"The growing annual cash deficits in both programs will lead to exhaustion in trust fund reserves for HI in 2019 and for Social Security in 2042." - from the report of the SSA.
OK, it's not a lie, if you no longer have money stored up to pay, and you promise more outgo than you have coming in, and you call yourself bankrupt.
Bush says: "Flat bust", "bankrupt", and completely unable to make any payments.
This is entirely untrue. A cursory examination of the facts shows you that - just like the Al Qaeda connections with Iraq, just like the WMD in Iraq, or the Swift Boat Veterans claims, or the claims that there was not widespread and potentially decisive fraud in the 2004 election (that, tellingly, is *not being investigated*).
And let's not start in about the torture and murder of civilians, on order, shall we?
That you still support this guy unthinkingly is explainable *only* by the fact that you're doing it without thinking about it.
I don't blindly supoprt Bush - he's an idiot puppet.
Read the quote again. Bush says nothing about being unable to make payments, he just says it "will be flat bust, bankrupt" - which is absolutely true.
The fact of the matter is that the Democrats and the Republicans have been playing a shell game, for, in reality, they are all working for similar goals, just from different tacks. Each wants to take away personal liberty and replace it wth regulations, and "license" guaranteed by law and severly limited. They just do it in different spheres.
Now, I do think... I'm smarter, more clear headed, and more cynical than your average person; I am also trained in critical thinking and logic.
And I shall continue to call it as I see it. And this Ad Hominem attack makes you look quite foolish.
> I'm smarter, more clear headed, and more cynical than your average > person;
And yet you favour Bush and Badnarik as "sensible" people to vote for, and seem totally unable to understand that highways don't grow on trees and cutting the minimum wage just means that people will work for the lower minimum, getting even further into what is even now called "wage slavery", or starve to death.
All of these things exist to help people get out of a starvation-level existence, where a single missed day of work can mean homlessness, because that situation is bad for *everyone*. That person is a burden on society far out of proportion to the amount it would cost to help them in advance, and the more they produce, the more they contribute to the governmnet and society. Same deal with highways - if the cost wasn't forcibly spread across everyone, it would be *impossible* to make and use them, and anyone who thinks otherwise and yet claims to be "realistic", let alone "cynical", isn't thinking about this very hard at all.
Now, we're gettign a little far afield; I'll assume that you have conceded Bush wasn't lying, just to put that to bed.
Bush was not a sensible choice for president; as far as I know, none of the candidates were a sensible choice. I sincerely doubt that a sensible choice for president could make it through to the actual election in November.
Highways do get built in places without government funds. People DO want to get from place to place, businesses DO want to move equiptment. Every Subdivision built where I live builds its own roads - to spec for their needs. The RAIL system - with much more investment needed, as a percentage of GNP - was BUILT ENTIRELY PRIVATELY. I was done because people knew that the government wasn't going to do it and that it was needed.
Minimum wage is a gross travesty of business sense. It does not employ more people or keep people out of poverty. It does keep some people from working at all. Some people are not worth $4.50 an hour. Some jobs are not worth $2 an hour. Some employers cannot affod to pay even a small wage, but can compensate their employees in ways that make life survivable, such as foor and lodging. Jobs that are better paid go to those who have intelligence and training, and those jobs are already paying far above the minimum wage, and removal of the minimum wage law would change NOTHING for those people. In the suburbs around Chicago, no one will work for less than $6.50, unless they are a busboy or waitress. Even McDonalds has to pay $7/hr.
No one thinks that minimum wage or welfare will give people a leg up. Welfare is a way to keep riots away, so the poor idiots can stay home and watch TV. The minimum wage is a meaningless sop to the underclass, designed purely to garner votes. This is the reality; if you havent been down that far to see it, good for you. Unfortunately, I have, and getting welfare when you are an educated intelligent person is very hard.
> I'll assume that you have conceded Bush wasn't lying, just to put > that to bed
No, I'm simply considering the matter settled since you can't seem to show why what he said *isn't* a lie.
> No one thinks that minimum wage or welfare will give people a leg > up. Welfare is a way to keep riots away, so the poor idiots can stay > home and watch TV.
Way to let your prejudices get in the way of facts. Why not just say it's all genetic, or "poor people want to be poor", or maybe even "work makes you free"? Wouldn't those make your stance even clearer?
> getting welfare when you are an educated intelligent person is > very hard.
It's possible you're correct on this, under the American system. Since it operates in a backwards, primitive country only a few rudimentary steps away from feudalism, I'll grant you that it probably doesn't do what it would do if the people involved in it and supporting it *weren't* morons.
> OK, it's not a lie, if you no longer have money stored up to pay, and > you promise more outgo than you have coming in, and you call yourself > bankrupt.
From CBS Marketwatch
The facts: The Social Security system cannot go "bankrupt," for it has no creditors. By law, the trustees will continue to pay reduced benefits even if the trust fund is exhausted. Payroll taxes will continue to come in and benefits will continue to be paid.
This reality check has been brought to you by thirty seconds of effort.
It also quietly blows apart such statements as "In the year 2018, the money going out is going to exceed the money coming in.", and points out that, gee golly gosh whiz, women working outside the home has increased Social Security's resources rather than depleted them.
OK, Mr. Bush is talking the 40 year time frame, when 1) Medicare has already been paying perhaps 50 cents on the dollar to providers for 20 years already and 2) Social Security will start to pay probably 95 cents on the dollar due, and it will drop precipitously. And yes, a bankruptcy scheme where you pay only so much portion of what you owe is called chapter 7. The fact that it's backed by the greatest debt ever seen or imagines in the world means that this will be at the same time that the Federal Government has to use about 80% of tax revenue just to over payments.
So, yes, this portion of the bankrupt government will also be bankrupt.
Which is what he's being accused of spreading untruths about, yes.
> when 1) Medicare has already been paying perhaps 50 cents on > the dollar to providers for 20 years already and 2) Social > Security will start to pay probably 95 cents on the dollar > due, and it will drop precipitously.
According to the current trustees' projections, it'll be able to pay about 73% of scheduled benefits in 2042, and 68% of scheduled benefits in 2078.
Your initial statement of 95% appears to be pure blowing smoke. And if you are calling a drop of 5% in 36 years precipitous, I'm surprised the current state of the budget allows you to stop puking long enough to type.
> And yes, a bankruptcy scheme where you pay only so much > portion of what you owe is called chapter 7.
Yes. SS has no creditors. It does not "owe". It redistributes. It cannot go bankrupt. Unless it is dismantled--say, in favour of a privatized replacement, at which point it does not go bankrupt, it merely ceases to exist--it will not stop paying out benefits.
> The fact that it's backed by the greatest debt ever seen or > imagines in the world
Please tell me you aren't claiming that the current US deficit is the greatest debt ever imagined. The Congressional Budget Office is projecting a $708 billion deficit for 2014, which clearly means people are already thinking about a far worse situation.
(Dammit, didn't you used to have a surplus back in 2000? One that's been dropping further and further into deficit every full year Bush has been in office?)
> means that this will be at the same time that the Federal > Government has to use about 80% of tax revenue just to over > payments.
Wait wait wait, are you saying you *don't* believe your Commander in Chief's plan to halve the deficit by 2009? Do you really think he'd be planning on permanent tax cuts if he thought it wouldn't help with the economy?
Anyway. If the system is changed, and less tax revenue is allocated to SS, benefits will be cut. Nonetheless, they will continue to be paid out, and SS will not go bankrupt.
Bush is speaking of the system as it is. And he's lying.
(Look, why are you so defensive? It's not like it's the first time.)
A Lawfully incurred obligation is a debt, even if you call it something else.
Government Debt - not the deficit, the absolute amount we owe as a nation - has risen continuosly during the history of the "Great Society". Even during the "surplus" years of the late 90s, Debt continued to rise (that surplus was a sham, because the surplus was due to the Social Security trust fund increase). Our Government has a policy of never getting out of debt, and even if it had one, the current 7 trillion debt would take a while to clear up.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-13 06:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-13 07:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-13 09:09 pm (UTC)I'm beginning to find it really, really difficult to not adopt
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-14 02:15 am (UTC)OK, it's not a lie, if you no longer have money stored up to pay, and you promise more outgo than you have coming in, and you call yourself bankrupt.
Or maybe you did not take the time to CHECK?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-14 07:27 am (UTC)This is entirely untrue. A cursory examination of the facts shows you that - just like the Al Qaeda connections with Iraq, just like the WMD in Iraq, or the Swift Boat Veterans claims, or the claims that there was not widespread and potentially decisive fraud in the 2004 election (that, tellingly, is *not being investigated*).
And let's not start in about the torture and murder of civilians, on order, shall we?
That you still support this guy unthinkingly is explainable *only* by the fact that you're doing it without thinking about it.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-14 02:25 pm (UTC)Read the quote again. Bush says nothing about being unable to make payments, he just says it "will be flat bust, bankrupt" - which is absolutely true.
The fact of the matter is that the Democrats and the Republicans have been playing a shell game, for, in reality, they are all working for similar goals, just from different tacks. Each wants to take away personal liberty and replace it wth regulations, and "license" guaranteed by law and severly limited. They just do it in different spheres.
Now, I do think... I'm smarter, more clear headed, and more cynical than your average person; I am also trained in critical thinking and logic.
And I shall continue to call it as I see it. And this Ad Hominem attack makes you look quite foolish.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-14 03:50 pm (UTC)> person;
And yet you favour Bush and Badnarik as "sensible" people to vote for, and seem totally unable to understand that highways don't grow on trees and cutting the minimum wage just means that people will work for the lower minimum, getting even further into what is even now called "wage slavery", or starve to death.
All of these things exist to help people get out of a starvation-level existence, where a single missed day of work can mean homlessness, because that situation is bad for *everyone*. That person is a burden on society far out of proportion to the amount it would cost to help them in advance, and the more they produce, the more they contribute to the governmnet and society. Same deal with highways - if the cost wasn't forcibly spread across everyone, it would be *impossible* to make and use them, and anyone who thinks otherwise and yet claims to be "realistic", let alone "cynical", isn't thinking about this very hard at all.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-14 04:11 pm (UTC)Bush was not a sensible choice for president; as far as I know, none of the candidates were a sensible choice. I sincerely doubt that a sensible choice for president could make it through to the actual election in November.
Highways do get built in places without government funds. People DO want to get from place to place, businesses DO want to move equiptment. Every Subdivision built where I live builds its own roads - to spec for their needs. The RAIL system - with much more investment needed, as a percentage of GNP - was BUILT ENTIRELY PRIVATELY. I was done because people knew that the government wasn't going to do it and that it was needed.
Minimum wage is a gross travesty of business sense. It does not employ more people or keep people out of poverty. It does keep some people from working at all. Some people are not worth $4.50 an hour. Some jobs are not worth $2 an hour. Some employers cannot affod to pay even a small wage, but can compensate their employees in ways that make life survivable, such as foor and lodging. Jobs that are better paid go to those who have intelligence and training, and those jobs are already paying far above the minimum wage, and removal of the minimum wage law would change NOTHING for those people. In the suburbs around Chicago, no one will work for less than $6.50, unless they are a busboy or waitress. Even McDonalds has to pay $7/hr.
No one thinks that minimum wage or welfare will give people a leg up. Welfare is a way to keep riots away, so the poor idiots can stay home and watch TV. The minimum wage is a meaningless sop to the underclass, designed purely to garner votes. This is the reality; if you havent been down that far to see it, good for you. Unfortunately, I have, and getting welfare when you are an educated intelligent person is very hard.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-14 07:16 pm (UTC)> that to bed
No, I'm simply considering the matter settled since you can't seem to show why what he said *isn't* a lie.
> No one thinks that minimum wage or welfare will give people a leg
> up. Welfare is a way to keep riots away, so the poor idiots can stay
> home and watch TV.
Way to let your prejudices get in the way of facts. Why not just say it's all genetic, or "poor people want to be poor", or maybe even "work makes you free"? Wouldn't those make your stance even clearer?
> getting welfare when you are an educated intelligent person is
> very hard.
It's possible you're correct on this, under the American system. Since it operates in a backwards, primitive country only a few rudimentary steps away from feudalism, I'll grant you that it probably doesn't do what it would do if the people involved in it and supporting it *weren't* morons.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-14 12:16 pm (UTC)> you promise more outgo than you have coming in, and you call yourself
> bankrupt.
From CBS Marketwatch This reality check has been brought to you by thirty seconds of effort.
It also quietly blows apart such statements as "In the year 2018, the money going out is going to exceed the money coming in.", and points out that, gee golly gosh whiz, women working outside the home has increased Social Security's resources rather than depleted them.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-14 02:17 pm (UTC)So, yes, this portion of the bankrupt government will also be bankrupt.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-14 02:58 pm (UTC)Which is what he's being accused of spreading untruths about, yes.
> when 1) Medicare has already been paying perhaps 50 cents on
> the dollar to providers for 20 years already and 2) Social
> Security will start to pay probably 95 cents on the dollar
> due, and it will drop precipitously.
According to the current trustees' projections, it'll be able to pay about 73% of scheduled benefits in 2042, and 68% of scheduled benefits in 2078.
Your initial statement of 95% appears to be pure blowing smoke. And if you are calling a drop of 5% in 36 years precipitous, I'm surprised the current state of the budget allows you to stop puking long enough to type.
> And yes, a bankruptcy scheme where you pay only so much
> portion of what you owe is called chapter 7.
Yes. SS has no creditors. It does not "owe". It redistributes. It cannot go bankrupt. Unless it is dismantled--say, in favour of a privatized replacement, at which point it does not go bankrupt, it merely ceases to exist--it will not stop paying out benefits.
> The fact that it's backed by the greatest debt ever seen or
> imagines in the world
Please tell me you aren't claiming that the current US deficit is the greatest debt ever imagined. The Congressional Budget Office is projecting a $708 billion deficit for 2014, which clearly means people are already thinking about a far worse situation.
(Dammit, didn't you used to have a surplus back in 2000? One that's been dropping further and further into deficit every full year Bush has been in office?)
> means that this will be at the same time that the Federal
> Government has to use about 80% of tax revenue just to over
> payments.
Wait wait wait, are you saying you *don't* believe your Commander in Chief's plan to halve the deficit by 2009? Do you really think he'd be planning on permanent tax cuts if he thought it wouldn't help with the economy?
Anyway. If the system is changed, and less tax revenue is allocated to SS, benefits will be cut. Nonetheless, they will continue to be paid out, and SS will not go bankrupt.
Bush is speaking of the system as it is. And he's lying.
(Look, why are you so defensive? It's not like it's the first time.)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-14 04:16 pm (UTC)A Lawfully incurred obligation is a debt, even if you call it something else.
Government Debt - not the deficit, the absolute amount we owe as a nation - has risen continuosly during the history of the "Great Society". Even during the "surplus" years of the late 90s, Debt continued to rise (that surplus was a sham, because the surplus was due to the Social Security trust fund increase). Our Government has a policy of never getting out of debt, and even if it had one, the current 7 trillion debt would take a while to clear up.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-14 04:44 pm (UTC)Social Security cannot go bankrupt. There is a specific definition to bankrupt. It cannot meet it.
Bush said it will go bankrupt.
He is lying.