Are the Core Beliefs of Republicans and the Tea Party Different?

[Al68]

Social Security is self-funded and doesn't take up any of the budget. It could be reformed very easily without forcing people to work longer or accept lower payments. Just raise or eliminate the cap on contributions.

You are advocating just forcing "the rich" to pay to fill in the gap left by the system not being self-sustainable, instead of actually fixing the system to make it self-sustainable.

Every time the GOP wants to "reduce government" they come after Social Security, intending to make "reforms" on the backs of the workers who need it for their retirement.

Complete nonsense. "On the back of the workers"? Who do you think is supposed to pay for a "self-funded" program that "doesn't take up any of the budget"? You can't say it is "off budget" while advocating an outside source of revenue for it.

This is the biggest problem with social security, it, like the welfare state in general, has become a cult of individual and government irresponsibility. A cult that far too many people have fallen into. And it's an insidious cancer that will ultimately lead to our destruction if it persists.

 

[turbo]

Complete nonsense. "On the back of the workers"? Who do you think is supposed to pay for a "self-funded" program that "doesn't take up any of the budget"? You can't say it is "off budget" while advocating an outside source of revenue for it.

Yes, on the backs of workers. That's not nonsense and if you would read up on Simpson's draft proposal attacking SS, you would realize it. While you're at it, you can bone up on his recent interviews in which he claims that retirees are "milking" SS. That is absolute crap, and he should know it. Retirees get a modest monthly payment based on what they paid into SS and it's not enough to keep many out of poverty. There is no way they can game the system to get more money than they are entitled to except by living longer than the actuaries counted on when structuring benefits.

Simpson wants to reduce benefits and force older people to keep working longer before they can qualify for benefits. SS isn't welfare - it is a social contract. SS payments are paid out in benefits to current retirees. It has worked pretty well for a long time, though Congress has had a penchant for raiding the SS trust fund whenever they wanted quick cash.

 

[Al68]

Yes, on the backs of workers. That's not nonsense and if you would read up on Simpson's draft proposal attacking SS, you would realize it. While you're at it, you can bone up on his recent interviews in which he claims that retirees are "milking" SS. That is absolute crap, and he should know it. Retirees get a modest monthly payment based on what they paid into SS and it's not enough to keep many out of poverty. There is no way they can game the system to get more money than they are entitled to except by living longer than the actuaries counted on when structuring benefits.

Simpson wants to reduce benefits and force older people to keep working longer before they can qualify for benefits. SS isn't welfare - it is a social contract. SS payments are paid out in benefits to current retirees. It has worked pretty well for a long time, though Congress has had a penchant for raiding the SS trust fund whenever they wanted quick cash.

I noticed you completely dodged my point. That says it all.

 

[WhoWee]

Social Security is self-funded and doesn't take up any of the budget. It could be reformed very easily without forcing people to work longer or accept lower payments. Just raise or eliminate the cap on contributions. I can't tell you how many times I have hit that cap over the years. Every time the GOP wants to "reduce government" they come after Social Security, intending to make "reforms" on the backs of the workers who need it for their retirement. It's a false argument, yet Simpson and his co-chair are trotting it out again.

It's very easy for those wealthy deficit-hawks to talk about raising the retirement age, but they fail to properly address the physical limitations of aging workers who have strenuous jobs. I'd hate to have to continue to run paper machines at my age, much less at age 65-70.

You are thinking about Social Security in a very narrow way, specifically the factory worker who pays their share and does what they are expected - then told the age has been moved. In this narrow conversation I agree - it is very frustrating.

The problem lies in other areas.

First the Earned Income Tax Credit is designed to give back SS contributions to people earning less than $50,000 per year - it is the only reason some people file their taxes (if they make less than the amount required for filing). These are the people who will MOST need SS for retirement.

Next, the number of people qualifying for SS Disability is increasing- I just posted extensively in response to your comments in another thread. This coupled with Medicaid expansion is a real problem.

 

[Al68]

Why not? A social contract, as the term is commonly used, is not an actual contract that all parties entered into voluntarily.

But while a human being can understand it, and protest it, a hummingbird can do neither.

Part of my point was that that's not true. A supposed "social contract", not being an actual contract at all, is understood vastly differently by different people, and not at all by others. By its nature, it's impossible to understand in the way a real contract is capable of being understood. It's fabricated and amended at the whims of the parties to it, and enforced against those who are not parties to it.

 

[mugaliens]

[At Shawn] If the average Tea Partier believes in a completely different set of ideas than the youtube person...

By and large, that's not the case.

(I don't know his name)

Bill Whittle didn't just come up with his own agenda and slap a tea party sticker on it. He sifted through the myriad of tea party ideas and picked those which consistantly floated to the top.