US Government Budget

[Darwoth]

claeyt said something, but i have no idea what it is since i stopped reading after "social security is self sustaining" since i am tired of arguing with a delusional moron.

for anyone else every economics expert in the country agrees it is going to collapse under irs own weight and soon, here is a general explanation of how social security works. it is the very definition of a pyramid scheme.

http://money.howstuffworks.com/question385.htm

[TotalyMeow]

Like Tmeow said, it's self sustaining. [...] The government instead says, why are we keeping the original $110,000 cap on social security payroll taxes? They also say why isn't capital gains income taxed for social security? Basically they ask themselves why the richest Americans avoid paying an equal percent of their income towards social security as everyone else.

Originally, the highest earners weren't supposed to either contribute to or take from Social Security, but congress didn't like that idea and added a cap to what can be taken AND what can be given. If you remove one cap, in all fairness you have to remove the other. Since Social Security aims to provide a certain percentage of the original income in payments, that would mean that the elderly wealthy would get much higher benefits than they do now and the overall payments out of social security would keep pace with the benefits coming in if you were to remove the cap. That's also a monstrously unfair sudden tax hike for a segment of the population who are already paying more tax than anyone else and who are probably being responsible enough to plan and budget for their old age on their own.

While I do think that Social Security will be able to survive, though it might more or less collapse to a point where benefits are no longer something anyone can hope to live off of, I don't think it should exist in the first place. People should save their own money, and people should take care of their own elderly family.

The problem here is that your libertarian idea of what 65% "welfare" is includes social security which you then say is self sustaining. Medicare is also nearly self sustaining as a payroll tax. You also include things in your idea of "welfare" like housing incentives, farm benefits and some other economic benefits designed to stabilize certain sections of the economy. These are not welfare. You also group Medicare which is also a nearly self sustaining payroll tax with stuff like Medicaid and other health benefits. This is also misleading.

The terms self-sustaining and welfare are not mutually exclusive by any means. Just because they set it in motion to mostly take in and pay out money by a formula each year regardless of the economy (self sustaining) doesn't have anything to do with whether it's welfare. Social security is indeed a program intended to make sure that the elderly segment of the population fares well. It is a welfare program.

I'd like you to point out specifically which housing incentives and farm benefits I counted in welfare? Most of them probably belong there, but I definitely put Agriculture in Public so maybe you read that wrong. Medicare and all the other health benefits are all part of government sponsored healthcare and all belong together, regardless of where they came from or who specifically gets them. It's still some people paying for someone else's medical bills.

I'll also stand by my statement that started this by saying once again that my loose and expansive definition of "Military Spending" (DoD, all other national security depts and government employees working in depts with national security goals and contracted national security related to defense) is 57% of all income taxes (not payroll taxes or other federal taxes) taken in.

Your loose and expansive definition of military spending is hogwash. Loose and expansive. You're my loose and expansive definition of a capybara. You're a mammal, so surely that's close enough.

Seriously though, all possible military spending was included in military, even pensions, which really should have gone into income security, as I noted. And since payroll taxes ARE in fact TAXES, you can't just not count them to make your numbers fit.

[Darwoth]

ah, yes i read some of his nonsense now through proxy since i read meows reply. his answer to keep it afloat for a while longer is to...... STEAL EVEN MORE OF SOMEONE ELSES MONEY!

[Dallane]

God it's so refreshing to see real information rather than wikipedia and imaginary liberal stats.

[DarkNacht]

Claeyt how can you be so obsessed with welfare and yet have no idea what the word means?

[saltmummy]

Wasn't social security (and related programs) supposed to be temporary? Something put in place to get the American people out of a financial slump until things had improved a bit? I remember reading that somewhere a longish time ago.

[TotalyMeow]

Wasn't social security (and related programs) supposed to be temporary? Something put in place to get the American people out of a financial slump until things had improved a bit? I remember reading that somewhere a longish time ago.

I think Social Security was always meant to be permanent. It wouldn't have gone over so well as a temporary measure because then people couldn't have the hope that they'd get some money themselves some day after paying in for years.

Maybe you heard about income taxes? They were originally only against the highest incomes and were added and removed for more income brackets for a couple different wars, like the Civil War, but then when they were added to all incomes at World War 1, they were never removed again.

[Claeyt]

Like Tmeow said, it's self sustaining. [...] The government instead says, why are we keeping the original $110,000 cap on social security payroll taxes? They also say why isn't capital gains income taxed for social security? Basically they ask themselves why the richest Americans avoid paying an equal percent of their income towards social security as everyone else.

Originally, the highest earners weren't supposed to either contribute to or take from Social Security, but congress didn't like that idea and added a cap to what can be taken AND what can be given. If you remove one cap, in all fairness you have to remove the other. Since Social Security aims to provide a certain percentage of the original income in payments, that would mean that the elderly wealthy would get much higher benefits than they do now and the overall payments out of social security would keep pace with the benefits coming in if you were to remove the cap. That's also a monstrously unfair sudden tax hike for a segment of the population who are already paying more tax than anyone else and who are probably being responsible enough to plan and budget for their old age on their own.

While I do think that Social Security will be able to survive, though it might more or less collapse to a point where benefits are no longer something anyone can hope to live off of, I don't think it should exist in the first place. People should save their own money, and people should take care of their own elderly family.

The worst extremely long term estimates for Social Security if absolutely nothing is done put it at 3/4 of current benefits adjusted for inflation by the end of the baby boomers in 40 years or so with it flattening out after that or possibly slowly growing. With our current population growth rate and worker to retired rate we could easily sustain all of it after the baby boomers are gone as there would be less of a drain on it.

As for the rich paying the same percentage. As I've said over and over, if you include ALL taxes the rich do not pay more as a percentage of their income. The changing state in recent history of income of the rich is the problem. More and more wealth is locked in low capital gains taxes which contribute NOTHING to social security or medicare and less to income taxes. If we simply included capital gains taxes as income, Social Security would be fine for generations.

People should not have to count on their children to take care of them. Currently 47% of women do not have children and 75% of Americans do not have children at retirement. This has been stable for years. That means 25% of retired adults do not have children to take care of them. The basic reason they created Medicare and Social Security was because of the poverty in the elderly. These social programs, not welfare, are responsible for the greatest reduction in poverty in the history of the world and what has made America the great country it has become.

[

The problem here is that your libertarian idea of what 65% "welfare" is includes social security which you then say is self sustaining. Medicare is also nearly self sustaining as a payroll tax. You also include things in your idea of "welfare" like housing incentives, farm benefits and some other economic benefits designed to stabilize certain sections of the economy. These are not welfare. You also group Medicare which is also a nearly self sustaining payroll tax with stuff like Medicaid and other health benefits. This is also misleading.

The terms self-sustaining and welfare are not mutually exclusive by any means. Just because they set it in motion to mostly take in and pay out money by a formula each year regardless of the economy (self sustaining) doesn't have anything to do with whether it's welfare. Social security is indeed a program intended to make sure that the elderly segment of the population fares well. It is a welfare program.

I'd like you to point out specifically which housing incentives and farm benefits I counted in welfare? Most of them probably belong there, but I definitely put Agriculture in Public so maybe you read that wrong. Medicare and all the other health benefits are all part of government sponsored healthcare and all belong together, regardless of where they came from or who specifically gets them. It's still some people paying for someone else's medical bills.

They are not "some people paying someone else's medical bills." That is a lie. They are ALL of us, paying in to a basic level of medical care and social poverty prevention programs for ALL of us. Yes some people pay more, they have always payed more in a progressive tax system. Without a progressive tax system, the oligarchic system we have now would be even more distorting to basic ideas such as "middle class", "the American dream", and "Taxes". The progressive tax rate is not welfare and payroll taxes such as Social Security and medicare aren't either.

I saw housing incentives in your graph and thought you included them in your definition of "welfare". You didn't really say what you put into "Welfare". You just said 65% and left it there without specifics. Did you put Agriculture into along with other "public" stuff? It seems like you did. You also say you included other economic benefits created to help the economy such as Unemployment training into 'welfare'.

[

I'll also stand by my statement that started this by saying once again that my loose and expansive definition of "Military Spending" (DoD, all other national security depts and government employees working in depts with national security goals and contracted national security related to defense) is 57% of all income taxes (not payroll taxes or other federal taxes) taken in.

Your loose and expansive definition of military spending is hogwash. Loose and expansive. You're my loose and expansive definition of a capybara. You're a mammal, so surely that's close enough.

Seriously though, all possible military spending was included in military, even pensions, which really should have gone into income security, as I noted. And since payroll taxes ARE in fact TAXES, you can't just not count them to make your numbers fit.

You fail to make any difference between taxes. You just use one big word... 'TAXES' ... and say they are bad. Soc Sec and Medicare payroll taxes are not the same as income tax. You make as huge of leaps as I do with the definitions. Counting Soc Security and Medicare as welfare is idiotic and right wing nonsense.

Claeyt how can you be so obsessed with welfare and yet have no idea what the word means?

I know exactly what welfare means and it doesn't mean social programs that people pay into and then receive at retirement.

[TotalyMeow]

People should not have to count on their children to take care of them. Currently 47% of women do not have children and 75% of Americans do not have children at retirement. This has been stable for years. That means 25% of retired adults do not have children to take care of them.

And in that case, they didn't spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars that children cost and should have been able to save a great deal more for retirement, although the large percent of taxes way pay, including the extra amounts for being single and even more for not having kids, does put a crimp in that.

They are not "some people paying someone else's medical bills." That is a lie. They are ALL of us, paying in to a basic level of medical care and social poverty prevention programs for ALL of us.

Which some of us never qualify to get. It doesn't matter how you try to twist it, some people pay and others receive. It's certainly not an HSA.

I saw housing incentives in your graph and thought you included them in your definition of "welfare". You didn't really say what you put into "Welfare". You just said 65% and left it there without specifics. Did you put Agriculture into along with other "public" stuff? It seems like you did. You also say you included other economic benefits created to help the economy such as Unemployment training into 'welfare'.

Well geez, what did you do, skip to the end? You keep making these stupid assumptions and it's becoming more and more clear you didn't even bother to read anything but the last paragraph. I put a good deal of effort into that 9 Word document pages worth of post. If you're going to argue about it, at least do the courtesy of reading it. Better yet, take a look at the original document your own damn self, or is actually sitting down and taking the time to read and comprehend and think too taxing for your thoroughly scrub-washed brain?

[DarkNacht]

Claeyt how can you be so obsessed with welfare and yet have no idea what the word means?

I know exactly what welfare means and it doesn't mean social programs that people pay into and then receive at retirement.

That isn't how social security works.