The Republican Utopia

[BigRedBuster]

1 minute ago, Archy1221 said:

What???   It’s NEVER been anything but what you just described.  
 

Have you ever heard a Republican say current retirees  or close to retirement age folks would need to take a cut.  Or I should at least say a serious Republican proposal?  

Well....when you have Republican politicians claiming their goal is to pull it up by the roots and get rid of it......doesn't really impart that they will do what I said.

[commando]

3 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

Hey, I'm not for making changes like raising the age to 70. 

 

Yes, funding is where changes can be made.  Raise the limit of pay that gets taxed for SS and the problem pretty much goes away.

FWIW...we voted to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67 when i was in my 20's.  now they want to raise the age again.   i think that was enough of raising the retirement age

[Archy1221]

9 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

Well....when you have Republican politicians claiming their goal is to pull it up by the roots and get rid of it......doesn't really impart that they will do what I said.

I assume you are referencing the Mike Lee clip? 
 

If so, I haven’t seen the entire video from that day, not sure if you have and can provide prospective.   Did he talk about what the future he envisioned for a safety net program or did he say get rid of it and on to the next thing?   Cause all we ever see from Democrats is the clip you reference.  

[knapplc]

The United States' GDP in 2022 was $25 TRILLION. We can afford to fully fund Social Security.

 

Boomers pulling the ladder up behind them, trying to screw younger generations (their kids & grandkids!) is typical behavior. They will be regarded as one of the most selfish and self-serving generations in US history.

[JJ Husker]

5 hours ago, knapplc said:

The United States' GDP in 2022 was $25 TRILLION. We can afford to fully fund Social Security.

 

Boomers pulling the ladder up behind them, trying to screw younger generations (their kids & grandkids!) is typical behavior. They will be regarded as one of the most selfish and self-serving generations in US history.

I’m not sure how/why you’re blaming the boomer generation for not keeping SocSec solvent?

 

They may have been selfish and self-serving in a lot of respects (btw I am technically a boomer, one of the last couple years of that category) but you’d have to explain how they are more responsible for social security than the politicians and government management that let it get to this point.

 

How has the Boomer generation caused this? I’m not for pulling up the ladder or letting it fail. In fact I’m pretty concerned it will be in pretty bad shape when I finally need it.

[commando]

22 minutes ago, knapplc said:

The United States' GDP in 2022 was $25 TRILLION. We can afford to fully fund Social Security.

 

Boomers pulling the ladder up behind them, trying to screw younger generations (their kids & grandkids!) is typical behavior. They will be regarded as one of the most selfish and self-serving generations in US history.

it was us baby boomers who voted in Reagan who raised the retirement age from 65 to 67 against our own benefit

[knapplc]

25 minutes ago, JJ Husker said:

I’m not sure how/why you’re blaming the boomer generation for not keeping SocSec solvent?

 

They may have been selfish and self-serving in a lot of respects (btw I am technically a boomer, one of the last couple years of that category) but you’d have to explain how they are more responsible for social security than the politicians and government management that let it get to this point.

 

How has the Boomer generation caused this? I’m not for pulling up the ladder or letting it fail. In fact I’m pretty concerned it will be in pretty shape when I finally need it.

 

 

They created this by voting for politicians who endorse these ideas. Those politicians are overwhelmingly Republican, and Boomers overwhelmingly support Republican candidates. They are the reason our government is filled with geriatric conservatives. 

 

If Boomers didn't support defunding Social Security they wouldn't vote for politicians who want to end it. But they do, and they are hard core against most social safety net programs. 

 

I'll add that we've known about the looming cross between the money available for Social Security and the money SS will be paying out for decades. This crisis could have been averted decades ago if Boomers had been willing to raise taxes on themselves to fully fund SS, but they consistently voted against it. They elected politicians who railed against taxes, and ignored the looming problem younger generations will have to face while reaping the benefits of SS themselves. 

[JJ Husker]

37 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

 

They created this by voting for politicians who endorse these ideas. Those politicians are overwhelmingly Republican, and Boomers overwhelmingly support Republican candidates. They are the reason our government is filled with geriatric conservatives. 

 

If Boomers didn't support defunding Social Security they wouldn't vote for politicians who want to end it. But they do, and they are hard core against most social safety net programs. 

 

I'll add that we've known about the looming cross between the money available for Social Security and the money SS will be paying out for decades. This crisis could have been averted decades ago if Boomers had been willing to raise taxes on themselves to fully fund SS, but they consistently voted against it. They elected politicians who railed against taxes, and ignored the looming problem younger generations will have to face while reaping the benefits of SS themselves. 

I follow that logic and somewhat agree with it but I’m not sure it was a cognizant choice by a generation but rather a byproduct of politics and party.

 

To explain, I voted Republican for a long time and it was never my intent to screw over social security. I mean heck, even purely selfishly I need it solvent in about 8 years and beyond. Never once did I choose to vote for someone with the idea being they would help dismantle that safety net. In fact for a long time I believed conservatives were and would be more fiscally conservative than the other guys and maybe the better choice for keeping soc sec viable. But yeah, somewhat recently I’ve figured out that is not the case. And I do blame both parties for letting it get to this point. We’ve allowed/created a class of elected officials, an aristocracy, that are not subject to the rules they create. I still would blame a party specifically, politicians in general and our political system more than I do a whole generation.

[knapplc]

5 minutes ago, JJ Husker said:

I follow that logic and somewhat agree with it but I’m not sure it was a cognizant choice by a generation but rather a byproduct of politics and party.

 

To explain, I voted Republican for a long time and it was never my intent to screw over social security. I mean heck, even purely selfishly I need it solvent in about 8 years and beyond. Never once did I choose to vote for someone with the idea being they would help dismantle that safety net. In fact for a long time I believed conservatives were and would be more fiscally conservative than the other guys and maybe the better choice for keeping soc sec viable. But yeah, somewhat recently I’ve figured out that is not the case. And I do blame both parties for letting it get to this point. We’ve allowed/created a class of elected officials, an aristocracy, that are not subject to the rules they create. I still would blame a party specifically, politicians in general and our political system more than I do a whole generation.

 

I voted Republican for a long time, too, but stopped when they were no longer conservative. Boomers have not stopped, and thus bear responsibility for their votes.

 

[BigRedBuster]

 

[BigRedBuster]

 

[JJ Husker]

3 hours ago, knapplc said:

 

I voted Republican for a long time, too, but stopped when they were no longer conservative. Boomers have not stopped, and thus bear responsibility for their votes.

 

I’m not really arguing with you, just pointing out that the whole generation is not responsible. Now if you want to claim conservative Republican Boomers then, by extension, okay. But I still blame our government and elected officials as a whole for letting it get here and not addressing the problem sooner. It should be a mandatory entitlement that simply has to be funded, never dipped into and always solvent many years into the future.

 

I don’t recall many politicians getting elected on or with the plank of “I want to see soc sec fail”. IMO that would be a surefire way to not get elected. There’s a s#!tload of Boomers drawing and about to draw soc sec benefits. If we/they are so selfish, they would also have to be extremely stupid to vote against their own interests. (And no I don’t want to go into “stupid” because we both know most of them vote R for stupid social and religious reasons that don’t directly involve soc sec)

 

Anyway I agree with you to the extent their vote is responsible for who our elected officials are. Hopefully more people wake up and realize the repercussions and consequences.

[commando]

45 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

 

there are house plants that are more self aware than BoBo

[BigRedBuster]

 

 

[Born N Bled Red]

9 hours ago, commando said:

FWIW...we voted to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67 when i was in my 20's.  now they want to raise the age again.   i think that was enough of raising the retirement age

 

That's fine, they can raise the retirement age. But anyone who votes for an official who votes in favor of doing so forefiets their social security to ensure that the program is solvent when the generation losing retirement years finally gets to retirement. 

 

Additionally "ALL INCOME" becomes taxable for social security.