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- Please no inappropriate usernames (remember that there may be youngsters in the room)
- Personal attacks on other community members are unacceptable, practice the good manners your mama taught you when engaging with fellow Dawg fans
- Use common sense and respect personal differences in the community: sexual and other inappropriate language or imagery, political rants and belittling the opinions of others will get your posts deleted and result in warnings and/ or banning from the forum
- 3/17/19 UPDATE -- We've updated the permissions for our "Football" and "Commit to the G" recruiting message boards. We aim to be the best free board out there and that has not changed. We do now ask that all of you good people register as a member of our forum in order to see the sugar that is falling from our skies, so to speak.
Comments
I actually did peruse all 4 of those articles you cited. Despite the misleading headlines, there were no concrete proposals to "cut" SS or MC, just ASPERSIONS by the author as to the INTENT of the Republicans. However, I will grant you that there have been efforts to decrease the SLOPE of the increase in entitlement spending (i.e. slow down the rate of increase). Only in modern mainstream media is this now considered "cutting" entitlements (this is truly fake news, or at least fake headlines) LMFAO!!!
Also brief history of SS when it was passed by FDR: benefits started at age 65 but life expectancy was 62...government was going to make a profit!!
Medicare when passed by LBJ: benefits started at age 65 but life expectancy was 66...again they thought they were going to make a profit with all the premiums being paid in by all the young people for only 2 years (on average) of benefits for medical care that was quite primitive and inexpensive back in the day (for example, heart attack?? bedrest, aspirin, and beta blockers)...now, drug eluting stents or robotic bypass surgery (all very cheap...snark)
This is the law of unintended consequences. Now people routinely live into their 90's and people having fewer babies (tax payers). So if addressing these unsustainable concerns are your interpretation of "cutting" entitlements....well, there is no hope for any of us
That was quite amusing!! However, how many times have we heard of young people now addicted to heroin (opioid) after taking a pill or two of dad's leftover oxycodone left behind after hernia surgery?? Not quite so funny now, huh?
scarecrow was my favorite wizard of Oz character too, straw man
“There’s been a bipartisan reluctance to tackle entitlement changes because of the popularity of those programs,” McConnell told Bloomberg News. “Hopefully at some point here, we’ll get serious about this. We haven’t been yet.”
McConnell added that he thought the Obama administration missed a window of opportunity to reform programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which account for about 70 percent of what the federal government spends annually.
I don't know any other way to interpret this besides McConnell and Ryan along with the Republican party wanted to reduce benefit payouts from Social Security and Medicare as a means of reducing the deficit. Reducing benefit payouts is a cut. There is no way around that, and I provided sources from various ends of the political spectrum which gives me the feeling everything you disagree with is fake news. The articles address why they never put forward a concrete plan. Midterms were coming up and since the Dems won the house, there was no chance of passing cuts to those programs anyways. Yeah, times change but we could address changes without making cuts. Average life span is 78 btw.
Republicans passed the biggest spending bill by any nation in all history with control of both houses and The Presidency last year. The ''compromise'' was give me what I want and I'll give you what you want. No high level leader has curbed spending since Bill Clinton did it in the 90s. I'm not even sure what being conservative means now. Supposedly the republican party is more conservative than in the past, yet they run through our money like shiit through a goose.
Hey, it’s a free country, and the Big Lebowski is one of my all time favs. But we’re not talking movies and I’ll wager this: higher incidence of unhealthy drug addiction arising from the recreational user than the non user, no??
*edit
I think your own biases are defining how you "interpret" what McConnell said in the article you sited. Reform does not necessarily mean reduced payouts to entitlement as you stated. McConnell did not use the word cut, YOU did. If people are living longer and healthier now than in the days of FDR and LBJ, why not hold off on benefits until they're 70 or 75? The intent of the original legislation was designed for benefits a few years prior to projected life expectancy (actually in SS, AFTER you died). If it was good enough at that time, why not now? Since that was their original intent, why not index it or adjust it according to current life expectancy (with the obvious exemptions for severe disabilities...another can of worms)? Another way of putting it, I sincerely doubt FDR would have pushed through SS legislation IF he knew that people were gonna live to almost 80 (on average) and may require decades of expensive dialysis, kidney or heart transplant, robotic surgery, chemo....none of which was even entertained in the 1930's. And without free market and capitalism along with its financial incentive, very few of these wonderful innovations would have likely occurred. I mean, how many notable lifesaving medical advancements were developed in Communist USSR or China or Venezuela?
Well this thread has lasted 3-4 pages longer than I thought possible. And some good information and insight being exchanged..Well Played !
I just want to give kudos to:
1: my fellow Dawgs who have have been relatively decent when exchanging ideas with others.
And
2: for the MODs who have let this proceed.
They could also fund SS if they taxed all income instead of stopping at an annual $125,000. I believe that is the stopping point. That's just my opinion of course. This is as political as I will get on any forum, politicians are crap. They talk the talk but refuse to walk the walk. They are more concerned with back biting and pointing the finger at the other side that nothing gets done. That goes for both parties. I had some one tell me one time that if you elect anybody to office the first time you give them an opportunity to screw you. If you elect them again, you give them permission.
The things I see....
A person had a court date, to avoid this court date they purposely put themselves into diabetic ketoacidosis by not taking their insulin. Oh, and this is about the 6th time this year they've been in the hospital for the same thing. You and me are footing the bill for this...
And Yale, no one has a problem with legal immigration. But the illegals are spoiling it for all. Many of these people are not assimilating. It seems like they don't want to be American, but rather use America. Having massive amounts of people within the country that do not communicate and do not even want to be American is going to be a very bad problem. The first time I really woke up to it was when I saw Americans trying to attend an american political rally being attacked, like physically attacked, by people not speaking English and wearing other country's flags. This happened on major news. Had more... but gotta run.
You miss my point entirely. The average Medicare recipient today consumes three times MORE dollars than they put IN throughout their lifetime!!! This trajectory is unsustainable. Again, decreasing the rate of growth is NOT a cut!!! If you were lucky enough to get a 10% increase in salary every year but only got a 5% increase this year, you did not get a "cut", you slowed the increase. Is this math that hard?? Why the rapid increase? Largely due to the cost of innovation but also the bureaucracy. Are you aware that for every doctor in the US, their are TEN hospital administrators?? Why?? To comply with all the government and Medicare mandates and regulations that do little to improve care.
Do you really think FDR would have passed SS if he had known that people would live longer??