Why Government Can’t Run Health Care
by Big Dog on Nov 20, 2009 at 02:47 Political
The government is working on passing a health care takeover package that will cost upwards of $2.5 trillion over the actual first ten years of its life. They claim it will cost less than a trillion over ten years but they do that by counting ten from the passage and taxing people from the passage but only providing care four or five years after passage. They will get a four or five year head start on the money in order to pay for it. You cannot sustain a program where you have to tax for ten years to provide for five. The first ten years where actual health care is provided will cost at least 2.5 trillion dollars. They are using budget voodoo to fool the public.
The government claims it will save money by eliminating fraud in Medicare. If they could eliminate the fraud why have they not done it up to this point? How about they take a few years and eliminate the fraud and let us see the results before they try to get us on board with their health plan? The government has 98 billion dollars of fraud this year (and it is not over) with most of it being in Medicare.
Shouldn’t we expect them to have concern for this and to be addressing it with or without the reform they want?
Regardless of the costs, government cannot run the health care program because it will be a disaster. We already know that they cannot run Medicare and that it is rife with fraud. They have admitted that the fraud is there but they have done nothing to end it in the entire time it has existed. This is because government is wasteful and is not very good at oversight.
Case in point, Recovery.gov, the website that was designed solely to track the stimulus. It was supposed to be a transparent way for Americans to see how the money was being spent and how many jobs are being created. I know they claim to report jobs saved but that is a nonsensical item that cannot be tracked or quantified. There is no way to determine a “saved” job. I discount any saved job as a lie.
The government website is full of inaccuracies and probably lies. I say lies because all of the errors that have been caught were errors of over reporting. If there were mistakes one would expect that some of them would be under reporting. After the initial issues with the site the government spent 18 million dollars to revamp it. For 18 million dollars they should be able to buy a server farm with enough bandwidth to stream a concert to 1000 people and still have money left over to pay someone who knows how to be accurate when reporting. That seems like an awful lot of money for a website. Do they have the entire graduating class of MIT working on it?
The government could not get the website to work (which might mean they could not hide the lies well enough) so they spent 18 million to make it better. It still is not working because they are reporting jobs created in districts that do not exist. The reports of jobs created are being shot down time and again by the likes of ABC news and the entire project has done nothing to instill confidence in the government’s ability. One would think that with the kind of money they spent and the talent they can hire they would get it right.
But they did not. So they did what government always does when a plan fails. They threw more money at it and it still failed.
If the government is unable to spend 787 billion dollars on a stimulus and track that money as well as the jobs created then how are they going to run health care? The stimulus program has fraud that has been reported, fraud they acknowledge is inherent in a program of this size. The size pales in comparison to the health care takeover so how much ineptitude and fraud will that have? I know that Obama and his party claim they will end the fraud but they have failed to do so thus far with Medicare and they could not stop it in the stimulus. I have read they are considering another stimulus. Like with the website, they will throw more money at a failed program.
Imagine the amount of fraud that will accompany their health care reform. The reform will be much larger than Medicare and it has billions in fraud. The reform is much larger than the stimulus and it has billions in fraud. How many billions of dollars in fraud will result from their health care takeover plan?
Government is not able to run a simple website that it spent a whopping $18 million on and it is unable to stop the fraud in Medicare. It is also unable to track recovery money accurately or to prevent fraud in that program.
What moron believes that government will do better with health care?
Fraud, Waste, and Abuse.
Those three words more accurately describe nearly all government programs. Why would any sane person put one sixth of our economy in their hands?
I encourage you to visit Recovery.Gov. You paid over 18 million for it, you own it, so you might as well use it.
But don’t believe anything you read there.
**I incorrectly stated that the website cost 18 Billion dollars when it was Million. Each occurrence was changed. Thanks to commenter Mike for pointing out the mistake.
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Tags: abuse, fraud, health care takeover, jobs, lies, Obama, recovery.gov, waste
They (recovery site) paid me a million dollars not to blog on their site.
Hey BD! I went to that bogas phony Government Recovery site and looked at what the givermint is spending money on!
It is a passel of liberal make-work crap-a-rolla!
There is no construction of a nuclear power generation facility, although they are paying to take a few out.
There is no plasic recycling plants, no factories, no…well to put it blank and ugly, there are NO PROJECTS that when completed, will generate wealth!
I am not an American, but buddy, I feel for you. You are getting screeeeewed! Your farm boys, the ones that like to break things and blow up stuff, they saved our two-bit liberal asses twice in the last century alone. In war that is. No telling how many times they saved us by discovering new products, new ways to do things and by basically giving the shirts from their backs to rebuild several hundred countries demolished by tyrant liberal socialist lunatics that…just some how!…came into power.
Well, BD, I am so very sorry for you, and when your tyrant destroys your once great country, I wonder if we will be able to help?
Considering who we are, I don’t think so! Look at it this way, when our country had a tsunami and the coast was wipped out, the 7th fleet showed up and saved the day. Saved the year.
When Katrina, with the help of poorly designed and run LIBERAL socialist welfare programs destroyed N.O. we, in return…sat on our arses and didn’t even send a body-bag sniffing DOG!
No! We just complained about the “fact” that GWB could say nuclear.
I use we to mean the people in power, the liberals, because they are the seat-warmers here, too.
Have been for 20 years.
20 years of stagnation and one stupid government snaffu after another.
Adam! Listen up, boy! This is why I hate you; you are the face of the problem, the mouth of the problem. People that think and talk like you can and will subject all your relatives, “friends” and your entire nation to a long lingering decline. You are a “useful idiot,” but you have no use to me.
I point my slippers in your general direction.
Before Adam or Darrel pounce on your typo, it’s 18 million not billion.
Thanks Mike. That’s what happens when you post late or maybe there has been so much spent that millions seem like billions.
Yes, billion is the new million.
I don’t think I’ve ever “pounced” on a typo, so Big Dog’s in the clear.
Well, I’m out for the weekend. You get another rare reprieve from at least one liberal for a few days.
Hope you enjoy yourself.
Bigd: “…a health care takeover package that will cost upwards of $2.5 trillion over the actual first ten years of its life.”>>
DAR
Actually, according to our best non-partisan estimates available (CBO), it will cost…
$849 billion
So you’re off by $1.6 trillion. Pretty close for doggy standards!
And, as Obama required, according to our best non-partisan estimates, it doesn’t add anything to the deficit (it’s lowers it).
You can’t say that about your trillion dollar wars, $800b medicare D patch, or Bush’s tax cuts for the very rich. Note:
“Enacted in 2001 and 2003, the Bush tax cuts are projected to cost about $2.1 trillion in lost revenue in the 10 years since they were first passed,…. About $979 billion of that would have come from the richest five percent of taxpayers.
By comparison, the health care plan advocated by House Democrats is projected to cost about… [$849 billion].
The Bush tax cuts tally does not include the additional interest payments on the national debt made necessary by the deficit-financed cuts, the report noted. That figure bumps up the total cost of the tax cuts to about $2.48 trillion.”
Dems’ Health Plan Half As Costly As Bush Tax Cuts: Report.
DAR
Nice. Borrow from the world, especially China, to pad the pockets of the wealthy. Makes sense doesn’t it? So glad he’s gone.
Oh, and your start-in dates are similarly inaccurate and misleading, of course.
D.
——————
Health Bill CBO Score: $849 Billion Over Next Decade
“A preliminary Congressional Budget Office analysis of the Senate health care legislation finds that the bill will cost $849 billion over the next decade while covering 94 percent of eligible Americans,…
31 million currently uninsured Americans would be covered under the legislation. The bill would also lower the deficit by $127 billion over the next decade — “going further than any other bill” — and by $650 billion during the decade after that, according to the aide.”
Link.
The CBO estimated costs based on the day of enactment which means they will collect taxes for four or five years and then start the program. The actual estimate for ten years of provided health care (which is what I clearly stated) is 2.5 trillion.
The tax cuts caused an increase in revenue to the treasury and the war has gone on for 8 years and has not cost as much as what is being spent right now.
Remember, the CBO can only grade what it is provided and it has not been provided everything.
I though you were a freethinker? How can you not see what point I made about 10 years of care? Oh yeah, you are blinded by your desire for this.
HuffPo is not a reputable source and besides, the Constitution mention the military and war. I bet you can’t find health care in that document.
You have no idea how the budget process works and you have no idea why they are delaying things. It is to give the appearance that it is cheaper. You can’t tax for 10 years to pay for 5 and be sustainable.
Medicare and Social Security are not sustainable. You like to claim that they are solvent because the government owes them money but where will it come from?
If Congress had not spent it on other things it would be there but all we have are IOUs. The money borrowed from China has a lot more to do with that than tax cuts or the war. You still echo the lib talking point about tax cuts for the rich. You are really clueless sometimes.
US unfunded liabilities are 106 TRILLION dollars. They do not have that money and they will never get that money. SS, Medicare and the prescription drug plan are 106 TRILLION in the red and we can never catch up no matter what you say about the US having the money.
Debt Clock
“I though you were a freethinker?”
Here is an article on so called freethinkers-“Free Thought-Not So Free After All”
http://www.apologeticspress.org/modules.php?name=Read&cat=3&itemid=1829
Darrel toes the party line well.
VIC: Here is an article on so called freethinkers>>
DAR
Let me know if you want to defend any of that. I would love to rip it to shreds. It’s baby talk and the errors are elementary. You should be able to see them yourself.
It’s a bit off of the topic of this thread. If you would like to defend it, or even see how it holds up, please post it in our freethinker forum here:
http://fayfreethinkers.com/forums/index.php
I promise to give it a special going over and make an example out of it.
Oh, and freethinkers don’t do party lines. Well, other than the basics. Again, the standard definition:
free-think-er n.
a person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief.
So a freethinker tends to not believe things based upon faith, tradition, authority or established belief.
This is in contrast to all of the religious folks who tend to believe claims based upon faith, tradition, authority or established belief. If you don’t like to look at your particular religious club, just look to one of it’s competitors. I bet you could find a little to criticize when certain Muslim folks rely upon their beliefs based upon faith, tradition and authority and end up doing very bad things.
The advancements in knowledge and human understanding since the enlightenment have taught us that believing things based upon faith, tradition, authority or established belief tend to perpetuate the same old errors and superstitions that have plagued us since recorded history. Time to progress from that.
D.
—————-
Europe is well ahead of us in this regard, but we are slowly coming along:
“…popular attitudes toward religion in Europe now stand in bold contrast to those in the United States. While 59 percent of Americans say that religion is very important in their lives, only 11 percent of the French, 21 percent of Germans, and 33 percent of Britons do, according to the Pew Research Center.”
US News
You are real proud of this free thunkin’ you all appear to do- but talk is cheap, and as for party lines, I have never, I repeat, NEVER seen you deviate from the most liberal party line available, so just please, at least be honest, and call a spade a spade here.
You are liberal- period.
I am conservative- period.
BLK: “have never, I repeat, NEVER seen you deviate from the most liberal party line available”>>
DAR
Freethinking has nothing to do with politics (except perhaps as it involves religion). We have people in our group who are far right, far left and everywhere in between. Several are libertarians, objectivists (ala Ayn Rand), one fellow is an anarchist.
Freethinking specifically does not give you a set of conclusions, it just avoids using faith, tradition, authority and established belief while in the process of coming to conclusions, specifically with regard to religious claims.
In your above claim you just show again that you don’t have a very good memory. I have given you several examples, more than once. Let me know if you would like to see them again.
I am of course liberal on more issues than not. Who wouldn’t want to be:
liberal: Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded –American Heritage Dictionary
This is of course entirely compatible with freethought, as is being conservative or extremely conservative. Freethought is entirely irrelevant to political persuasions.
D.
————–
In 1968, Gallup found 3% of Americans had “no religious preference.” By 1990, this percentage grew to 8% (14 million people). In 2001, the American Religious Identification Survey found that 14%, more than 29 million adults, do not identify with any religion. This group outnumbers the membership of Episcopalians, Methodists, and Lutherans combined, making it America’s second-largest life stance.
Link.
Bigd: “they will collect taxes for four or five years and then start the program.”>>
DAR
To the degree that is kinda true, I say excellent. Government finally collecting the money in advance to pay for a program, rather than borrowing it. And this is a bad thing how?
Bigd: The actual estimate for ten years of provided health care (which is what I clearly stated) is 2.5 trillion.>>
DAR
You are playing word games with this “provided care” nonsense. While the services are phased in over time, which is entirely appropriate since the country will need to adapt to these new systems, it costs $849b over the first ten years. Period.
And then the savings really kick in. This can be seen by the $650b saved over the following decade. Costs much be controlled. An appendectomy costs 18x as much in the US, as in France. Why is that? We are getting hosed. The US medical system needs to get off of the gravy train. They are doing their best to buy congress and keep it going. Hopefully they will fail this time.
Bigd: The tax cuts caused an increase in revenue to the treasury…>>
DAR
More republican rubbish. Read the debunk here at factcheck:
Supply-side Spin
Excerpt:
“The Congressional Budget Office, the Treasury Department, the Joint Committee on Taxation, the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers and a former Bush administration economist all say that tax cuts lead to revenues that are *LOWER* than they otherwise would have been – even if they spur some economic growth.”
Dar: Emphasis mine.
Bigd: and the war has gone on for 8 years and has not cost as much as what is being spent right now.>>
DAR
Bush’s Iraq adventure will cost about five trillion over time. This healthcare plan saves money over time. No comparison.
Bigd: How can you not see what point I made about 10 years of care?>>
DAR
Yes, I see though your little word game. It’s a popular rightwing talking point today. It probably fools a lot of people. It doesn’t fool me.
Bigd: HuffPo is not a reputable source>>
DAR
Better to rebut the message than attack the messenger.
Bigd: I bet you can’t find health care in that doc**ent [constitution].>>
DAR
Congress is allowed to make laws. This will be a law.
Bigd: It is to give the appearance that it is cheaper.>>
DAR
Well, that’s how things go in the capitalist system, and sometimes in government. Things need to be sold, and one tries to put them in the best possible light, while still being accurate. It costs $849 over the next decade. Your spun version is not stated accurately because it cherry picks the worst ten years (without including the revenue from the entry years) for the sole purpose of making it look bad. A very childish trick really. Don’t fall for it.
Bigd: You can’t tax for 10 years to pay for 5 and be sustainable.>>
DAR
Your claim makes no sense. It pays for ten, with a phase in, which is perfectly sensible.
Bigd: Medicare and Social Security are not sustainable.>>
DAR
You are absolutely right. The rate of growth is not sustainable. Not even close. Which is exactly and precisely why this must be fixed, and now.
Bigd: You like to claim that they are solvent because the government owes them money>>
DAR
No, I claim they are solvent because currently, they are solvent.
Bigd: but where will it come from?
DAR
You mean in the future? Adjustments will be made as they have been in the past. Taxes. The rich can pay a lot more. And they will.
For instance, observe how the poor are getting hosed right now at the state level:
***
“When all Arkansas taxes are totaled up, the study found that:
* Arkansas families earning less than $15,000—the poorest fifth of Arkansas non-elderly taxpayers—pay 12 percent of their income in Arkansas state and local taxes.
* Middle-income Arkansas taxpayers—those earning between $26,000 and $42,000—pay 11.7 percent of their income in Arkansas state and local taxes.
* But the richest Arkansas taxpayers—with average incomes of $911,500—pay only 6.8 percent of their income in Arkansas state and local taxes.”
LINK
Bigd: all we have are IOUs.>>
DAR
Those dollars in your pocket? IOU’s. If you don’t want them, send them to me.
D.
Bigd: US unfunded liabilities are 106 TRILLION dollars.>>
DAR
This is misleading (and doesn’t even say over how long). Why don’t you just say a trillion trillion dollars while you’re at it. That would even be more scary. Wooooo.
I have probably 350k in “unfunded liabilities.” Is this a problem? No. It’s debt for good things like houses and over time I will generate the funds to pay these liabilities, or I won’t and the liabilities will go away (or be taken away, foreclosure).
Same with the government. They will either raise the revenue, or lower the costs of the liabilities. And the world will continue to turn around once each day as in the past.
Bigd: They do not have that money and they will never get that money.>>
DAR
Well, hopefully they won’t have to get a lot of that money. If we can figure out how to not pay 18x the rate France does for the same medical procedure, we can save bundles ‘o dough. Time to ween the medical system off of the gravy train.
And first off, the doctors need to take a hit.
A big one.
D.
When you look at the debt clock notice how much more Medicare and Social Security (individually) are than the entire defense spending.
Hence the urgency in controlling these costs. And the earlier the better. Maybe Bush should have done something?
Bush tried to do something, but the party of NO (Liberals and Demmies) shouted him down- how stupid are you not to recognize this? It was in the papers- and I am sure on the internet- do you just turn your head at the things that do not fit your liberal agenda?
Bush even invited the Dems to bring in ideas, but no one from the liberal side would even suggest anything, because their whole agenda was predicated on denying Bush ANY victory on anything.
Based on that behavior, is it any wonder that politics is a “burn it to the ground and salt the earth” strategy, rather than a compromise strategy?
BLK: “Bush tried to do something, but…”>>
DAR
Sorry, when you have all branches of power, you can’t blame Bush’s inaction on the Dems.
Bush tried to fix Medicare? I don’t think so. He did try to destroy SS, which has long been a republican goal. Honest republicans sometimes even admit this openly, as you know.
D.
Actually, you can, when the balance of power is razor thin, as it was in the Senate, where you need 60 votes- and the balance of Republicans was 50 + 1 (Cheney)- or don’t you know how government works, Dar?
Because the “majority” was so thin, the Liberals, like Dodd, Schumer, et al could, and did block much of what Bush and the Republicans wanted to do, just as we will do after 2010- just wait- payback is a b1tch.
BLK: “in the Senate, where you need 60 votes…don’t you know how government works”>>
DAR
Someone doesn’t know how it works but it’s not me. Bush passed his huge tax cuts for the rich with reconciliation, 50 +1 votes. Including:
– The 2001 Bush Tax Cuts [HR 1836, 3/26/01]
– The 2003 Bush Tax Cuts [HR 2, 3/23/03]
– Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 [HR 4297, 5/11/06]
– The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 [H. Con Res. 95, 12/21/05]
Link
Maybe because reconciliation is part of the budget process and not supposed to be used for non budgetary items like the health care bill. Yes, it will add (a lot) to the budget but it is not part of the budget process (as in making the budget) and the tax cuts were part of his budget.
And we already know that the tax cuts were not for the rich, they benefited the middle class and poor (who get back money even though they pay nothing in). The wealthy pay more in percentage and pay most of the taxes but the cuts went to the middle and lower classes. I wish you would stop mindlessly repeating your scho chamber talking points. Adam, where are you on this echo stuff?
This post has been linked for the HOT5 Daily 11/21/2009, at The Unreligious Right
Freethinkers don’t do party lines…
And yet you are carrying the Democrat’s water. You have towed the line nearly completely.
Maybe Cush should have done something.
Like the 12 or so bills introduced by Republicans to fix the problems?
The ones OBAMA and the Democrats voted AGAINST…
Oh Darrel, 350k compared to 106 TRILLION, you are a genius.
The money should be paying for those programs NOW. Social Security was supposed to have money to pay for people. What it does instead is use the current payroll deduction to pay for retired workers. If the money had been set aside there would be enough to sustain the system. We are unable to pay the bills NOW Darrel and we are unlikely to get the money in the future.
How long do you think they can keep raising taxes before people revolt?
We had a revolution over taxes once and we can do it again.
Bigd: Oh Darrel, 350k compared to 106 TRILLION, you are a genius.>>
DAR
Thanks for the compliment. Actually, last I checked, the ratio of national debt to income is nearly identical to our personal/individual ratio of debt to income. It may still be. So I am certainly fair to use this comparison.
Let’s even use you numbers and see what happens.
US GDP= $14.2 trillion (2008)
You “unfunded mandates = $106 trillion
So this debt is 7.4x GDP
If my personal GDP were about $50k, the ratio would be the same.
Note that with no time defined your “$106 trillion” is meaningless (and if you are going 50 or a 100 years out, inflation starts to make it meaningless in a different way).
Bigd: The money should be paying for those programs NOW.>>
DAR
Not clear what you mean here.
Bigd: Social Security was supposed to have money to pay for people.>>
DAR
SS does have money to “pay for people” and does every day.
Bigd: What it does instead is use the current payroll deduction to pay for retired workers.>>
DAR
It’s called pay as you go and is entirely appropriate and sustainable. There is nothing wrong with current workers paying for the care of the elderly former workers since the new generation is reaping the benefits and investments made by the previous generation. With no tweaking, SS can pay out something like 70% of current benefits 50 years out (from memory). Of course with a little tweaking and a fixed medical situation, no problem.
Bigd: If the money had been set aside there would be enough to sustain the system.>>
DAR
Instead, we decided to blow it on wars. America likes wars more than it likes to pay for them.
Bigd: We are unable to pay the bills NOW…>>
DAR
Clearly false.
Bigd: …and we are unlikely to get the money in the future.>>
DAR
Conjecture and doubtful. The US still has immense wealth to tap. Perhaps the most wealth in the world. Certainly we have not been on a good fiscal trajectory since about the beginning of Bush. When Bush’s Secretary of the Treasury Department, Paul O’Neill, told him that his policies were fiscally unsustainable, Bush fired him. And Cheney told us: “Reagan taught us that deficits don’t matter.” Right.
Bigd: How long do you think they can keep raising taxes before people revolt?>>
DAR
A very very long time.
Bigd: We had a revolution over taxes>>
DAR
And since then have your taxes gone up, or down?
Jesus said pay your taxes. Do what Jesus says. Or don’t, they’ll take your stuff.
D.
—————
“Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s,…” –Matt 22:21
Like paying for wars, you are a riot. If you look at the budget defense is about 21% of it and social programs far outweigh it. Look at the debt clock, social programs cost a lot more than defense.
It is not pay as you go, it is a Ponzi scheme. We are paying our money for those who are retired. The money that has been paid in in the past should be paying for them.
SS should be privatized so that people could enjoy the benefits of their own labor. They would make more money and they could pass it on to their heirs. Instead we have an unsustainable program which will pay out more than it takes in this year and be bankrupt in a few years. We do not have the money to pay 50 or 70 years out.
I pay my taxes but there is a limit to how much I am willing to pay. I will have to devise creative and yet legal ways to keep more of it.
I won’t let them take my stuff.
Bigd: “social programs cost a lot more than defense.”>>
DAR
Yes, but social programs do good things for the kiddies, widows and the old folks. The war in Vietnam just killed about 5 million people, for no good reason.
Bigd: “It is not pay as you go, it is a Ponzi scheme.”>>
DAR
It is pay as you go, it is not a Ponzi scheme. Ponzi schemes are not sustainable. SS, with some tweaks for the boomers and the advances in longevity, is certainly sustainable. No comparison.
Oh, just found this:
***
The Social Security Administration responds to the criticism as follows:
There is a superficial analogy between pyramid or Ponzi schemes and pay-as-you-go insurance programs in that in both money from later participants goes to pay the benefits of earlier participants. But that is where the similarity ends. A pay-as-you-go system can be visualized as a simple pipeline, with money from current contributors coming in the front end and money to current beneficiaries paid out the back end. As long as the amount of money coming in the front end of the pipe maintains a rough balance with the money paid out, the system can continue forever. There is no unsustainable progression driving the mechanism of a pay-as-you-go pension system, and so it is not a pyramid or Ponzi scheme.
If the demographics of the population were stable, then a pay-as-you-go system would not have demographically-driven financing ups and downs, and no thoughtful person would be tempted to compare it to a Ponzi arrangement. However, since population demographics tend to rise and fall, the balance in pay-as-you-go systems tends to rise and fall as well. This vulnerability to demographic ups and downs is one of the problems with pay-as-you-go financing. But this problem has nothing to do with Ponzi schemes or any other fraudulent form of financing; it is simply the nature of pay-as-you-go systems.[94]”
Link.
Bigd: “[SS is] an unsustainable program which will pay out more than it takes in this year>>
DAR
Doesn’t matter. It has trillions in reserves owed to it.
Bigd: We do not have the money to pay 50 or 70 years out.>>
DAR
Not true. As I have shown you before, from the wiki page on US social security:
“According to most projections, the Social Security trust fund will begin drawing on its Treasury Notes toward the end of the next decade (around 2018 or 2019), at which time the repayment of these notes will have to be financed from the general fund. At some time thereafter, variously estimated as 2041 (by the Social Security Administration[84]) or 2052 (by the Congressional Budget Office[85]), the Social Security Trust Fund will have exhausted the claim on general revenues that had been built up during the years of surplus. At that point, current Social Security tax receipts would be sufficient to fund 74 or 78% of the promised benefits, according to the two respective projections. The Social Security Trustees suggest that either the payroll tax could increase to 16.41 percent in 2041 and steadily increased to 17.60 percent in 2081 or a cut in benefits by 25 percent in 2041 and steadily increased to an overall cut of 30 percent in 2081.[86]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_%28United_States%29
Big bubbles, no troubles.
Bigd: “I won’t let them take my stuff.”>>
DAR
That’s what they all say. Don’t pay your taxes, and you won’t have a choice. Try it and see.
D.
Believe me, there are ways- and you are such a total idiot, D- no wonder we have such trouble in this country- we have to put up with immigrants who know nothing.
There is a difference between not paying your taxes and finding legal ways to reduce that burden. Besides, if you own nothing they can take nothing.
Social Security is not a great source to cite. It is inefficient and a money hole. I know a lot of people who work there and they can tell you about the waste and abuse.
It is a Ponzi scheme. The difference is in a normal Ponzi scheme they usually run out of money and the ones who started it are caught or skip town. In case of government they just run things inefficiently and they force people to pay more to cover their losses.
It is a broke system that is unsustainable. Only morons fail to see that. Certainly they could try to raise taxes to pay for it but that does feed right into what I said, and that will not work for long.
There is not enough tax money to do what they want.
Social Security should be a choice. I choose not to participate and can invest MY money a lot better than government can. I have made more in my investments in ten years than my SS has made since I started paying it and I have been paying into it for more than 34 years
Bigd: There is a difference between not paying your taxes and finding legal ways to reduce that burden.>>
DAR
I completely agree. This is what accountants with sharp pencils are for.
Bigd: Besides, if you own nothing they can take nothing.>>
DAR
Exactly right, but hardly the sort of life style you are looking for right?
Bigd: Social Security… is inefficient and a money hole.>>
DAR
You’re wrong. Let me cite those libertarians at the CATO Institute:
“The cost of administering existing retirement savings programs indicates that administrative and money management expenses for a system of individual accounts could amount to anywhere from roughly 1.17 percent to 1.83 percent of assets, or roughly $35-$55 per worker for the first year.”
Note: That’s their claim for the cost of *private accounts* (and a load of crap btw, these are libertarians after all). They then go on:
“This cost is slightly higher than that of the current government-run Social Security program.”
So the uber conservatives say it’s about less than 1 percent. That’s pretty damn efficient.
Bigd: It is a Ponzi scheme.>>
DAR
I am sorry you didn’t get the explanation of why it is not.
Bigd: The difference is in a normal Ponzi scheme they usually run out of money>>
DAR
No, they always run out of money. They are unsustainable short of sustained, exponential, infinite, growth. This is unlike SS which is entirely sustainable for reasons already given.
Bigd: There is not enough tax money to do what they want.>>
DAR
Then they can lower benefits. Or a little of both.
Bigd: I have made more in my investments in ten years than my SS has made since I started>>
DAR
Well lucky you. In case your investments hadn’t turned out well (like the millions of folks who owned a lot of GM, Enron, Lehman, etc.), it’s good to know that SS would be there for you.
D.
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“I’m going to spend a lot of time on Social Security. I enjoy it. I enjoy taking on the issue. I guess, it’s the Mother in me.” —George W. Bush, Washington D.C., April 14, 2005
Just because I don’t “own” it does not mean it isn’t mine…
They have to prove that you “own” it first-