12 minutes ago, toolg said:

Wrong. This is another falsehood MAGA is selling. Trump won the 2024 election with 77 million+ votes. Harris got 75 million. Another 100 million people can vote and didn't cast a ballot. So really, Trump is supported by less than one-third of the electorate.

 

"but Kamala didn't lose by that much guys"  🤣

I don't remember Biden giving any quarter to Republican ideas when he won a razor thin election.  Give me a break. 

7 minutes ago, The Norseman said:

Democrats made cutting the government nearly impossible via public sector unions and god knows how many other protections.  Now, when the country decides it want's to cut, all you miserable theater kids scream about the process by which they are doing it. 

You'll have to excuse those of us who just don't care that they aren't following your preferred process.   

 

LOLOL "it’s all the democrats fault that spending and deficits sky rocket even when republicans have control of the executive and legislative branch!”

 

17 minutes ago, The Norseman said:

Democrats made cutting the government nearly impossible via public sector unions and god knows how many other protections.  Now, when the country decides it want's to cut, all you miserable theater kids scream about the process by which they are doing it. 

You'll have to excuse those of us who just don't care that they aren't following your preferred process.   

 

 At what point do you take responsibility? Lazy and inept is getting old yet you continue to accept and defend it.

1 hour ago, Paul852 said:

I'm sorry, through how many administrations has the spending continued to sky rocket? Did it go down substantially between 2016-2020 and I missed it?

You must have been asleep but Trump completely got rid of the deficit and we ran a large surplus until Jan 21, 2021 when we suddenly had a massive deficit. 

3 hours ago, Mike31mt said:

So spell out how that is done in one four year term, Vikas. 

This is exactly why it will never be done unless it's this way.   Clear them out with the early retirements and then go by attrition.  

Federal employee unions should absolutely be illegal anyway.  F them, I will never, ever feel sorry for a single federal employee union.  Ever. 

All they had to do was give like 60 days notice, dude. That's less than 4 years.

Just be less stupid and it can be done.

3 hours ago, Mike31mt said:

So spell out how that is done in one four year term, Vikas. 

This is exactly why it will never be done unless it's this way.   Clear them out with the early retirements and then go by attrition.  

Federal employee unions should absolutely be illegal anyway.  F them, I will never, ever feel sorry for a single federal employee union.  Ever. 

Simple answer, it won't be done unless Congress legislated it.  Otherwise you get what you see now.

1 hour ago, Phillyterp85 said:

LOLOL "it’s all the democrats fault that spending and deficits sky rocket even when republicans have control of the executive and legislative branch!”

 

Mandatory spending on entitlements are the bulk of the federal deficit.  The largest entitlements were all created by Democrats.  Every time someone even mentions a change to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid Democrats go postal and scare the country into opposing the change. 

So yea, I blame Democrats more than I blame Republicans.

1 minute ago, The Norseman said:

Mandatory spending on entitlements are the bulk of the federal deficit.  The largest entitlements were all created by Democrats.  Every time someone even mentions a change to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid Democrats go postal and scare the country into opposing the change. 

So yea, I blame Democrats more than I blame Republicans.

Trump campaigned on not touching entitlements. I am for eliminating SS, Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare, but that won't happen. Raising the retirement age should happen, but neither side will touch it. They are all cowards on this.

6 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

Trump campaigned on not touching entitlements. I am for eliminating SS, Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare, but that won't happen. Raising the retirement age should happen, but neither side will touch it. They are all cowards on this.

Agree.  I was furious when he said that. 

However, I still blame Democrats for creating the environment where you must be against ANY change to entitlements or you forego any chance at getting elected.

26 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

Trump campaigned on not touching entitlements. I am for eliminating SS, Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare, but that won't happen. Raising the retirement age should happen, but neither side will touch it. They are all cowards on this.

Rhetorically speaking here… do you see any social consequences to eliminating those programs?

 I don’t think the general population has gotten better at saving for retirement or planning for illness or injury (personal accountability) since those programs were created.

39 minutes ago, The Norseman said:

Mandatory spending on entitlements are the bulk of the federal deficit.  The largest entitlements were all created by Democrats.  Every time someone even mentions a change to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid Democrats go postal and scare the country into opposing the change. 

So yea, I blame Democrats more than I blame Republicans.

So a few things:

1) "mandatory spending" doesn't mean it can't be altered. It just means that unlike "discretionary" spending, which is funded through annual appropriations bills, the "mandatory" spending is set through formulas that determine the benefit criteria. Congress can enact legislation to alter those formulas anytime, just like they have in the past (including when they've passed legislation to INCREASE benefits, but let me guess that was the dems fault too....).  So if Republicans were ACTUALLY interested in reducing that "mandatory" spending, then a good time to enact those changes would be when they have had control of both the executive and legislative branches, which has happened numerous times.  And yet "shockingly", they've never done it.  

2) "The largest entitlements were all created by Democrats."  The biggest change to social security payouts occurred under Nixon, in which he signed the law which made COLA increases automatic. This drastically increased the payouts for social security. 

3) "Every time someone even mentions a change to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid Democrats go postal and scare the country into opposing the change."  LOL yeah there are no senior citizen republican constituents that would blow a gasket if their SS and medicare benefits decreased.  Sure thing....... Also, again see #1 above.  Republicans ONCE AGAIN have control of the executive and legislative branches, which means democrats can kick and scream all they want, they are powerless to stop republicans from enacting cuts to these programs.   How much would you like to bet on whether or not reductions to these programs are made over the next two years? 

1 hour ago, vikas83 said:

Just be less stupid

You're asking too much.

31 minutes ago, MidMoFo said:

Rhetorically speaking here… do you see any social consequences to eliminating those programs?

 I don’t think the general population has gotten better at saving for retirement or planning for illness or injury (personal accountability) since those programs were created.

I mean, it will NEVER happen, so it's just a thought exercise. No entitlement has ever been taken away. But the programs should never have been created, and the most logical thing to do would be to find a way to end them. I agree the population hasn't gotten more responsible (less so), but that's because they know the government is there to bail them out of their poor decisions. People need to face accountability for their choices instead of being propped up by Ponzi schemes. If you reward poor decision making, and tax responsible saving, you'll get more of the former and less of the latter.

At the VERY least, they have to raise the retirement age on SS and Medicare, and we can't even do that.

3 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

I mean, it will NEVER happen, so it's just a thought exercise. No entitlement has ever been taken away. But the programs should never have been created, and the most logical thing to do would be to find a way to end them. I agree the population hasn't gotten more responsible (less so), but that's because they know the government is there to bail them out of their poor decisions. People need to face accountability for their choices instead of being propped up by Ponzi schemes. If you reward poor decision making, and tax responsible saving, you'll get more of the former and less of the latter.

At the VERY least, they have to raise the retirement age on SS and Medicare, and we can't even do that.

Yeah when Social Security was started paying out in 1940, the life expectancy was five years earlier than when you would start getting paid. You’d be luckily to live to see retirement and then maybe get a few years of it. 
 

I’m not saying I want to see grandma taking shifts at the factory until she falls over, but we need to up the age to like 70.

 

And, as much as I hate anything that involves a tax break, we might want to look at making any retirement savings tax free. Like you can put in how ever much you want, and so long as you don’t start pulling it out until day age 70, it’s untaxed when you put it in and untaxed when you pull it out. Maybe just set a very reasonable yearly withdrawal limit to maintain it being tax free. 

4 minutes ago, Bill said:

And, as much as I hate anything that involves a tax break, we might want to look at making any retirement savings tax free. Like you can put in how ever much you want, and so long as you don’t start pulling it out until day age 70, it’s untaxed when you put it in and untaxed when you pull it out. Maybe just set a very reasonable yearly withdrawal limit to maintain it being tax free. 

This is my biggest issue with taking money out for retirement.  If you are really good at it, where is the benefit of saving early on?  You wind up having as big of a tax bill, or perhaps even more, compared to when you started saving.  It makes no sense what-so-ever.

23 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

I mean, it will NEVER happen, so it's just a thought exercise. No entitlement has ever been taken away. But the programs should never have been created, and the most logical thing to do would be to find a way to end them. I agree the population hasn't gotten more responsible (less so), but that's because they know the government is there to bail them out of their poor decisions. People need to face accountability for their choices instead of being propped up by Ponzi schemes. If you reward poor decision making, and tax responsible saving, you'll get more of the former and less of the latter.

At the VERY least, they have to raise the retirement age on SS and Medicare, and we can't even do that.

The programs were all born out of a perceived need. Won’t those needs resurface if we eliminate the programs? Whether it’s seniors unable to provide for themselves, private insurers unwilling to provide insurance coverage to seniors or uninsured people showing up to hospitals needing care they can’t pay for?

Then what? Reinvent the wheel with new programs? Kill them off?

Should we legislate livable wages and benefits for even unskilled workers instead so at least they have to work for them?

21 minutes ago, barho said:

This is my biggest issue with taking money out for retirement.  If you are really good at it, where is the benefit of saving early on?  You wind up having as big of a tax bill, or perhaps even more, compared to when you started saving.  It makes no sense what-so-ever.

Yeah, like the Roth has such an insanely low yearly contribution limit it’s nuts. 

1 hour ago, Phillyterp85 said:

So a few things:

1) "mandatory spending" doesn't mean it can't be altered. It just means that unlike "discretionary" spending, which is funded through annual appropriations bills, the "mandatory" spending is set through formulas that determine the benefit criteria. Congress can enact legislation to alter those formulas anytime, just like they have in the past (including when they've passed legislation to INCREASE benefits, but let me guess that was the dems fault too....).  So if Republicans were ACTUALLY interested in reducing that "mandatory" spending, then a good time to enact those changes would be when they have had control of both the executive and legislative branches, which has happened numerous times.  And yet "shockingly", they've never done it.  

2) "The largest entitlements were all created by Democrats."  The biggest change to social security payouts occurred under Nixon, in which he signed the law which made COLA increases automatic. This drastically increased the payouts for social security. 

3) "Every time someone even mentions a change to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid Democrats go postal and scare the country into opposing the change."  LOL yeah there are no senior citizen republican constituents that would blow a gasket if their SS and medicare benefits decreased.  Sure thing....... Also, again see #1 above.  Republicans ONCE AGAIN have control of the executive and legislative branches, which means democrats can kick and scream all they want, they are powerless to stop republicans from enacting cuts to these programs.   How much would you like to bet on whether or not reductions to these programs are made over the next two years? 

Looks like you googled a bunch of stuff.

1.) Mandatory spending is required by law.  It can only be changed by congress and Democrats have stood in the way for decades.  Sure, Republicans haven't had much luck raising bills or even garnering support, but that's largely because of the perpetual scare tactics from Democrats. They have been quite effective in this regard.  Meanwhile, countries all over the world have fully or partially privatized their plans with very good results. 

2.) Social Security Cola increases happen regularly in order to keep up with inflation.  Saying that Nixon was responsible for the entitlement mess we are in because of a COLA increase is like saying that a engineer who made your car's engine more powerful is responsible for your speeding ticket. Democrats own creating these programs and they have been vehemently opposed to any meaningful changes to them for more than a half century.

3.) Social Security is a terrible program that is rapidly going bankrupt.  Democrats, completely content with it's waste, fraud and inefficiency are more than happy to enact more taxes upon the American people to further kick the can down the road and keep it on life support.  Republicans at least want to fix it, but can't find a way to navigate it politically and stay in power long enough to actually make the reform.  I had hoped a wild card like Trump would wade in, but sadly, it appears that even he fears the political fallout.  

14 minutes ago, Bill said:

Yeah, like the Roth has such an insanely low yearly contribution limit it’s nuts. 

Plus the salary limits on ROTH which i still don't understand.

12 minutes ago, MidMoFo said:

The programs were all born out of a perceived need. Won’t those needs resurface if we eliminate the programs? Whether it’s seniors unable to provide for themselves, private insurers unwilling to provide insurance coverage to seniors or uninsured people showing up to hospitals needing care they can’t pay for?

Then what? Reinvent the wheel with new programs? Kill them off?

Should we legislate livable wages and benefits for even unskilled workers instead so at least they have to work for them?

People are responsible for their own lives. Those who don't take responsibility will suffer the consequences. 

Social Security was created by FDR during the Great Depression for people who had lost everything at an older age -- farms in foreclosure, stock portfolios in disarray, etc. As was pointed out by @Bill, the 65 year age was more than the average life expectancy, so very few collected while over 40 people per retiree paid in. It's almost 100 years later, and we don't have people who got wiped out en masse on the verge of retirement. We have irresponsible people who lived beyond their means and now need government to bail them out.

Medicare and Medicaid were created by LBJ as part of his disastrous war on poverty. Giving free medical care to every senior citizen was never necessary, nor is it the government's job. Same with Medicaid for poor people. If you can't afford insurance, you shouldn't have it. ERs should be allowed to turn away uninsured patients other than those about to die. If the hospitals want to provide care as charity, that's on them.

2 minutes ago, The Norseman said:

Looks like you googled a bunch of stuff.

1.) Mandatory spending is required by law.  It can only be changed by congress and Democrats have stood in the way for decades.  Sure, Republicans haven't had much luck raising bills or even garnering support, but that's largely because of the perpetual scare tactics from Democrats. They have been quite effective in this regard.  Meanwhile, countries all over the world have fully or partially privatized their plans with very good results. 

2.) Social Security Cola increases happen regularly in order to keep up with inflation.  Saying that Nixon was responsible for the entitlement mess we are in because of a COLA increase is like saying that a engineer who made your car's engine more powerful is responsible for your speeding ticket. Democrats own creating these programs and they have been vehemently opposed to any meaningful changes to them for more than a half century.

3.) Social Security is a terrible program that is rapidly going bankrupt.  Democrats, completely content with it's waste, fraud and inefficiency are more than happy to enact more taxes upon the American people to further kick the can down the road and keep it on life support.  Republicans at least want to fix it, but can't find a way to navigate it politically and stay in power long enough to actually make the reform.  I had hoped a wild card like Trump would wade in, but sadly, it appears that even he fears the political fallout.  

lol no I didn't google anything there, that was knowledge I already had. 

"1.) Mandatory spending is required by law.  It can only be changed by congress"  Thanks for repeating info I already told you.  Not sure your point here.  

"and Democrats have stood in the way for decades." Once again, republicans have held control of both the executive and legislative branches at the same time numerous times over the years, and not once have they enacted cuts to these programs.  It's almost as if they don't want to make cuts to those programs because republicans ALSO have senior citizen constituents......

"2.) Social Security Cola increases happen regularly in order to keep up with inflation." - LOLOL. In other words "When significant spending increases happen under republican administrations, it's justified!!!"  

"3.) Social Security is a terrible program that is rapidly going bankrupt" - I agree. If it were up to me, I'd end the program tomorrow.  It's a ponzi scheme and it literally robs people of a better retirement.  

"Democrats, completely content with it's waste, fraud and inefficiency are more than happy to enact more taxes upon the American people to further kick the can down the road and keep it on life support. " - Once again you are proving to be ignorant of history and facts.  Republicans have also raises social security taxes multiple times over the years.  Hard to take you seriously on this topic when you are blind to reality and only want to hold 1 party accountable when the facts are that both republican and democrat administrations and legislators are responsible for this program.  

"Republicans at least want to fix it" - No they don't.  You can tell yourself that fun little lie to make yourself feel better if you'd like. Republican legislators no just as well as their democrat counterparts that if they enact cuts to the program, they will lose votes.   

11 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

 

Medicare and Medicaid were created by LBJ as part of his disastrous war on poverty. Giving free medical care to every senior citizen was never necessary, nor is it the government's job. Same with Medicaid for poor people. If you can't afford insurance, you shouldn't have it. ERs should be allowed to turn away uninsured patients other than those about to die. If the hospitals want to provide care as charity, that's on them.

What about kids? Can we at least still give them free healthcare if they're poor?

I will only add that some young folks do not understand all the rules of these entitlements.  If you ever tried to apply for one, you would be like, what?  Today, the program is encouraging people to work until age 70-so raising the age has already essentially happened.  I have paid into this fund for 46 years and it's possible I'll be dead by age 70, or even 67 1/2 which is my full retirement age.  Even with a dead husband at ago 60, since I have a job I'd have to give $2 back for every $1 made over 23,400.  They make it so you can't collect it if you are an able human to work for your own money.  Which I have no problem doing.

14 minutes ago, Paul852 said:

What about kids? Can we at least still give them free healthcare if they're poor?

That's a trickier one. I lean towards yes, but obviously this then encourages poor decision making by parents. However, minors can't be responsible for their own circumstances. So I'd be OK with it.

2 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

That's a trickier one. I lean towards yes, but obviously this then encourages poor decision making by parents. However, minors can't be responsible for their own circumstances. So I'd be OK with it.

So you have a bit of a heart  I understand your rationale for punishing irresponsibility though.