Trump cheats at golf - the ONE and ONLY politics thread

Just lift the cap on earnings to be taxed for social security/Medicare . Right now it tops out at 118k or so and at 15.3%., split evenly between employer and employee Just cut out the employer contribution. Social Security and Mediacare solved

 

Not true. As a percentage of the GDP, spending has been going down. It peaked, as it should have, during the recession when the government needed to spend. It was 34 pct. of GDP in 2015, down from a high of 41 pct.

And there's an argument to be made for increasing spending on social security and Medicare considering that we're fast approaching a period when a huge percentage of the population will not have adequate savings for retirement.

The only people living longer, by the way, are wealthy people.

 

In order for both parties to be equally unhappy, you have to raise the eligibility age at the same time you lift the earnings cap.

The fact that neither has been done is a direct result of eunuch politicians being afraid to tell the truth to old people.

 

You can lift the eligibility age, but you do it gradually and no one over a certain age loses a year

Problem is you and I are reasonable, rational and interested in problem solving. None of the fucktards in power or who want power are qualified to change place with us.

 

The easy SS fix would be to increase considerably the cap beyond the current $118,500 to whatever it needs to be. I see no good reason to cap contributions so low.

 

There's an argument to be made that our current levels of debt are unsustainable and eventually will prevent us from paying for anything other than entitlement programs.

But sure, let's increase spending on SS and Medicare instead of reforming both programs to ensure their survival beyond the Boomer generation.

 

Define unsustainable. What is this awful thing you foresee happening? Explain why I should stop paying SS halfway through the year? I will laugh at you when you're done.

 

I agree, but you're never even going to start that dialogue politically until you also agree to raise the eligibility age.

It's only anecdotal, obviously, but I have four sisters and a brother over age 62 and none are even close to needing SS any time soon.

All but one are still happily working, and none are what could be considered "wealthy."

The fact is, most people CAN work beyond age 65 if they know they have to.

 

There's no good reason it should be a non-starter politically. A huge majority of people earn less than $118,500.

And again, the only people living longer are wealthy people and people are being forced out of the workforce earlier and earlier because labor protections are being diminished.

You don't get to work until you're 65 because you're company wants a younger, cheaper person to do your job.

 

Yeah, fuck the American Dream anyway, right? Get back to work, ya geezers.

 

There should be a ban on "as a percentage of GDP" qualifiers, from either side. What you spend is what you spend. That's true for your household, and it's true for the government. "As a percentage of . . . " is almost always a rationalization for wasteful spending.

We spend more on defense than every other nation on Earth combined. "As a percentage of GDP", however, the figure doesn't look so ridiculous. But it is a ridiculous number no matter what percentage of GDP it is because it is wasteful. We don't "need" the capacity to blow up the world 10,000 times. We don't "need" to stick our military noses in every nook and cranny of the world. But we spend enough to do it anyway.

GDP is a mythical number and can mean bad things as well as good. Because it counts EVERYTHING (debt, negative expenditures, etc.) If the nation spends $10 trillion on health care, that's great for the GDP number --- but it would be a pretty awful thing.

 

I agree that GDP is flawed, outdated statistic for measuring growth. I think we'd see we have far less to worry about if we did a better job of measuring progress. I've considered starting a thread about this a number of times.