Republi-CONS Now Out to Get Seniors - Good Luck!

First they attacked women. Then they attacked workers. Then they attacked the poor and children. Next they attacked education. The attacks on gays have never stopped. Anybody here think Republi-CONS can win the senior vote in 2012 with statements like these? I’m not even sure that they can win the Tea Party vote with statements like these. Does anyone here take Social Security that agrees with them? I’d love to hear your reasoning if you do.

Potential vice president running mate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) dismissed the importance of programs like Medicare and Social Security during a speech at the Reagan Presidential Library this afternoon, arguing that the initiatives “weakened us as people”:

Marco Rubio: “These programs actually weakened us as a people. You see, almost forever, it was institutions in society that assumed the role of taking care of one another. If someone was sick in your family, you took care of them. If a neighbor met misfortune, you took care of them. You saved for your retirement and your future because you had to. We took these things upon ourselves in our communities, our families, and our homes, and our churches and our synagogues. But all that changed when the government began to assume those responsibilities. All of a sudden, for an increasing number of people in our nation, it was no longer necessary to worry about saving for security because that was the government’s job.”
Rick Perry:
During a stop in Iowa on Saturday Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry stood by his criticism of Social Security as a "Ponzi scheme." He said the entitlement program amounts to a "monstrous lie" for young Americans.

 

AMEN! Maybe Rubio needs to a candidate for Prez.

 

Really? Do your parent live with you? Do you even live in the same state as your parents? The society that Rubio is talking about died during the industrial revolution. It doesn't exist anymore. Most families are spread across the county.

It figures you would priase this half-witted idealism. Let's all go back to the 1800's. That all the Republi-CONS have ever wanted anyway.

 

From what I hear, they are pushing him for VP. And before moen says anything, I am the parent.

 

You shouldn't mind being a financial burden to your children then. If you get hit with cancer and your life savings are drained you had better hope that you have been kind to your kids. It will be them that decide whether or not you live in the street in your old age if Rubio's vision of America is realized.

I have great kids that love me but I don't intend to be a financial burden on them when they are busy raising their own families. Social Security and Medicare keep millions of people from living on the streets in their old age. That wasn't the case at the turn of the century and we had a much larger agrarian culture back then and people actually lived with or near their parents.

 

It doesn't surprise me that you would fall for the far left spin but try to think about what he actually said rather than what the Pelosi's, Stuart Smalley's and Bill maher's of the world tell you he meant. Try, for a moment, to be rational.
Entitlements have weakened us as a country, made a lot of people soft. That's not to say there aren't many citizens who need a hand but the safety net these entitlements have created have become a pretty comfortable hammock for a lot of people.
I didn't read that Rubio wanted entitlements eliminated, did I miss that?
If we really cared about people we would help them learn to become responsible, not just offer them handouts.

 

Oh I see. Americans are just soft. That is the problem! Good luck with that message in 2012. Can't wait to see it on the yard signs.

 

Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt. So did my wife, but we were not a "burden to your children". Believe me, neither I, nor David, nor Marco are proposing leaving everyone in the dark starting tomorrow. On the other hand, that is what Obamacare will do at some point in the future.

 

Isn't Obamacare supposed to prevent this?

In a lot of cases, yes but if more emphasis was placed on planning and responsibility maybe not as many?

 

That isn't what I said (but you knew that, right?). Look at nature. If a lion cub is raised by man and doesn't have to hunt it's own food it isn't prepared for life in the wild. Same concept applies to people. If people are spoon feed & coddled along the way is it any surprise when they can't provide for themselves?
Libs love entitlements because it creates an indebted class & a voting bloc they can manipulate.

 

I'm certain my elderly father won't mind taking some of your kindly financial donations to help him in his old age, Moen. PM me and I'll send you the PO Box number. Oh, and please ask your neighbors for donations, too.

 

One thing the Democrats generally have that the Republicans generally don't is compasion for the old, sick, and poor. The typical Republican idealology wants people to care for themselves, and restricts funding for those that may die without it... calling that funding "socialism" ...as if helping those in need stay alive is a bad thing.

"When I was young, I worked hard and made something of myself!"... so ignore the dead and dying as you bellow your success to all that will listen to you. You arrogant ****s.

So, you want the government to stop caring for the less fortunate? Any idea WHY the government began (and continues) to help the less fortunate? ...I'm guessing not lol... The main reason government began helping people was to stop the spread of diseases caused by malnutrition and death. The cost of these types of programs is mitigated by the cost of NOT providing these services. It's preventionary. The government does this to strengthen America, not weaken it.

Not all people who consider themselves Republican are this... nasty... at least I hope they're not.

 

The best way to have less poor people is to make opportunities for those poor people to lift themselves out of the gutter and make something of themselves. Any Right-winger will cheer for this very idea as a social cure. When you ask them how we can best create opportunities for these people, their only answer is to give wealthy people as much money as possible by relieving them of as much tax burden as possible so that these same wealthy people can profit off of these same poor people by employing them as unskilled works usually at a very low wage which often keeps the poor on the edge of subsistence. Who is really being helped in this scenario? The poor are somewhat better off than they were living on the public dime but barely. The wealthy continue to get the benefit of a lower tax burden whether they employ the poor or not or whether they are even in the business of creating jobs. There are plenty of wealthy people in country that have absolutely nothing to do with employing anyone but receive the same tax breaks as those that do. The contributions of those that do have some capacity to create jobs are negligible considering that they are being paid in advance to create jobs whether they actually create them or not. Their motive for hiring more workers is simply more profit which in theory creates more tax revenue for the government but at a lower rate than before they received the ongoing tax decreases. When times are tough, they can shed workers, keep their tax breaks, and make less profits and therefore pay lower taxes decreasing much needed government revenues necessary to stimulate the economy during the same tough times. All in all, I see no risk for the wealthy by handing them more money and hoping on a wing and a prayer that they make the situation for the poor a little better. But considering their motive is really only their bottom lines and the interests of their shareholders, are these really the best people to invest out collective tax dollars in or is there a better investment we could be making with more incentives for employing more people?
I say YES! What if we tied the tax rates we charged private for-profit businesses to the unemployment rate. For example, if the unemployment rate was between 6 and 7 percent the corporate tax rate would be set at 30 percent that year. If the following year the unemployment rate fell to between 5 and 6 percent the corporate tax rate would fall to 25 percent and so on. It wouldn't make any sense for corporations to ship jobs overseas, it wouldn't make any sense to pay CEO's huge salaries, and it wouldn't make sense to pay for people to be unemployed when you could employ them for virtually the same taxes you'd have to pay anyway. This scenario actually ties tax breaks to hiring workers and incentivizes corporations to employ workers. This is an example of handing wealthy corporations money to employ people that I could live with. What we are doing in the current system is no better than corporate welfare and paying the wealthy to NOT employ people.

 

You are arguing this point with yourself- no one here has advocated restricting funds so people will die. What you have done is buy into the far left rhetoric & vitriol...but don't feel bad, the left pays a lot of people a lot of money to make sure people like you & dr moen,phd propagate these mistruths. In reality, the right's philosophy is much more proactive.

 

Nice rant tom but I only had to read the last line to know where you were going with your long winded post.

 

I wrote more than two sentences on purpose. That way I knew you'd never read it and dismiss it without knowing what you're talking about. I see that..... Oops!

 

Ok, where's the lie? Could you highlight it in red please?

They've confiscated 7% from me and 7% from my employers my entire life. If I had the 7% to myself the whole time, I probably would have stashed it for retirement, in my own account, and illegal immigrants that never paid a dime into it would get zero of it. As it is now, I have to split it with the illegals (that haven't paid a dime) and I have to rely on the grandkids to come up with what I paid in.
Compared to what was originally intended in the 30s, I'd agree that the program is a monstrous lie for young Americans. The program was only instituted to prevent (American citizens ONLY) from STARVING in their old age!! It was NEVER meant to be a sole means to pay all the bills for a comfortable retirement.

If you're willing to compare apples to apples, we can debate this. If you want to compare apples to oranges (what you think social security should have morphed into) please start a new thread.

 

Well that's a relief. From the tone of it I think we might be excused for having thought that that was in fact pretty much the plan. So Rim if not that, what? Once Obamacare aka The Private Insurance Company Guaranteed Income Program, Social Security, Medicare, and the rest of them have been eliminated, what then? How do we transition into More Personal Responsibility?

Will there be a net for people who are SOL because their broker steered them wrong? What about people who need money just when Wall Street has decided that things totally suck and it's time to go to the Hamptons, mix up a nice stiff vodka and tonic, and hang out until life looks more rosy? What about people who have neither the disposable income or the knowledge to invest in any significant way? What about people who just plain screw up? Do we take the Calvinist approach and figure that's how God must want it? Before I'm ready to deep six what we have now I'd like some specifics on what we propose to replace it with.

 

And just which would you prefer, that or a committee telling you your grandma is too old to treat for her stroke? Or that you have to wait ion line 6 months for your terminal cancer that you have 6 weeks to live with? That is exactly what has happened every place socialized medicine has been implemented. That and nearly bankrupting the country.

 

God, where to start. You may have stashed your 7% away or if you look at the savings rate of the vast majority of Americans and went with the overwhelming odds that clearly favors you NOT putting your 7% away, you understand that having a program in place that makes people put their 7% away works far better and requires each of us to contribute and receive benefits scaled to the amount we contributed. What could be more fair than that?

If I have a minimum wage job and pay very little into the system, I get a pretty crappy retirement but at least I don't starve. The way you want things is that if someone doesn't put away retirement on their own, they should starve to death. It's just like believing that only those with silver spoons in their mouths should be able to survive the retirement years. I know, unlike most on the Right that a guy earning minimum wage still contributes a valuable service to this country even if we don't compensate him for his hard work during his lifetime. Somebody has to do the crap work in society and there are people willing to do so but they shouldn't be discarded when they retire. I also find it much easier for some people to look down their noses at people like these workers and tell them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Less financial success should never equate to treating people as lesser human beings.

You are exactly backwards on the illegal immigrant situation. They do pay into Social Security. They just do not ever get to collect on their contribution because they are illegals. They actually strengthen the system, they are not a drain on it. If you want to talk about draining the SS system talk about the 1/3 of money that goes to support orphans and widows. This was never intended to be a program to support those types of needs but since we had so many people paying in and so few taking money out initially, it was affordable at the time to help children and the women that had lost their husbands. Now there are less people paying into SS for every one person taking Money out of SS mostly due to the aging US population. We are an aging country and we need immigrants to support us in our old age or we will find ourselves in the same situation Japan is in. A large elderly population with few young people to support them and Japan does not allow immigration.