sense of power or some perverted sense of delight. I don’t know what your agenda is but I will bet your blood pressure has gone up quite a bit right now because you are being exposed and that is something that will drive your kind crazy. Have a nice day!
Hey “sweartogod”: you remind me why I’m an atheist. Anyone, like you, advocating privatising social security is condemning millions of Americans, myself included, to dying in poverty, (like millions did before Soc. Sec. was won. Read the Grapes of Wrath or something, learn something other than greed and subservience to the ruling class. People like you are traitors to unions and working people. And to anyone reading this, remember, every revolution is really a civil war. Our fight is not just with the bosses, but also with scabs like “sweartogod.”
It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that privatizing social security is a reckless idea. Look what happened to this economy in 2008 under the disastrous economic policies of Bush! Now the Republicans want to give tax cuts to the top 2% (of which in that group more than 50% make over 8 million dollars a year) while we, the bottom 98% pay for it by raising the social security age to 70. I don’t know about you, but how many jobs are there for 60-70 year olds? We have a progressive tax system for a reason: If we all paid the same rate of tax that would mean that a person making $30,000/yr. at 10% would pay $3,000. That’s a lot of money to someone at that income level and eats into their housing and food bills. But someone making 3,000,000 a year would pay $300,000 – now that sounds like a lot of money to you and me, but the tax wouldn’t eat into their housing or food bill like it would for the person only making $30,000/yr. The people that want the flat tax are always the millionaires and billionaires like Steve Forbes. They make is sound so simple and fair, when it’s the exact opposite! But smart working people understand this and don’t buy it.
Never mind Paul, Miller and Angle, stop gulping the Democrat Kool Aid and SMELL THE COFFEE because the Deficit Commission which was APPOINTED BY PRESIDENT OBAMA, will be making the recommendations on Social Security and we should all be informed and concerned.
Columnists Glenn Greenwalds opening line….This commission is designed to be as anti-democratic and un-transparent as possible.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/09/04/simpson/index.html
US LABOR PARTY.
Attention Mr. Trumka!
Obama and the Democrats are as much anti-Sociali Security as the Republicans!
So why does the AFL-CIO (with the UAW) give tens of millions of dollars to the Democrats?
Why not use these multi-million dollar financial and man-power resources of the AFL-CIO and call for a convention to found a new pro-labor political party?
Now atomized and powerless, tens of millions of working people will enthusiastically unite behind an anti-corporate people’s party that refuses to accept any corporate money and agendas. A new party will powerfully unite millions of increasingly impoverished working people! Organized and unorganized working people could be united to struggle poliitically for the interests of all working people, at all levels of government.
How about running a pro-labor President in 2012?
Now is the time to break away from both Demoratic and Republican parties, and call for the formation of an anti-corporate political party to represent the economic and social interests of all working people.
Here is a World Socialist Web Site Perspective article to understand what is happening to Social Security!
Full Article here:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/sep2010/pers-s08.shtml
US ruling class prepares attack on Social Security
by Tom Eley
8 September 2010
Prominent figures in the US ruling elite have recently made a series of statements that forewarn of massive cuts in social spending, up to and including Social Security, the bedrock federal insurance entitlement for elderly and disabled workers.
These comments reveal that, whatever the precise outcome of the midterm elections on November 7, they will set the stage for a bipartisan assault, in the name of “fiscal responsibility,” on what remains of the social reforms of the last century.
The knives are already being sharpened for a long-awaited attack on Social Security. In a rude and provocative e-mail to the president of the Older Women’s League dated August 23, former Republican Senator Alan Simpson—appointed by President Obama as co-chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform—revealed his deep hatred of both Social Security and the working people who depend upon it.
Social Security “has reached a point now where it’s like a milk cow with 310 million tits! [sic],” Simpson said. He blasted its recipients—retirees, those maimed and sickened by their work, and dependent survivors of dead workers—who, he said “milk it to the last degree.”
In an earlier outburst—in June, Simpson was caught on tape berating an independent journalist— he revealed the ruthless logic behind the ruling class drive for cuts: Workers, whom Simpson dubbed “the lesser people,” live too long. When Social Security was created “they never dreamed that the life expectancy would go from 57 years of age to 78 or 75 or whatever,” Simpson said. “Who would dream that? No one. They just died.”
Simpson’s commission, established earlier this year by an Obama executive order to rein in budget deficits, is reportedly considering several measures, including raising the retirement age, perhaps to as high as 70, and cutting benefits as well as cost-of-living increases. It is expected to announce its recommendations in December—not accidentally, one month after the November elections.
There is unanimity in the ruling class in favor of the attack on Social Security. Co-chairing the Fiscal Responsibility commission is Erskine Bowles, formerly a White House chief of staff to Bill Clinton, and another long-time advocate of Social Security “reform.” And signaling the trade union bureaucracy’s active collaboration, Andy Stern, former president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), also sits on the commission.
“I agree with many Commissioners who have said that all entitlement programs should be on the table,” Stern has declared. “We should include as part of our agenda ideas for strengthening the private parts of the retirement security system, reviewing both the adequacy and the solvency of the Social Security system, and the possibility of universal add-on retirement accounts.”
…
The attack on entitlements and social spending is the second phase in a broad offensive against the living conditions of the entire working class, following quickly on the heels of the unprecedented attack on jobs and wages spearheaded by the Obama administration’s forced reorganization of the auto industry.
Workers are being conditioned to accept what is referred to as “the new normal” typified by low wages and benefits and the total absence of any form of social protection. Or, in the blunter words of Fiat head Sergio Marchionne, US workers must accept a “culture of poverty,” abandoning what he contemptuously referred to as a “culture of entitlement.”
…http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/sep2010/pers-s08.shtml
The sharp move toward austerity and the attack being prepared on Social Security stand as a testament to the bankruptcy of American democracy. The upcoming election and the official debate that surrounds it—including Obama’s latest in a series of purely symbolic jobs proposals—only aim to disorient the population.
…
The basic thrust of US policy has already been determined. The ruling class is determined to shift the full burden of the financial and economic crisis onto the working class. In this context, the widely anticipated gains for Republicans in the election are already being presented as evidence that the demand for attacks on social spending originate in the population itself.
This is a lie. In fact, the objective interests of the great majority of the population—suffering through the worst social crisis in generations—demand a massive jobs program, free universal health care, secure retirement, improved quality and access to education and culture, and other social rights necessary for life in modern mass society.
The trajectory set by the ruling financial aristocracy is in precisely the opposite direction. The attack on living conditions will continue and deepen until the working class mobilizes its independent political strength to bring it to a halt.
You need to go semewhere else. You will never make Trumka believe this nonsense or any other person who as even a vague understanding of what is going on. As for Simpson.. Obama tried to be bi-partisan when he first went into office. He appointed several Republicans to key positions to show his intent. The Republicans responded with a full scale war against anything Obama wanted or stood for. Obama has finally realized that these people will never do anything good for America no matter how good it is. I am sure Simpson does not appreciate his appointment and will probably be replaced after the next election. You will never win with deception, lies and hate. Especially on this site.
JerryWells – I am a firm believer that in order to change our political landscape we must have a viable 3rd party. However, until the laws that govern elections change it will never happen. Any voter should be allowed to vote in 1 Primary election with ALL candidates on the ballot so we can pick and choose and All Candidates, regardless of their political affiliation should be able to access Federal funds for their campaign. Additionally, we need to place limitations on spending and invoke time periods for campaigning, as well as term limitations. No more Representatives for “LIFE” Maybe than we’ll see a signifacnt shift but I’m not holding my breath.
Is this really what happened?
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/09/08/afl-cio-chief-says-obamacare-shoved-down-the-republicans-throats/
Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah. This is this biggest PONZI scheme known to man and you losers(AFL-CIO Blog) are still wasting my union dues telling people how bad it would be if they eliminate Social Security. What a joke. Just a reminder everyone YOU PAY FOR THIS BS EVERY THURSDAY OR FRIDAY FROM YOUR PAY CHECK!!!!! Lets see, Obummer hates Wall Street because he thinks everyone is too greedy(speech from labor day) and jobs are coming back. Yeah right. Has anyone read or seen the Jan 1, 2011 tax schedule. Guess what: taxes are going up. I WANT MY OWN MONEY THAT I PAY INTO SOCIAL SECURITY BECAUSE THESE INCOMPETENT LOSERS HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE DOING. Social security WILL be broke, we just don’t know the time or date. Take YOUR money into your own hands.
this is not news. Most American’s have always had good view of this program. Any politican 20 years ago that wished to loot social security would have been tarred and feathered.
alas, we need cash for rich folks tax cuts.
I agree that this attempt is for the benefit of the capital holders in our global economy. I stress here the word, “GLOBAL.” While I agree the super rich want Social Security eliminated I differ with my union friends about the core reasoning behind it. It is not simply to make a big money grab like the Wall Street Bailout did for them. The push to eliminate Social Security is part of a millineum challenge to reshape the world economy and noose all vestiges of past social benefits. It is part of an effort to overthrow the social systems of all nations in order to best China’s economic model. The reason this is being done is so that capital (cash, assets) can hop unimpeded across the globe without interference. Therefore making all labor as cheap as confederate dollars in 1865.
If the people of the United States for example, demand union rights and better work conditions then capital can quickly and seamlessly jump to a location where this is not an issue. Keep in mind, in Chile, where “SweartoGod” proposes we look for guidance a dictator, Augusto Pinochet, instituted privatized social security. He also banned labor unions, disappeared and murdered tens of thousands of political opponents such as union activists and governed his country with the help of right wing economic extremists from the USA. That was not a benefit to the posterity of that nation as they came to terms with a holocaust of missing parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends and neighbors.
I don’t think you are someone who makes over $250,000 a year,so you will not see a tax increase rather you will be paying less than before. Why all these people like you want to give everything to the wealthy is beyond me.Why can’t each of us pay our fair share at the same rate?Sounds like a plan to me.The current President has not touched SSI,but the last one sure did!!!Check your history and I don’t mean right-wing news or radio,to see that SSI trust fund along with the China credit card is what funded the two wars.SSI is fully funded until 2037,that is a fact!!I’m very glad my local uses my dues to promote safety and fair wages in the work place.This is 2010 not 1950!!!!
I am tired sick and tired of carrying the RICH AND POWERFUL on my back, you morons who think you can do it alone, think again until the powerful are broken only then can America become the Great Country She once was, the CORPORATIONS will just love to use you and your money..when it’s all gone, lost in another ponzi scheme or another war…your pathetic behind will be out on the street…and good enough for you …loser..
Any working person against Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment Compensation etc is sadly headed in the wrong direction. Workers and their family’s need protection for bottom line corporate driven employers. Our jobs, here today and gone tomorrow, and with no regard to our own welfare. Just as we need federal and state government for the many services we receive, we need federal protection of our retirement needs (investments) as well as those hard fought benefits provided by our union. Corporate America, including investments, are bottom line driven. There are Bears as will as bulls in the investment world and when the bears take the profits from their PONZI scheme called the stock market, its workers who are the big looser. People know that and that is why 68 percent don’t want congress messing with those programs.
Well put Charlie. I don’t understand why any working person would be against the things designed to help them if and when they need it. If McCain would have won the presidency and let wall street fall all of these nay sayers would be clammering for it even though they will deny it because it didn’t happen.
“I don’t know when Americans came to believe that we were so entitled to a high standard of living and that we could demand that other countries mine their ores, smelt the metal and manufacture the goods Americans crave. When did we become so privileged that we could demand that other countries provide us with our energy needs? Increasingly, we are driving agriculture offshore and becoming dependent on third world countries for our food. In the meantime, we have asserted that we could have a sustainable economy based on borrowed money with every American doing every other American’s laundry. Nonsense. It is time to put America back to work mining our own ores, smelting our own metal, manufacturing our own goods, drilling wherever there is oil and natural gas and using nuclear power and coal while we research alternative energy sources like wind power, solar power, hydrogen fuel cells, advanced battery systems, tidal power, etc. It is time for Americans to pay enough for their food that American farmers can make a decent living. In the 21st century we know how to do that in an environmentally sustainable way. This approach will revitalize the American middle class and once again make us a free and independent nation.”
. Why isn’t anyone in government talking about the real problems (unnecessary environmental regulation, too much litigation, unions, taxes that are too high, etc., etc.) that have driven production off shore? Government’s current approach is like telling an alcoholic that the cure for his disease (an economy based on borrowed money) is to go on a really big binge. Makes no sense to me, but I’m just an old an old woman who is sad that we are not passing those freedoms on to our children and grandchildren. Too many Americans have exchanged their passion for freedom for an addiction to security and I suspect all of those brave young men who gave so much to preserve those freedoms are deeply saddened.
Thanks for reading my rant.
@entitlement, You were doing fine until you got to the last paragraph. I have talked “buy American” for decades, to the point people used to turn the other way when they saw me coming. I knew it was bull shit when they told us that we didn’t need to cling to manufacturing jobs because we had the new high-tech job economy. Then we off-shored most of the high-tech jobs too. Now we are supposed to not worry about manufacturing or high-tech jobs because we will have the new “green job economy.” The truth is we need all of them.
The pompous, incompetent, moral-less corporate America that spread the, “free trade global economy” “free business from hampering government regulation” “the ecologists and the Endangered Species Act will kill the economy” “social programs are for worthless losers” “trust us, we are all wise and know best” “The next generation can’t expect the standard of living of the last” bull shit got their way and the average American got the shaft.
After your last paragraph, I have to wonder what rock you have been living under for the last twenty and more years. When you claim an American’s desire for a just system that gives a better and more stable life with dignity for our deserving children is: “Too many Americans have exchanged their passion for freedom for an addiction to security.” Freedom for what? Freedom to serve a moral-less corporate master. We don’t want “security”, we want respect and a decent life for us, our children and all average Americans and corporate America doesn’t, period.
If you know anything about “those brave young men who gave so much to preserve those freedoms” then you remember that they came back from WW II and got college educations on the G I Bill to improve the lives of their children. They joined unions and made them strong because they had learned a respect and reverence for all the average Americans they fought alongside and believed that the children of all the men they fought with and those who didn’t return deserved respect and a better life too.
Then there is: “unnecessary environmental regulation.” Cutting down every tree and killing every animal that gets in our way isn’t going to buy us average Americans a damn thing, it certainly won’t buy us a “passion for freedom” or a better economy. It might get us a world our children wish they didn’t have though and more short term profits for corporate America of-course.
“Unnecessary environmental regulation, too much litigation, unions, taxes that are too high, etc., etc.” isn’t what drove production off shore; corporate America’s greed and a lack of a moral compass as well as zero respect for the values of America or the children of “those brave young men who gave so much to preserve those freedoms” and a desire to loot the rest of the world is what drove production off shore. If you don’t see that then you don’t have three brain cells still working. Sorry, but there is just no nice way of putting it.
I see the TPers are now targeting this site, which means that they find it particularly threatening. This is good. Over the past year, we’ve seen this strategy used on a number of working class/progressive discussion boards. They target one, then move on to the next.
Two words that absolutely terrify these folks: organized labor. We already saw what happens when America has organized labor. I grew up in such an era. My father, an ordinary factory worker, a union member, provided us with a very good standard of living that was possible ONLY because of the union. America prospered when unions were strong, following World War ll.
The problem with unions is that they give a measure of power to ordinary people, who then use that power to impede the ability of corporations to “maximize profits.” Corporations do, indeed, consider themselves vastly superior to ordinary Americans, and once organized labor began imposing rules on them, they vowed to crush organized labor, one way or another.
The latest surge against organized labor began with Reagan. If you recall, there was a propaganda campaign focused on workers feeling that unions were taking advantage of them, that union dues were an evil burden, that uppity workers making demands were forcing our corporations to either flee the country or fall into bankruptcy, etc. We fell for it.
As a direct result of these conservative (corporatist) political/social trends, we ended up where we are today.
The most startling result of post-Reagan conservative politics and policies that have targeted the working class and those even worse off: In overall quality of life, the US has fallen from being #1 to #11. On the scale of world economies, that is a cataclysmic fall.
That said, I can’t even express how grateful I am for Mr. Trumka, a man who has the courage to speak up.
Organized labor?Other countries mine their ores, smelt the metal and manufacture the goods Americans crave,other countries provide us with our energy needs,becoming dependent on third world countries for our food,sustainable economy based on borrowed money, American doing every other American’s laundry?
Stimulus? Much of it was sent to Chinese workers such as to produce turbines for a 36,000-acre wind farm in West Texas, replaced much of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco by employing a Chinese steel fabricator, now known as Zhenhua Heavy Industry. Congress’s border fence with Mexico is built with Chinese steel as is our Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
Too many Americans have exchanged their passion for freedom for an addiction to security.
Can you imagine how low the labor for steel workers must be in China and other countries when they can load millions of tons of steel on boats and send it across the Ocean, unload it and truck it to jobsites and do all that for less money that we could do it here. Do you think that American workers should work that cheap? I hope not. If you want all the things done in America that you are talking about then it is going to cost more. The Republicans and conservatives believe in free trade whatever the consequences so how can an American company compete without paying so little that it’s workers would live in poverty.
As for the stimulus money.. it is to put people back to work. The bay bridge and the other jobs you mentioned did give some
Americans a job. It is to bad that the steel had to be bought from China but we have no steel companies left. If the Republicans hadn’t fought the stimulus bill with everything they had then there would have been more money to provide more jobs. One of the problems with it is that conservative states will not use it because it does provide jobs and the last thing they want is for the stimulus money to work. If you would try listening to other sources of info besides fox news and Rush limbaugh it would help you to see things a little more clearly.
I agree. I was shocked when I first came to this site a few days ago and heard so many people blasting unions and Trumka personally. Not just that but promoting tea party idiology. You’re right. These are tp ers infiltrating this site to promote their hate and fear of working people doing well in this country. At least while the dems are in power.
just how stupid are you, leave our money alone,
“Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
Benjamin Franklin (17 January 1706 – 17 April 1790) was an American inventor, journalist, printer, diplomat, and statesman.
When we go back to our founders and our Constitution we will always find the answer to keep America free and working.
Greed, greed is the only reason I see that the right, otherwise known as the Republicans, GOP, Neo Cons, and wreckers of economy’s and destroying lively hoods of millions, Greed, they can’t wait to get their dirty hands on the trillions we have in social security, and return us to the time when the elderly were starving. Yeah, that guiled age when monopolies ruled and labor took what ever crumbs they were offered, and if they tried to strike, the corrupt police of the time broke up the strikes, and looked the other way when the bosses thugs did their worst.
“When does the greed stop?”
http://laborcartoonzone.blogspot.com/
Only 68%? How is that possible? Social Security is the greatest for-the-people bill ever passed in the halls of the US Congress!
Social Security is also a type of insurance. You keep getting the benefit until you die no matter how long you live. You get a better percent return if you live to be old than you do if you die young. But that is what is good for the people of the United States of America. You have to act as though you are a ghood US Citizen.
Note this fact. If you invested money in your own account based on the stock market in October 2007, in February 2009 your percent return would have been a NEGATIVE 50%. You had no gain. You had lost one-half of your money uou had invesdted. Knowing that, you would have to be crazy to do that.
Long live what Franklin Delano Roosevelt – the greatest American President – knew was best for American senior citizens: SOCIAL SECURITY!
If constructed, a new Alaska gas pipeline would be the largest and most expensive private infrastructure project ever completed in North America.
The next Alaska oil and gas jobs boom may come from the proposed natural gas pipeline. This pipeline will create thousands of high paying Alaska pipeline jobs. The project will take roughly eight years to build and will provide steady employment for those interested in working these Alaska natural gas pipeline jobs.
This new Alaska pipeline will start at Prudhoe Bay and go through Fairbanks, Delta Junction and Tok Alaska and continue through Canada.
Guess who will be manufacturing the pipe? China!
Why? America is unable to manufacture that certain pipe because we gave that ability away with the rest of manufacturing.
Call your elected tell them we need the pipe line now!
Congress has passed all sorts of emergency spending measures why not declare an emergency on this pipeline? Could it be because we have politicized science and politicized enviromentalists? When industry, union leaders, environmentalist,politicized science and government get in bed together it breeds corruption.
Use the stimulus to retrofit our steel industry?
I want this for America and my grandchildren.
I personaly know 5 people who need social security to live. I’ve also seen at least 5 examples of how privatisation is a completely moronic “solution” to anything. Social Security is an extremely small portion of are national debt. The solution to are debt is cut the ridiculous military budget (the same as the the next 15 highest military budgets of the world combined) and remove control of the printing of money from the banks and return it to the U.S. Treasury, and nationalise all banks, native oil and resources. Oh, and tax the rich, they don’t like it and want to leave the country for Ireland or some crap let them, we don’t need them, 1000′s could take their place who aren’t self involved unpatriotic jerks.
Let’s see – 68% of voters support social security, and about 8% of voters are so wealthy that they don’t need social security, leaving a remainder of 24 % of voters who are complete morons.
I can explain all of the problems with privatization of Social Security in one word : “ENRON”!
Certainly all of you know friends and family members that had their pensions “phased out” and are now stuck with 401k plans. Initially, it didn’t sound so bad. The company would match up to 10% of what you put in or just put in 6% or so. Well, times got a little rough and many companies have stopped putting in ANY money or reduced it to only 2% (nothing.)
Then, the majority of folks not knowing anything about investing took on the job themselves and lost their a_ _! Then the stock market went south and took half of what was left.
If Social Security were privatized the only winners would be the brokers and investment bankers that get paid regardless of whether you win or lose, (just like the casino.)
Many of us were robbed of our pension plans. Let’s not be stupid and give back our Social Security too. Age 66 is too high to collect also. Anyone in Washington trying to raise the age further should be tarred and feathered.
The only pension a congressman or senator should receive is Social Security. That way it might stand a better chance at being protected instead of stolen fro us.
Wow – 68% is high considering the thousands, thousands and thousands, maybe a million or more of new and younger voters who aren’t anyway near middle age or above to be concerned at this point in their lives about our Social Security coverage. It’s Un American for anyone, especially candidates and incumbents in both houses in Congress to support “phasing out.”
Maybe these candidates and politicians need to talk to seniors living on our nation’s social security benefits. A trip to Florida and only two solid days speaking to seniors may lmake them rethink their Un American position labeled “phasing out.” Michael Zullo, Upper Eastside Manhattan.
Yes, Zullo, thousands of young Americans presently face the unknown without promise. The future is bleak. Where will they go if employment continues to be scare. Perhaps you and I have enjoyed a better working life than our present young work force. Through negotiations, our jobs maintained a safe place, we could count on paid sick days and vacation days and a decent weekly pay check. The elites have suffered decades of bitterness because we could maintain a better life with the promise of some financial comfort in our older days of unemployment/retirement, that cusion called Social Security.
If our present day working class cannot hope to attain any of these standards, they will have to leave this facade of democracy and return to their ancestral lands, maybe Europe, where the young and old are valued throughout their lives. Thanks for the memories.
Sweartogod, Social Security is not an investment program and never has been. I believe it was originally and may still be named the Old Age and survivers insurance . It provides support to disabled Americans. It supports the children of deseased parents. It provides the majority of income for senior citizens. There is no way a privatized Social Security could provide this kind of support. Why should we go back to the dispair and suffering of the past , before Social Security?
I have been retired now for 11 years , and there is no way I could have ever saved enough to support me for this many years.
Social Security is one of the best and most useful programs the United States government has ever come up with. God help us if America ever loses it.
With big corporations eliminating good paying jobs, and the threats to Social Security I see grave problems for the U.S.. What do you suppose is going to happen , when the majority of people are needy ? That is where we are headed.
I fear that much of the rest of the world will follow , because these large corporations are exploiting people all over the world.
Sweartogod , you spoke in another post about loving the rich and big corporations. How much love , do you think they have for workers or America? If they loved America, they would put America and Americans first. America was at its greatest when Americans were producing and buying American products. We did not have this massive deterioration of our cities and manufacturing facilities. As far as I and many other Americans are concerned this so called free trade does not benefit us. All of those container ships that come to America from China loaded , go back to China empty. How is that good for America? As far as I am concerned we are just making Communist China richer and helping them to build a great military power, that is going to be a grave threat to America.
To Theprogressive1. A flat tax would still have to be incremented by income and capped as state and fed maximum. For example 0 tax on those making 10,000 or less, .0i %to .03 % on 11,000 to 25,000 and on up a the income increases.This will be a shared amount ,say 1/2 to state and 1/2 the amount to feds. On $11,000 they would split $110 on 25,000 the split is on $750. Remembering that most workers have to unemployment tax, FICA 1.FICA2 Comp and a pile of state taxes theses tax amount must be kept low at the under $ 65,000 level. Flat tax can good for the p;oor and the rich alike if you figure it out to be fair by income ,but saying that everybody pays 10% of their income would be fatal to the incomes under 100,000. Even if that percent included all taxes and state charges it would be hard on the guy making 25,000. Giving him a spendable income of $ 22,500 which in reality is probably less than than hw would be paying is ,say NY.
Taxes are a damning factor in our society. We went to war for a tea tax that was not represented by the colonial input, therefor it was unfair. Today we have taxes on everything and we do sort of have representation. Don’t stop at $2,500. Add on School tax. land tax as assessed value, county tax ,excise taxes of so many products is silly,but expensive. clothing a non food goods tax etc,etc and ETC! There is no item of pleasure or recreation except sex,that is not taxed, but there is likely to be tax on the condum you buy. Gum ,cigarettes, booze,soap gas ,oil, water. It costs alot to live in the land of the free. You want roads, you want to feed and house illegal aliens by the millions, you want to take on the savings and loans debt( a paultry 5 trilliondollars, you want the Fed reserve Bank that keeps you poor and the big banks BIGGER.
There is no end to this. Screwing American’s out of Social Security ,that they paid for would be the next corporate controlled Congresses move. People should be putting a bit more into a non tamper proof SSA that these Congressional miscreants can’t steal from. They took a solvent fund and robbed us blind. creating new taxes and profound MANDATES that we can’t afford is the only way they know how run the country into the bright ,bright RED.
If a man works Construction for say, 33 years. His bodyis going to be less than primo and riddled with arthritis. He shold have put in a little more and retired at 55 or 57, let him decide if he can live on his SS and whateverv 401k or pension he’s got. Anybody that ever worked in that game knows it’s a young man’s world. At 55 you are usually les than prime ,1st choice for a work, so you start drawing more unemployment which brings your income way down and on it goes to ruination by age. Let the the insurance companies lie to us ,but life and quality of life are to seperate matters. How many 70 year olds are living after a STROKE ,MI, organ failure and on oxygen, but they are alive by golly.
America know your enemy for it yourself. Stop the corporate control of our government, abolish The Federal Reserve Bank, deport illegal aliens as they are to be by our laws. We may have to revolt and set up a revised edition of our original agreement with the people, but we are living the life that big bisiness, big banks and corporations have created by their leverage in Congress and all facets of our government. If Congress won’t create a publicly endowed Campaign fund and make it the only legal funding ,no p;rivate funs ,no personal or corporate funds gifts or promese, for all ellections on the national scale and allow state to ratify this for their state as well , but no more corporarte interest in our government.
The greatest generation of Americans went to war and saved the world in WWII. The ones who survived came home and made this the greatest country In the world. They made our manufacturing plants the most successful in the world. They formed the unions that raised the standard of living for all Americans. They improved housing and transportation. They became volunteers of all types intent on improving conditions for all Americans. They formed volunteer fire departments all over America , as well as ambulance co’s. They built and improved schools all over America. They are the ones who made all these big corporations successful that are now intent on destroying their class of people. They are the ones who during the depression worked to build and improve our national parks and environment.
They gave us Social Security and Medicare, to help everyone in old age. These were very neccessary then , and more so now.
It is no surprise , that today when most of those people are dead ,the big corporations and Wall Street are hellbent on destroying what this generation accomplished for America.
I only hope that the generation living now , and the ones to come will honor those people and will protect and preserve all their accomplishments. Those people saw the needs of Americans and acted , without greed to do the things that improved life for all Americans.
It should be taught in all schools about what this generation did and accomplished for America.