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?

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

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.
————–
“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

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

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.

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.