doublegunshop.com - home Forums Ken Burn's Teddy R.

EXTENSIVE HATRED?
I and I know many others here collect a monthly Social Security check. The government isn't GIVING me anthing as I spent over 40 years of my working career paying into SS. So the idea that we hate this program is truly ludicrous and shows just how far out of touch some of you are with reality.
However; the program is literally being raped by those who don't want to work and are claiming some kind of "disability" as wholesale fraud is rampart in this area. The Legal leeches regularly advertise on TV in their search for more "disabled" people to scam the system.
It's a whole new industry along with those "free" wheelchairs scam that the providers use to bill Medicare or Medicaid at several times their actual cost.
I won't even bother getting into the Medicare scams per se as they have been well publicised. Botton line: When people were responsible for their own medical expenses they'd have raised holy hell with some of thee outrageous charges paid by insurance companies today.
I tried to tell my insurance company that these charges in my case were unwarrented but they had a deaf ear.
Jim

Craig, What is this about the largest income tax rate hike ever? I missed that news and would like to know about it. What makes you assume I don't have taxable income? I've been paying income tax for nearly 60 years. As for policy creating more poverty, I think you're mistaken, and that issue goes to the heart of our basic disagreement. For instance industries like Walmart and McDonalds pay their workers so little that taxpayers end up subsidizing heath care and food stamps for them. The two decade flat lining of middle class pay through a period of record corporate profits is the general case in point.Productivity goes way up; wages stagnate or decline. I'm not hesitant to discuss Solyndra. No one ever mentioned it here to my knowledge. It was a mistake. The food stamp program grew because the unemployed grew. All over the country people still need work. Do you favor starving them? I don't. California is in the fourth year of a record drought. Do you favor cancelling the Endangered Species a Act? I don't. A final point: A huge majority of the country's net worth over the last fifteen years has gone to the wealthiest people. They're the only ones who gained ground in a troubled economy. They need to be taxed more for the same reason Willy Sutton robbed banks: that's where the money is. PS If incentives create jobs, say where that is so that folks needing work can look there. PSS My pension did just get cut.I pay both state and federal income tax on SS and my pension.

Not a big deal Bill, but I disagree with most of your points. I see much of your thoughts as, not in my backyard and out of sight out of mind.

I worked for minimum wage and there was a time when my kids did. I know I will flat out not hire that young new trainee for fifteen dollars an hour. Near every month since your guy took office, the unemployment rate has gone down, wink. Who exactly does pony up for ten to thirty plus thousand dollar fund raisers. Isn't that a 'fair' tax as it goes to the big business of the dnc. If you define who the rich are and tax them at a hundred percent rate, does it fix the problems that you see.

Since you brought it up, I don't think your pension should have been cut, if you had an agreement. I noticed you didn't quite say you're in the mood for more cuts. You also brought up your taxable income, 100% none of my business, only that my point was tax rates don't mean as much to any person that has a lesser or no taxable income.

Fantasy scenario. A big national park forested area out by you has been identified as being some great mining opportunity. Feds will build a city, roads, etc. Only catch, all workers, top to bottom have to be unemployed and come out of the ranks of the 'poor'. Now who's more important, your grandkids recreational hunting or redistributing for the poor.

There are so many misconceptions in the last few posts, I hardly know where to start. I'll throw out a few things to get things rolling. To show that I'm "balanced" I'll start with Social Security.

True, working people have paid into it. Yet, the mathematical facts cannot be denied. The average person who has worked all their lives gets back ALL THE MONEY PLUS INTEREST in under four years of receiving benefits. That's the math. The program is mathematically unworkable as it stands. It could have been fixed in the early GWB years by allowing younger folks to opt out and privatize a portion of their contributions. Older people's benefits would not have been affected. This would have been a massive power loss to the sociopathic Democrats, so they lied and demonized the whole plan, scaring the ignorant. As it is, there is no "Trust Fund", it was put on-budget by LBJ to pay for the massive vote-buying scheme called the "Great Society". Even in the best case, after four years seniors are simply another group of welfare cases, as their own contributions have run out, and others are forced to pay for their benefits. It is merely another sociopathic statist religious entitlement.

The issue is not about hating people who draw government checks. If your check was determined by the Free Market rather that sociopathic vote-buying, I have no problem. If you're receiving a check due to an involuntary exchange of goods and services sociopathically inflicted on your fellow citizens, you shouldn't be allowed to vote. That would eliminate the whole class of statist politicians who intentionally create chaos and dependency in order to buy votes.

I don't agree with any subsidization in any form, it's unconstitutional, including bloated teacher's salaries.

It's not hatred, it's a reaction to being sociopathically inflicted upon by people like you. You see, since we're equals, I have the right NOT to be your slave.

Ken, I have a hard time understanding your victimhood. We all pay taxes to support the public services we need to be a civil and a civilized society. Government is not a business. It does nor exist to make a profit. Yes, it is wasteful and inefficient. Nowadays it barely functions at a survival level. Your position strikes me as an endorsement of social Darwinism. Not everyone wants to live in a society where it's every man for himself and to hell with anyone who can't compete. The system today is rigged against everyone who isn't already wealthy. Wealth gains since 1989 have gone to the top 3 % of the income distribution. The next 7 % has stayed even. The bottom 90 % has experienced a steady decline. There is no such thing as a free market. It's not a fair game. The market has us all by the throat and is intent on squeezing us dry. If only the government could govern. We don't get to vote on big money. They're the ones calling the shots regardless of who may be in Washington.

What a typical statist religious response. Your ignorance of the role that government plays in our lives today is appalling. Individual freedom and equality is not Social Darwinism, yet you sociopaths repeatedly attempt to define it as such. I have yet to advocate abolishment of a reasonable social safety net, but that is not what exists today. Now, we have not only life-long, but multi-generational vote-buying. Playing the sociopathic class envy game is preposterous, what another person makes in the Free Market is none of your sociopathic business, and shows your ignorance of basic economics. Wealth working as Capital in the Private Sector is called Freedom, as opposed to taxation and vote-buying of government employees and all of the other assorted welfare cases such as yourself. Taxation is what limits wealth creation, and is the cause of the income distribution issues. How many millionaires has Microsoft created? A lot more than you and your ilk have, except for the ones who got it at the expense of other people's freedom. Christ, sometime I wonder why I even bother. Ignorant, sociopathic, religious people are so hard to deal with. I have a right to NOT be inflicted upon by religious sociopaths like you.

Bill, while I agree Big Money punches above its weight it is not a walk-away. Big Money's macroeconomic model is not Keynesian. So they are terribly worried about the national debt, and consequently, the annual deficits. And they have been trying to get Social Security Benefits and Medicare (entitlements) rolled back for years to help balance the budget. But no luck.

I own a small business. I pay income tax on the earnings from that business. When the government allows me to depreciate a truck in one year instead of five they lower my taxes this year but raise them for next year, the third, the fourth, and the fifth years. They make those kind of tax incentives during down economic years in the hope that businesses will purchase equipment sooner rather than later and that it will stimulate the economy, a very Keynesian concept.

I pay income tax. I don't draw any benefits (yet). I do get to live in a great country. I am safe in my house. I am safe in my office. The Feds send in brave young men to combat our enemies on the enemies' soil. If I go broke today I will still have social security and medicare in a few years. But I still pay in much more in Federal Taxes than the benefits I receive. If the government passes a law that lowers my income tax by 1/20th of what it would have been without that law I don't think that makes me a welfare recipient. The 19/20th that I am still sending makes me a contributor.

If I do go broke today and I apply for and receive food stamps then I would think I was on welfare. If I move to Massachusetts and receive free medical care I would think that I was on welfare. But if a tax law lowers my taxes to 19/20ths of what they would have been otherwise I don't think that reduction in my contribution to the general well being of the nation is welfare as I would still be contributing much much more than I am receiving.

I think the teachers earned their pay, earned their health insurance, and earned their pensions. I don't begrudge them one penny of their life's earnings. I don't think their pensions constitute welfare.

I do begrudge foodstamp cheats, SS disablity cheats, unemployment insurance cheats, and Medicaid cheats. But my religious beliefs require me to try to feed the hungry, house the homeless, clothe the naked, visit the prisoners, and give water to the thirsty. And so I am glad that it is not just the faithful that are chipping in on those giant chores.

I am angry that AIG, Maurice Greenberg, JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon, Countrywide Mortgages, Angelo Mozillo, and the rest of the financial "wizards" that brought us the Lesser Depression are doing so well. No doubt at least some of them deserve the cell next to Burnie Madoff's.

Ken, you don't believe in taxation and subsidies in any form. You believe there is a free market system. Our economies are subsidized to the gills. We would have developing world GDPs without them.

Not to put too fine a point on it, Chinese workers are subsidizing every facet of the US standard of living. Interest on their money pays the full cost of their rapidly growing military now throwing its weight around.

Subsidies provide your discriminating tastes. Want to go back to nylon?

Nowhere did I say I didn't believe in taxation. Limited taxation is necessary. Taxation for vote-buying is unconstitutional. I disagree with your assertion that without subsidies we'd still have developing world GDP. Got any proof?