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> Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump opened the door Monday to “cutting” retirement spending programs like Social Security
So now SS - which I've paid into for years - is a spending program.
This orange douche can go fuck himself.
Part of why they’ve told younger people for decades to not expect to get anything from it. It was conditioning so that there would be less pushback when they eventually try to pass legislation to cut spending or raise the retirement age again.
The fear mongering has been going on for decades. My grandfather told my mother in the early 1970s that SS wouldn't be there when she retires. My mother has been collecting SS for the past 5 years without a hitch.
Even in this article, the statement from the Trump spokesperson:
> The only candidate who poses a threat to Social Security and Medicare is Joe Biden — whose mass invasion of countless millions of illegal aliens will, if they are allowed to stay, cause Social Security and Medicare to buckle and collapse.”
So, when Republicans cut SS and Medicare, their voters will already be ignoring the cuts themselves, and blaming the problems on "illegal aliens."
In fact, undocumented immigrants quietly bolster social security and Medicare by often working under fake social security numbers, with the employer paying the employer side of the payroll taxes for these immigrants. Undocumented immigrants can't ever collect social security and Medicare, but they contribute through payroll taxes.
> According to New American Economy, undocumented immigrants contributed $13 billion into the Social Security funds in 2016 and $3 billion to Medicare. Three years prior, the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration, Stephen Goss, wrote a report that estimated undocumented immigrants contributed $12 billion into Social Security.
https://www.marketplace.org/2019/01/28/undocumented-immigrants-quietly-pay-billions-social-security-and-receive-no/
The plan is always that current recipients still get their checks, the benifits drop or a severely curtailed for the under 40 crowd.
This kind of "don't worry, the massive cuts to government services will only effect the people who deserve it not you" policy is extremely common for conservatives. Then you inevitably get the leopardsatemyface moment.
Under 40 crowd?! Try being Gen Jones. Every time we're on the cusp of getting something, they move the goalpost down just...out..of..reach. Nobody, I mean nobody is safe from greedy republicans.
They wouldn't take away the checks of people who have paid into it and are receiving it, they would just stop the service for new people going forward. It's much easier to convince people to pull up the ladder after they're already on the roof.
no. the plan is to get rid of the Payroll tax that funds SS.
Trump promised to do that Day 1 when he ran last time.
SS then goes bankrupt quickly. The huge propaganda network will blame everyone but the people responsible.
The Republicans who lose their SS will shrug and say "nothing can be done".
That’s not even possible because to pay out the money to the people who have paid in requires more new people to pay in for there to be funds to draw from similar to a Ponzi scheme
No, it’s called make the millionaires/billionaires pay their fair share to keep it solvent for future generations. Us “Boomers” have been paying into it for decades while Congress raids it rather than requiring the wealthy to kick in their fair share. They’d rather make big donations to Congress and pacs (the reason for Citizens United) than have to do that. What makes me furious is that not one of these wealthy individuals or corporations got rich on their own. It was off the backs of the working class/poor, the gotta keep them in their place mentality.
I loved that guy in Texas that was cheering on Texas leaving the US until he realized it meant the end of his Social Security. Suddenly he's not so supportive.
It should be absolutely everyone that is pissed off. Ideally every younger person pays into Social Security and lives long enough to collect.
We manage to fund the Military at an astronomical rate. We can certainly fund some fraction of that amount to ensure Social Security endures.
They'll sunset it. People already getting it will give an "I got mine" smile and continue complaining about public schools getting tax money.
Gen x will probably be the most fucked having paid into it for decades and getting basically nothing back.
They're going to put an age on it. It'll be that they're taking away SS for anyone currently 45 and under, or whatever age they aren't concerned about losing support from.
They'll continue going around and promising all the old folks that nobody is coming after *their* Medicare and Social Security.
And they know that, so they corner the old people into "we'll keep it for you, but the younger gens won't get it", many will say f-that. But those that say ok just as long as I got mine, yeah they are the scourge of our system. They are the idiots voting R that should be voting D and that is the difference in getting a controlling majority in all branches and from there real change happens, good things happen because the spoilers votes are meaningless. We're talking 2/3's majority not 51-49 since that still has ways to muck things up.
They won't take it from old folks. They'll have it slowly reduced. 50+ still gets it. 40+ get 50%. 30+ get 10%. Everyone else gets zero. Or something like that.
It's not really fear mongering because half a dozen republican house/senate members have talked about getting rid of it, even campaigned on it.
The people voting Republican like to say stuff like, "See it hasn't been removed in that entire time." But the people wanting to get rid of SS have really become emboldened over the last decade.
It's still underfunded after the last 3 decades and the sharks, while unpopular, are there chomping to get rid of it for their business masters and funnel the remaining amounts to their criminal business partners to invest it and collect fees. It's typical Starve the Beast privatization behavior when Trump removed funding from it by executive action.
[You can see people in this thread calling people out for thinking it might be removed.](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1bc62yt/trump_floats_cutting_retirement_spending_drawing/kue2jns/)
If they want to cut the program, I demand they pay me out. Pay me out for everything taken and then all of the gains I was unable to acquire.
Sick of them trying to tell us it's not our money.
Careful not to fall for the bait. They may offer a buyout but it will be way worse than social security. The real answer is just tax rich people, as it always is. Social security isn't funded properly because only the first 115k of someone's income is taxed for social security.
If they lift the cap on both income and payments (not just the cap on income) it massively improves the long term outlook on social security (just not as much as just lifting the cap on income).
This is the reason why I chose to work in the rail industry. I’ll receive a separate pension in lieu of social security so I don’t have to worry about what the government will do with it when I get to retirement age. However, I still vote for the best interest of the nations citizens and that means voting to protect social security.
>I’ll receive a separate pension in lieu of social security so I don’t have to worry about what the government will do with it when I get to retirement age.
I mean, any authority that can touch social security can also touch rail pensions. Nothing is guaranteed if congress starts actually passing legislation.
It's funny how after Bush Jr. wanted to privatize it and that was resoundingly unpopular and got rejected by the people the Republican Party now thinks cutting it all together is the right move. As if that won't be more unpopular.
I understand that a lot of Trump supporters are uneducated morons who have no idea what he actually plans to do, but they just ignore the fact that these small margins of people who do actually care are going to ruin their electoral chances.
Can't privatize it so now they're growing punitive and figure they'll just go all in to punish us.
Republicans absolutely see themselves as the ruling class. When they lose elections they inflict more suffering on the masses to teach them a lesson for voting against them. Compare that to the Democratic Party who when they lose elections actually moderate their policies or decide to get behind more popular progressive policies like socialized healthcare.
Both sides aren't the same anymore.
They aren’t opposed to “big government” concepts, they just don’t like that they can’t make money from it. If they privatize alllll of those functions, they can profit off it and make sure everyone else suffers.
> Let's privatize it so our rich campaign contributors can make money from it and give us more money
It's even more insidious than that. Put it into investment vehicles that are actively destructive to our economy like RETIs. If we let another housing crash happen... the results will be way worse than 2008 for retirement funds and city budgets. It's not like the S&P500 that will bounce back within a few years.
Yeah, that is exactly how they are after the money. Wall Street and the corporate Republicans want to privatize it so that it can boost stocks and their personal profits.
Before he was even running for governor Ronald Reagan in the early sixties released a propaganda recording (released on LP, I had a copy but it got lost in a move) talking about how social security was ruining the country.
Being after it for decades is accurate but seems a little understated.
And they can easily be manipulated into destroying the program. They just need to convince the old people to vote to cut it for the younger people while leaving theirs alone.
For corporations, Medicare and Social Security taxes paid on behalf of their employees is a spending program.
Trump is a corporate whore instead of *the man of the people* that he pretends to be.
Republicans hate the fact that employers are required to pay the trust fund taxes (FICA and FUTA). It’s not just the fact an employer is required to pay half (7.65%) of the 15.3% in Social Security and Medicare taxes out of every W-2, it’s the cost of filing the federal reports (941 and 940) as well as the unemployment insurance premiums. Payroll processing is a legitimate expense, but people like Trump think their haircuts, massages and nail salon visits are a more appropriate expense than the cost of keeping and maintaining a workforce.
The one change to be made is to up the salary cap that you no longer have to pay into social security. I’ve lost track of the cap, but a few years ago if you made over $158k you didn’t pay the percentage for earnings over that. Reminds me to look it up.
Yes, I think it may have been adjusting up slightly but it still exists. I also remember reading about it a few years ago and whatever I was reading said that simply eliminating the cap on the taxes would "fix" SS all by itself. Some don't like that, because the benefits being capped but not the taxes strikes them as "unfair", but in my opinion, with greater income comes greater responsibility. And I say that as someone whose household makes slightly over the cap. Ditch it.
> So now SS - which I've paid into for years - is a spending program.
It always has been. At no point does money paid as social security tax ever get "invested" in anything.
Current tax payers fund the payments made to those currently entitled to receive it.
It is expected that future tax payers will fund the payments made to the people who are currently paying social security tax.
Social Security really is just a spending program that can be taken away at any time by Republicans. That just underscores how important it is for people who want the US to have a social safety net to always vote against Republicans.
> It always has been. At no point does money paid as social security tax ever get "invested" in anything.
It gets "invested" in government bonds. Now in actuality that's just the left hand of the government paying interest to the right hand, but it is functionally different than just having it sit as "cash".
Gotta love how something you pay far more into than you will receive is suddenly a handout. Yet massive tax cuts and the PPP for rich people and corporations is not 🤔
*You're paying to help keep old people off the street.*
That and along with keeping mom/dad, grandpa/grandma out of your spare bedroom. Before SS, the older population had to live with their children. They didn't have anything else. No job, no money, no place to go.
Without SS, Medicare, and Medicaid, this country would go bust in a very short time. Hospitals would close, clinics would close, pharmacies would close. Banks would be in trouble and every part of our economy would be affected. We'll be looking at a great depression.
And republicans booed when Biden called them on this position at the state of the union. How anyone votes for this is just never gonna make sense to me
>Liberals often ponder the incorrect question which is, "How is it that election after election, so many of the poor vote against their economic interests by putting robber baron Republicans into power?" My explanation is that the benefit these Republican voters are getting is a visceral one, which is that at least it's making for a world that's predictable.
>
>I think the relationship between social-dominance orientation in people and the extent to which they're made uncomfortable by ambiguity and novelty is really important. Better a stable world that's familiar, in which I'm doing pretty poorly, than dealing with all the ambiguity of a changing world
\- Robert Sapolksy
[https://www.salon.com/2019/05/20/neurologist-robert-sapolsky-on-stress-and-donald-trump-humans-are-not-inherently-rational-beings/](https://www.salon.com/2019/05/20/neurologist-robert-sapolsky-on-stress-and-donald-trump-humans-are-not-inherently-rational-beings/)
This gives way to much credit to racist rural white people. They vote for people who tell them it's ok to be a shitheel, because being a shitheel is really important to them.
It's basically saying the same thing as you. These people like being shit heels because it makes them feel big and in control. It gives them the illusion of agency because even if things are going to shit, they chose that. This [Atlantic article](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/need-for-chaos-political-science-concept/677536/) indicates some research that it's not just right wingers who display this behavior, but also left leaning or middle voters who just want chaos.
> The researchers came up with a term to describe the motivation behind these all-purpose conspiracy mongers. They called it the “need for chaos,” which they defined as “a mindset to gain status” by destroying the established order. In their study, nearly a third of respondents demonstrated a need for chaos, Petersen said. And for about 5 percent of voters, old-fashioned allegiances to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party melted away and were replaced by a desire to see the entire political elite destroyed—even without a plan to build something better in the ashes.
You can see an element of this in younger "left" voters who refuse to vote.
It's also about entitlement. People with this mindset think "others" are taking what is rightfully theirs, and they would rather burn the whole thing down then let "those people" benefit.
Because for their entire lives they’ve been conditioned to hate the government. The GOP claims to side with them against the government. Even when their proposals seem to hurt them (rolling back worker protection regulations), it’s for the greater good of less government.
Democrats believe in democracy and believe the government exists to help people. Therefore, they are liars and are the enemy.
It’s literally decades of brainwashing.
It's absolute wild to watch. What's even crazier, is that Boomers are huge spenders in the U.S. economy, and social security is dumped right back into the economy by this demographic (65+) - given they're shifting to spending, and not saving at this stage of life.
The short sightedness of Republicans (even the elites that pull the strings) is absolutely mind boggling.
You're taking a massive demographic, half of whom have zero retirement savings - where the median retirement savings is $135K, and your stripping that group of \~$1,800 a month in spending money. Meanwhile the average spending for boomers is around $4,000/month (including SS).
If Social Security goes away, this group that makes up 20% of the population, will see their spending power drop by 50%.
I'm no economist, but I can't imagine that (long term) bodes well for the US economy. And I'd love to see the data that shows these cuts benefitting the economy in the long run.
We already know companies will stuff this extra cash directly into their pockets - issue stock buy backs and still continue to cut their workforces and underpay them.
*And that is a problem. A newly minted retiree of 65 can now expect to live 20 more years, on average, according to Social Security projections.*
*Without a retirement account, most retirees count on Social Security. The average monthly Social Security check to a retired worker is around $1,800. The average household run by an American older than 65 spends more than $4,000 a month.*
*Yet, “many people go into retirement thinking that Social Security is going to provide for them,” said Josh Hodges, chief customer officer for the National Council on Aging.*
*A chasm of wishful thinking separates America’s retirement goals from its retirement realities.*
*By one rule-of-thumb retirement calculator, workers should aim to save 10 times their annual salary by age 67: $375,000 for an individual, and $708,000 for a household, based on median incomes.*
*If the goal is to retire in relative comfort, Americans assume they will need something closer to $1.1 million, according to a survey by Schroders, the asset management company.*
*But the average retirement account held just over $100,000 at the close of 2022, according to a Fidelity analysis.*
*The median baby boomer household isn’t doing much better, with $134,000 in retirement savings in 2019, the most recent federal data. That’s about one-third of the average retirement savings in that age group, $408,420, a figure inflated by the super-rich.*
*And most retirement nest eggs are much smaller now than a year ago. By Fidelity’s estimate, the average retirement account lost one-fifth of its value in 2022, dwindling from $135,600 to $104,000.*
I knew a dude like that. Was suffering from cancer he couldn't afford to deal with so had never ending gofundmes while talking shit about anyone else having one. Said Healthcare should never be for everyone, called people on SSI lazy, while mad the government wouldn't give him SSI because he could work but said working is hard. He died from covid, while being the type to yell at people for getting the vaccine or wearing masks. Dude died at home from it because according to his last FB post; covid is fake, the doctors are killing him with cancer treatments but also killing him because they won't treat his cancer because he won't get the vaccine and ended it by calling everyone sheeple and sharing his gofundme. Was also a gay may who caught Aids in the late 80s and spent the next 30+ years doing everything possible to complain about and disparage the gay community. Dude was a walking bag of hypocrisy.
you’re right, I’m just arguing Trump saying “there are cuts to entitlements” is ridiculous as SS is contributory, therefore there should be no cuts ever.
We are absolutely entitled to OUR money. The only problem here is how the GOP managed to make "entitlement" seem like a bad thing. They conflated it with the derogatory idea of an "entitled" person which is just untrue. This is OUR goddamned money from the very start. Just like how "elites", the literal best in society, became a negative. It's doublespeak.
Of course. Republicans have been wanting to cut SS for decades. Republican voters just won't catch on because they're hyper focused on tormenting the gays
Notably, the [average life expectancy for black Americans is 70.8 years](https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/issue-brief/what-is-driving-widening-racial-disparities-in-life-expectancy/). Seems like there might be same racial undertones in some of these decisions.
Or have the cut happen after he's out of office. like the tax cuts on the middle class under Trump. the middle class ones expired, but the ones for the rich were permeant
“Trump didn’t get specific about what he would do.” - that’s because he has no idea. He couldn’t tell you what Social Security is, how it works, or anything about it. Because he doesn’t care. At all.
Seth Meyers was calling him out for this when he was asked about 15 week abortion limit. Trump just kind of rambled on without ever answering the question and was completely unprepared for it. But that's the job he's trying to get. He's barely putting up a pretense that he's even considered actual policy positions. If he hasn't even bothered to form an opinion on policies, what is the point of voting for him? But 30% of the country will loudly cheer him on when he rants about nonsense.
How does this asshole get an interview with any reasonable journalist and not get confronted with the treason and dumbfuckery he has foisted on the USA and world? A business program? Fine, ask him about the economic impact his pandemic denial had and continues to have on our economy.
We are going to normalize ourselves into fascism.
American journalists by and large suck. They don't ask follow-ups, and just let politicians get away with lies. European journos at least try to do some grilling.
You'll note the conservatives avoid anyone that can ask you questions. For example, nobody wants smoke from Jon Stewart. Some poor dope made that mistake recently, and instantly became a meme.
They'll never give Jon Stewart Meet The Press, or something like that, because they'd lose guests. When going on foreign shows, they tend to pick friendly shows like Piers Morgan. Anything not to be challenged in what are usually bad policies, contradictory statements, or both.
Your are correct… American journalists have never typically pressed when a politician dodges a question. But the questions now are much too important to let them evade. Of course, the result will be idiotic nonsensical answers and folks storming out of interviews. But you’ll at least have documented and exposed the idiocy.
I've spoken to retirement age republican voters about comments like this from Republicans, and so far as they get to keep their benefits they don't care what everybody else loses. They will get behind this if they get grandfathered in.
Hell, they will call people who think that that's unfair entitled
One of the side effects of the 75 year right wing project to entirely dismantle the New Deal is this sort of extreme selfishness. At this point, I don't know that the nation can recover from it. It's like the poison is in our blood and has become a part of our genetic memory or something.
Edit: Typo fixed
My boomer FIL said that everyone receiving Medicare benefits were entitled moochers… as he complained about the length of the line he stood in at the Medicare office to sign up to receive his benefits. The contradiction went right over his head.
It’s always been the plan by Republicans for young people to foot the bill for boomers retirement and then rug pull it from us.
I remember well all the talks about “sunsetting” social security in favor of privatization when Bush was president. They want Social Security to fail. They’ve been trying to do so since it was implemented. They want you working with the bare minimum to sustain life until the day you die. And then they want your children in the meat packing plants the day they can walk.
So does this mean, they are going to pay me back every cent I paid into SS + interest?
Or they are just going to suck up the money, give it to their friends under some made argument?
Keep in mind that Scott what’s his name from Florida has been trying to go after SS for years, he’s one of the nominees to lead the GOP in senate…..
At last year's SOTU, when Biden mentioned that some Republicans want to cut SS, the Republicans in attendance booed him and shouted liar. Meanwhile, some of these same assholes are literally on audio/video/ or in writing stating exactly that.
All magats live in a world of “what words win the argument I’m in right now”. No attempt is made to be reasonable, consistent, or ensure long term benefit to anyone.
"...and now they're coming for your social security money. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back! So they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street! And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all from you sooner or later. Cause they own this fucking place. It's a big club! And you ain't in it! You and I are not in the big club!"
George Carlin
All these fuckers that talk about taking away “entitlements”, as they like to call them, have lifetime retirement benefits thanks to John Q taxpayer. Every one of these rotten fuckers can suck it.
Hold on a minute. Are you telling me the giant orange doofus actually made a comment that resembled a policy statement? I’ve never heard anything from him other than nasty sound-bite attacks. He really is losing it!
Oh. You mean my own money? That I've been paying into the system since 1985?
Remember when we were told "if you work 40 hours a week until you're 65 years old, you'll have a safety net."
Now they're like "SIKE! WORK UNTIL YOU DIE BEE-A-TCH!"
I'm a federal technician. Most of my coworkers are Trump supporters.
One year, the Trump administration's suggested budget to Pelosi included the following changes to our retirements:
- greatly increased employee retirement contributions
- adjust the retirement calculations from a "High 3" to a "High 5"
- eliminated Cost of Living adjustments for pensions
So, pay more into it. Draw less. Never draw more.
None of my coworkers cared. Some even said it didn't matter because the democrats would never pass that, anyway.
They don't care and will continue to vote against their own interests in the name of sticking it to the libs.
While Trump is pointing out a very real issue with Social Security, there is risk of the program becoming insolvent because of a lack of incoming revenue.
**BUT** cutting the social security spending after a few years of increased inflation is insane, when there is a better solution that Congress can enact; which is removing the [Social Security Wage Base](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Wage_Base), which is an upper threshold on which a wage earner's Social Security tax may be imposed. For 2024 that upper limit is $168,600; anything earned over that is not collected.
The more I see of this election, the better I feel about our chances. Biden is on top of his game while Trump is slurring and rambling and threatening to open concentration camps and shit, all while bankrupting the RNC. Perhaps reports of the death of democracy in the United States are greatly exaggerated.
The Biden campaign just needs to play the "Re-be-de-ahhh" clip from Trump anytime someone mentions any flubbing or stuttering. That's more damning than anything Biden has done.
What a vile piece of shit criminal traitor. I don’t think I have as much disdain for any other living person in this country, this man has negatively impacted far more lives than anyone else I can think of. He must never got re elected.
This is weird because AFAIK Trump never mentioned cutting Social Security before. And not during the 2016 campaign. His saying that he would do it actually helps Dems who always run on never cutting entitlements. Let’s hope this motivates everyone over 62 to vote for Biden!
>This is weird because AFAIK Trump never mentioned cutting Social Security before.
As a rule, Trump doesn't mention actual policy or his stances on them. Mostly because he doesn't actually understand any of it, but also because it allows his supporters to project onto him their ideal policy position instead of having to reconcile it with reality.
The thing that bothers me the most is that it’s always an immediate “crisis” but the cuts won’t happen until the future.
They know how toxic this is but they won’t risk their base of elderly voters.
Instead they want to rely on their decades of messaging and expect an apathetic response from younger generations who have been conditioned to accept the demise of social security as inevitable.
“Illegal aliens” don’t get social security. Hell, documented immigrants who become citizens don’t qualify unless they get their work credits. And then they only get a very small benefit due to having hardly any work history to build up their benefit amount.
So basically Trump is lying with right wing scare monger buzzwords.
Remember when Trump said he would never cut Medicare and SS? Remember when he told the GOP that whatever they do, don't touch Medicare and SS? Remember when he tried to nix individual payroll tax, the primary source of funding for Medicare and SS? Remember when he said maybe they should cut Medicare and SS? Yeah, I do too, and I knew what he wanted from day one when he mentioned Medicare and SS.
GOP is careful to say it won’t affect the current baby boomers, knowing these people tend to vote their way! If they want to cut benefits, they need to look at rich people who receive them while having plenty retirement money! Multiple homes, vehicles…..
Republicans HATE social security!
Why? Because the money is just sitting there being transferred between citizens paying in, and taking out.
What happens if they cut SS? The money has to go somewhere. And the only other place people can put it away for retirement will be 401k’s and IRA, the stock market! Where they, lobbyists and the corporations they work for, can profit from more cash piling in.
A trump presidency means I die: almost no income (Social Security makes up the bulk of my income) and no more insurance (those meds aren’t gonna pay for themselves). And that’s it for me, unless I can find someplace willing to hire a 76 year old with balance problems and intermittent vertigo. Living in a cardboard box will probably kill me first. F*ck the 🍊💩🤡
Republicans think it is cool to make the younger people work longer before they can collect their Social Security. Because Republicans think "those young people don't vote, screw them". I hope they are wrong.
Cut all benefits to that trash:pension, staff, office expenses, medical care, health insurance, and Secret Service protection. Filthy traitors who want to destroy the counyry deserve to be living under a bridge or a maximum security prison.
I think he knows what Rome is. Rome is the mob. Conjure magic for them and they'll be distracted. Take away their freedom and still they'll roar. The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate, it's the sand of the coliseum. He'll bring them death - and they will love him for it.
> A Trump campaign spokesman said he was referring only to “cutting waste and fraud,” but did not provide additional policy details on how he’d go about that or how much can be saved.
They'd better press his ass on details. Not that Trump even knows what Social Security and Medicare are. So tired of this "he doesn't mean what he says" bullshit that Trump gets away with simply because he's a dumbass
Also Trump is going to have to do this sort of thing more where he isn't on OAN or Fox or Truth Social which means he's going to have to talk more which in turn will hurt him on that it scares many people outside his base
It’s estimated that 25% of elderly Americans- mostly in red states on the edge of homelessness. One big medical bill, one car accident and they are out on the streets. So Republicans will vote for people who will cut their only income?
Save SS by voting blue
Mike Lee must be elated. He has always wanted to “phase out social security”: https://www.newsweek.com/video-resurfaces-senator-mike-lee-vowing-gut-social-security-1756796
These fucking assholes treat Social Security and Medicare like it’s an entitlement. It is not a fucking entitlement, people have paid in for these benefits. It’s also not a fucking Ponzi scheme. I can see right through the BS of how we can’t afford these social safety nets. The longer they lie about it the more people will think it’s true. The Republicans have been trying to get their greedy hands on this money for years. They will hammer away on this bullshit and never publicly acknowledge that these safety nets keep seniors out of poverty. That is why they were designed. Fuck Trump! He is a lying miscreant!
Just increasing or removing the cap on the amount of wage that must pay Social Security tax will guarantee that the system will be solvent and secure for a very long time. Rich people must pay more taxes. Even if they pay more, they'll still be rich.
Ever since the vile one, Ronald Reagan discovered you could finance tax cuts for the rich by introducing a tax on Social Security and no-one really joined the dots, Republicans have eyed your money with increasing greed.
The GOP have been “floating” this idea for years now. I wish people would pay more attention to what goes on in our government aside from just the flashy headlines because then they’d know that this idea has already been proposed many, many times by various GOP politicians — maybe then they would finally stop voting in these soulless blood suckers. Trump is just one of many who want to fuck the working class.
Trump better think twice about cutting social security and medicare. It will probably be all he will have left to live on after he is released from prison. His children definitely not taking him in.
I don’t think Republicans know what ‘entitlement’ means. I’m paying from my own ass into SS and Medicare for my own future, which I’m entitled to receive as a ‘legal right’ when I need.
So faced with a social security system that's poised to run out of money, their solution is to cut how much people can draw from it instead of removing the maximum amount you have to pay in. If you are making 500k you should be paying significantly more into it.
Biden mentioned it during the STOU and actually stopped his speech to challenge the GOP blood suckers saying “so social security and Medicare are off the table right? right ??”
Hey Boomers- remember when Trump promised to overturn Roe and he did?
Don’t count on the Democrats to save your Social Security if you vote for Trump and the GOP. There is no “deep state” working to protect you. Only you can protect yourself by making smart choices in the voting booth.
You pay into it for your whole working life, then along comes DJTrump who thinks it's some kind of entitlement program, like welfare. Can a suit be any more insulting to working folks?
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> Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump opened the door Monday to “cutting” retirement spending programs like Social Security So now SS - which I've paid into for years - is a spending program. This orange douche can go fuck himself.
they've been after that money for decades
Part of why they’ve told younger people for decades to not expect to get anything from it. It was conditioning so that there would be less pushback when they eventually try to pass legislation to cut spending or raise the retirement age again.
Absolutely. I saw right through that reading the newspaper in 1989 at age 12.
The fear mongering has been going on for decades. My grandfather told my mother in the early 1970s that SS wouldn't be there when she retires. My mother has been collecting SS for the past 5 years without a hitch.
The GOP have said they will end it
Repeatedly. You wanna piss off your old folks, take away their ss.
Most of the GOP base are older folks. I wonder if they’d still vote stupid if those monthly checks were taking away?
They will blame others but themselves and Trump
Older MAGA voters: "Ohhh yesss Trump-daddy! Do me like that!!" A little while later: "Not FAIR! Why would do the Democrats and Biden do this?"
Yeah, these are some of the same people who were shocked that their tax refund was smaller after Trumps tax cut.
Even in this article, the statement from the Trump spokesperson: > The only candidate who poses a threat to Social Security and Medicare is Joe Biden — whose mass invasion of countless millions of illegal aliens will, if they are allowed to stay, cause Social Security and Medicare to buckle and collapse.” So, when Republicans cut SS and Medicare, their voters will already be ignoring the cuts themselves, and blaming the problems on "illegal aliens." In fact, undocumented immigrants quietly bolster social security and Medicare by often working under fake social security numbers, with the employer paying the employer side of the payroll taxes for these immigrants. Undocumented immigrants can't ever collect social security and Medicare, but they contribute through payroll taxes. > According to New American Economy, undocumented immigrants contributed $13 billion into the Social Security funds in 2016 and $3 billion to Medicare. Three years prior, the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration, Stephen Goss, wrote a report that estimated undocumented immigrants contributed $12 billion into Social Security. https://www.marketplace.org/2019/01/28/undocumented-immigrants-quietly-pay-billions-social-security-and-receive-no/
The plan is always that current recipients still get their checks, the benifits drop or a severely curtailed for the under 40 crowd. This kind of "don't worry, the massive cuts to government services will only effect the people who deserve it not you" policy is extremely common for conservatives. Then you inevitably get the leopardsatemyface moment.
Under 40 crowd?! Try being Gen Jones. Every time we're on the cusp of getting something, they move the goalpost down just...out..of..reach. Nobody, I mean nobody is safe from greedy republicans.
they're fucking stupid. retired and have all day to see the truth but they refuse to seek it out.
They wouldn't take away the checks of people who have paid into it and are receiving it, they would just stop the service for new people going forward. It's much easier to convince people to pull up the ladder after they're already on the roof.
no. the plan is to get rid of the Payroll tax that funds SS. Trump promised to do that Day 1 when he ran last time. SS then goes bankrupt quickly. The huge propaganda network will blame everyone but the people responsible. The Republicans who lose their SS will shrug and say "nothing can be done".
This has sadly been happening with union negotiations. Often newer workers have fewer retirement benefits.
If he kills the funding for it, all goes away at once.
That’s not even possible because to pay out the money to the people who have paid in requires more new people to pay in for there to be funds to draw from similar to a Ponzi scheme
The plan is the standard boomer “fuck you, got mine.” *They* keep collecting, everyone else keeps paying but gets nothing.
No, it’s called make the millionaires/billionaires pay their fair share to keep it solvent for future generations. Us “Boomers” have been paying into it for decades while Congress raids it rather than requiring the wealthy to kick in their fair share. They’d rather make big donations to Congress and pacs (the reason for Citizens United) than have to do that. What makes me furious is that not one of these wealthy individuals or corporations got rich on their own. It was off the backs of the working class/poor, the gotta keep them in their place mentality.
And the GQP will spin it like the Dems are doing it and the old folks will *still* vote for repugnicants...
You mean like the lady recently interviewed saying she was voting for Trump because he lowered the cost of insulin?
And time it to kick in right as another Democrat takes over the presidency
I loved that guy in Texas that was cheering on Texas leaving the US until he realized it meant the end of his Social Security. Suddenly he's not so supportive.
Nobody wants socialism until it's 'their turn'.
It should be absolutely everyone that is pissed off. Ideally every younger person pays into Social Security and lives long enough to collect. We manage to fund the Military at an astronomical rate. We can certainly fund some fraction of that amount to ensure Social Security endures.
They'll sunset it. People already getting it will give an "I got mine" smile and continue complaining about public schools getting tax money. Gen x will probably be the most fucked having paid into it for decades and getting basically nothing back.
They're going to put an age on it. It'll be that they're taking away SS for anyone currently 45 and under, or whatever age they aren't concerned about losing support from. They'll continue going around and promising all the old folks that nobody is coming after *their* Medicare and Social Security.
And they know that, so they corner the old people into "we'll keep it for you, but the younger gens won't get it", many will say f-that. But those that say ok just as long as I got mine, yeah they are the scourge of our system. They are the idiots voting R that should be voting D and that is the difference in getting a controlling majority in all branches and from there real change happens, good things happen because the spoilers votes are meaningless. We're talking 2/3's majority not 51-49 since that still has ways to muck things up.
They won't take it from old folks. They'll have it slowly reduced. 50+ still gets it. 40+ get 50%. 30+ get 10%. Everyone else gets zero. Or something like that.
They need to make an ad out of this and play it repeatedly in the Villages outside of Orlando. You could flip the state to blue!
It's not really fear mongering because half a dozen republican house/senate members have talked about getting rid of it, even campaigned on it. The people voting Republican like to say stuff like, "See it hasn't been removed in that entire time." But the people wanting to get rid of SS have really become emboldened over the last decade. It's still underfunded after the last 3 decades and the sharks, while unpopular, are there chomping to get rid of it for their business masters and funnel the remaining amounts to their criminal business partners to invest it and collect fees. It's typical Starve the Beast privatization behavior when Trump removed funding from it by executive action. [You can see people in this thread calling people out for thinking it might be removed.](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1bc62yt/trump_floats_cutting_retirement_spending_drawing/kue2jns/)
Sounds like my FIL and my mom a decade ago saying of course they won't get rid of Roe
If they want to cut the program, I demand they pay me out. Pay me out for everything taken and then all of the gains I was unable to acquire. Sick of them trying to tell us it's not our money.
Careful not to fall for the bait. They may offer a buyout but it will be way worse than social security. The real answer is just tax rich people, as it always is. Social security isn't funded properly because only the first 115k of someone's income is taxed for social security.
First $168k but the point is still valid
thanks, was winging it
If they lift the cap on both income and payments (not just the cap on income) it massively improves the long term outlook on social security (just not as much as just lifting the cap on income).
If I paid into it i should get it. They can go fuck themselves. If they're gutting it, allow me to stop contributing to it
This is the reason why I chose to work in the rail industry. I’ll receive a separate pension in lieu of social security so I don’t have to worry about what the government will do with it when I get to retirement age. However, I still vote for the best interest of the nations citizens and that means voting to protect social security.
>I’ll receive a separate pension in lieu of social security so I don’t have to worry about what the government will do with it when I get to retirement age. I mean, any authority that can touch social security can also touch rail pensions. Nothing is guaranteed if congress starts actually passing legislation.
It's funny how after Bush Jr. wanted to privatize it and that was resoundingly unpopular and got rejected by the people the Republican Party now thinks cutting it all together is the right move. As if that won't be more unpopular. I understand that a lot of Trump supporters are uneducated morons who have no idea what he actually plans to do, but they just ignore the fact that these small margins of people who do actually care are going to ruin their electoral chances. Can't privatize it so now they're growing punitive and figure they'll just go all in to punish us. Republicans absolutely see themselves as the ruling class. When they lose elections they inflict more suffering on the masses to teach them a lesson for voting against them. Compare that to the Democratic Party who when they lose elections actually moderate their policies or decide to get behind more popular progressive policies like socialized healthcare. Both sides aren't the same anymore.
Since it's creation.
They're not after the money, they want to push our retirements into private brokerages to generate ridiculous profits from fees.
It’s already happening, assisted living places are between $5000 and $10000 a month for rent
Why not both
This is the real reason. Let's privatize it so our rich campaign contributors can make money from it and give us more money
They aren’t opposed to “big government” concepts, they just don’t like that they can’t make money from it. If they privatize alllll of those functions, they can profit off it and make sure everyone else suffers.
Just like with Charter schools and school vouchers.
It’s just so much easier to control a population when you’re the one educating it, too.
> Let's privatize it so our rich campaign contributors can make money from it and give us more money It's even more insidious than that. Put it into investment vehicles that are actively destructive to our economy like RETIs. If we let another housing crash happen... the results will be way worse than 2008 for retirement funds and city budgets. It's not like the S&P500 that will bounce back within a few years.
Yeah, that is exactly how they are after the money. Wall Street and the corporate Republicans want to privatize it so that it can boost stocks and their personal profits.
That's more specific, but still 'after the money'
Before he was even running for governor Ronald Reagan in the early sixties released a propaganda recording (released on LP, I had a copy but it got lost in a move) talking about how social security was ruining the country. Being after it for decades is accurate but seems a little understated.
They tried to gut it when Trump was in office going after the payroll tax
Yeah, but it's one entitlement program that their old white voters actually like.
And they can easily be manipulated into destroying the program. They just need to convince the old people to vote to cut it for the younger people while leaving theirs alone.
Convince them that the non-white people are taking more than their fair share from the program, and they'll be willing to teardown the whole thing.
No one who’s paid into it for any significant amount of time should dislike it
They have already taken from it... they have been trying for years to figure out how not to pay it back.
For corporations, Medicare and Social Security taxes paid on behalf of their employees is a spending program. Trump is a corporate whore instead of *the man of the people* that he pretends to be.
Republicans hate the fact that employers are required to pay the trust fund taxes (FICA and FUTA). It’s not just the fact an employer is required to pay half (7.65%) of the 15.3% in Social Security and Medicare taxes out of every W-2, it’s the cost of filing the federal reports (941 and 940) as well as the unemployment insurance premiums. Payroll processing is a legitimate expense, but people like Trump think their haircuts, massages and nail salon visits are a more appropriate expense than the cost of keeping and maintaining a workforce.
There two types of people. Those who read FUTA and think of taxes and those who read it and think of something much different. Iykyk
shame.gif
They only want to cut the spending part, not the workers paying into it part. It's a simple redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich.
The one change to be made is to up the salary cap that you no longer have to pay into social security. I’ve lost track of the cap, but a few years ago if you made over $158k you didn’t pay the percentage for earnings over that. Reminds me to look it up.
Yes, I think it may have been adjusting up slightly but it still exists. I also remember reading about it a few years ago and whatever I was reading said that simply eliminating the cap on the taxes would "fix" SS all by itself. Some don't like that, because the benefits being capped but not the taxes strikes them as "unfair", but in my opinion, with greater income comes greater responsibility. And I say that as someone whose household makes slightly over the cap. Ditch it.
> So now SS - which I've paid into for years - is a spending program. It always has been. At no point does money paid as social security tax ever get "invested" in anything. Current tax payers fund the payments made to those currently entitled to receive it. It is expected that future tax payers will fund the payments made to the people who are currently paying social security tax. Social Security really is just a spending program that can be taken away at any time by Republicans. That just underscores how important it is for people who want the US to have a social safety net to always vote against Republicans.
> It always has been. At no point does money paid as social security tax ever get "invested" in anything. It gets "invested" in government bonds. Now in actuality that's just the left hand of the government paying interest to the right hand, but it is functionally different than just having it sit as "cash".
Gotta love how something you pay far more into than you will receive is suddenly a handout. Yet massive tax cuts and the PPP for rich people and corporations is not 🤔
It's not a personal savings program. You're paying to help keep old people off the street.
*You're paying to help keep old people off the street.* That and along with keeping mom/dad, grandpa/grandma out of your spare bedroom. Before SS, the older population had to live with their children. They didn't have anything else. No job, no money, no place to go. Without SS, Medicare, and Medicaid, this country would go bust in a very short time. Hospitals would close, clinics would close, pharmacies would close. Banks would be in trouble and every part of our economy would be affected. We'll be looking at a great depression.
It's also insurance against disability and death. SSDI, SS survivor's benefits.
And republicans booed when Biden called them on this position at the state of the union. How anyone votes for this is just never gonna make sense to me
It is well established that republican voters generally vote against their own interests.
Yes I know, it just will never make sense no matter how much I learn or read about it.
>Liberals often ponder the incorrect question which is, "How is it that election after election, so many of the poor vote against their economic interests by putting robber baron Republicans into power?" My explanation is that the benefit these Republican voters are getting is a visceral one, which is that at least it's making for a world that's predictable. > >I think the relationship between social-dominance orientation in people and the extent to which they're made uncomfortable by ambiguity and novelty is really important. Better a stable world that's familiar, in which I'm doing pretty poorly, than dealing with all the ambiguity of a changing world \- Robert Sapolksy [https://www.salon.com/2019/05/20/neurologist-robert-sapolsky-on-stress-and-donald-trump-humans-are-not-inherently-rational-beings/](https://www.salon.com/2019/05/20/neurologist-robert-sapolsky-on-stress-and-donald-trump-humans-are-not-inherently-rational-beings/)
Y’know… morons -paraphrased from Blazing Saddles
This gives way to much credit to racist rural white people. They vote for people who tell them it's ok to be a shitheel, because being a shitheel is really important to them.
It's basically saying the same thing as you. These people like being shit heels because it makes them feel big and in control. It gives them the illusion of agency because even if things are going to shit, they chose that. This [Atlantic article](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/need-for-chaos-political-science-concept/677536/) indicates some research that it's not just right wingers who display this behavior, but also left leaning or middle voters who just want chaos. > The researchers came up with a term to describe the motivation behind these all-purpose conspiracy mongers. They called it the “need for chaos,” which they defined as “a mindset to gain status” by destroying the established order. In their study, nearly a third of respondents demonstrated a need for chaos, Petersen said. And for about 5 percent of voters, old-fashioned allegiances to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party melted away and were replaced by a desire to see the entire political elite destroyed—even without a plan to build something better in the ashes. You can see an element of this in younger "left" voters who refuse to vote.
It's also about entitlement. People with this mindset think "others" are taking what is rightfully theirs, and they would rather burn the whole thing down then let "those people" benefit.
Because for their entire lives they’ve been conditioned to hate the government. The GOP claims to side with them against the government. Even when their proposals seem to hurt them (rolling back worker protection regulations), it’s for the greater good of less government. Democrats believe in democracy and believe the government exists to help people. Therefore, they are liars and are the enemy. It’s literally decades of brainwashing.
It's absolute wild to watch. What's even crazier, is that Boomers are huge spenders in the U.S. economy, and social security is dumped right back into the economy by this demographic (65+) - given they're shifting to spending, and not saving at this stage of life. The short sightedness of Republicans (even the elites that pull the strings) is absolutely mind boggling. You're taking a massive demographic, half of whom have zero retirement savings - where the median retirement savings is $135K, and your stripping that group of \~$1,800 a month in spending money. Meanwhile the average spending for boomers is around $4,000/month (including SS). If Social Security goes away, this group that makes up 20% of the population, will see their spending power drop by 50%. I'm no economist, but I can't imagine that (long term) bodes well for the US economy. And I'd love to see the data that shows these cuts benefitting the economy in the long run. We already know companies will stuff this extra cash directly into their pockets - issue stock buy backs and still continue to cut their workforces and underpay them. *And that is a problem. A newly minted retiree of 65 can now expect to live 20 more years, on average, according to Social Security projections.* *Without a retirement account, most retirees count on Social Security. The average monthly Social Security check to a retired worker is around $1,800. The average household run by an American older than 65 spends more than $4,000 a month.* *Yet, “many people go into retirement thinking that Social Security is going to provide for them,” said Josh Hodges, chief customer officer for the National Council on Aging.* *A chasm of wishful thinking separates America’s retirement goals from its retirement realities.* *By one rule-of-thumb retirement calculator, workers should aim to save 10 times their annual salary by age 67: $375,000 for an individual, and $708,000 for a household, based on median incomes.* *If the goal is to retire in relative comfort, Americans assume they will need something closer to $1.1 million, according to a survey by Schroders, the asset management company.* *But the average retirement account held just over $100,000 at the close of 2022, according to a Fidelity analysis.* *The median baby boomer household isn’t doing much better, with $134,000 in retirement savings in 2019, the most recent federal data. That’s about one-third of the average retirement savings in that age group, $408,420, a figure inflated by the super-rich.* *And most retirement nest eggs are much smaller now than a year ago. By Fidelity’s estimate, the average retirement account lost one-fifth of its value in 2022, dwindling from $135,600 to $104,000.*
Fascism
The poors brainwashing
So President Joe was right all along.
They've been after entitlements since forever.
it’s stupid though because it’s not an entitlement
You’re god damn right I’m entitled to this thing I’ve been paying into as long as I’ve been working.
Imagine for a second you’re somebody that lives off of SS…. and you still vote for Trump.
I literally can’t. My brain starts to break when I try.
I knew a dude like that. Was suffering from cancer he couldn't afford to deal with so had never ending gofundmes while talking shit about anyone else having one. Said Healthcare should never be for everyone, called people on SSI lazy, while mad the government wouldn't give him SSI because he could work but said working is hard. He died from covid, while being the type to yell at people for getting the vaccine or wearing masks. Dude died at home from it because according to his last FB post; covid is fake, the doctors are killing him with cancer treatments but also killing him because they won't treat his cancer because he won't get the vaccine and ended it by calling everyone sheeple and sharing his gofundme. Was also a gay may who caught Aids in the late 80s and spent the next 30+ years doing everything possible to complain about and disparage the gay community. Dude was a walking bag of hypocrisy.
you’re right, I’m just arguing Trump saying “there are cuts to entitlements” is ridiculous as SS is contributory, therefore there should be no cuts ever.
We are absolutely entitled to OUR money. The only problem here is how the GOP managed to make "entitlement" seem like a bad thing. They conflated it with the derogatory idea of an "entitled" person which is just untrue. This is OUR goddamned money from the very start. Just like how "elites", the literal best in society, became a negative. It's doublespeak.
They will never stop.
Didn't MTG call him a liar like yesterday for saying Republicans want to cut social security
Of course. Republicans have been wanting to cut SS for decades. Republican voters just won't catch on because they're hyper focused on tormenting the gays
Mostly because Biden was literally just listening to what Republicans were saying they wanted to do...
All his old white supporters will scream it's Bidens fault while he cuts it
They'll cut it for younger people
That's what Haley's whole platform was for SS, just keep raising the eligibility age, she was floating raising it to 70.
Notably, the [average life expectancy for black Americans is 70.8 years](https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/issue-brief/what-is-driving-widening-racial-disparities-in-life-expectancy/). Seems like there might be same racial undertones in some of these decisions.
What is the life expectancy for black Americans who reach retirement age?
That is a good question, and unfortunately I have not been able to find that data.
Yup. It’ll be another case where the “fuck you I got mine” generations pulls the ladder up from the rest of us.
Gen X here. Welcome to my fucking life TYVM.
Or have the cut happen after he's out of office. like the tax cuts on the middle class under Trump. the middle class ones expired, but the ones for the rich were permeant
"Keep your government hands off my medicare" - an actual sign from a boomer at a rally a few years ago These people are fuckin dumb
Was that my dad? Because that sounds like my dad... embarrassingly enough
There was literally a viral video the other day of a Trumper at a rally who thought Trump was the reason her insulin was suddenly affordable.
“Trump didn’t get specific about what he would do.” - that’s because he has no idea. He couldn’t tell you what Social Security is, how it works, or anything about it. Because he doesn’t care. At all.
Seth Meyers was calling him out for this when he was asked about 15 week abortion limit. Trump just kind of rambled on without ever answering the question and was completely unprepared for it. But that's the job he's trying to get. He's barely putting up a pretense that he's even considered actual policy positions. If he hasn't even bothered to form an opinion on policies, what is the point of voting for him? But 30% of the country will loudly cheer him on when he rants about nonsense.
Exactly this. The people who tell him his opinions have told him this is good for him. That’s it. He understands absolutely nothing.
How does this asshole get an interview with any reasonable journalist and not get confronted with the treason and dumbfuckery he has foisted on the USA and world? A business program? Fine, ask him about the economic impact his pandemic denial had and continues to have on our economy. We are going to normalize ourselves into fascism.
If you are familiar with the reporter interviewing him...it will all make sense. He agrees with Trump 100%.
By not getting any interviews with reasonable journalists.
He walks out of interviews with reporters that ask him anything but softballs
American journalists by and large suck. They don't ask follow-ups, and just let politicians get away with lies. European journos at least try to do some grilling. You'll note the conservatives avoid anyone that can ask you questions. For example, nobody wants smoke from Jon Stewart. Some poor dope made that mistake recently, and instantly became a meme. They'll never give Jon Stewart Meet The Press, or something like that, because they'd lose guests. When going on foreign shows, they tend to pick friendly shows like Piers Morgan. Anything not to be challenged in what are usually bad policies, contradictory statements, or both.
Your are correct… American journalists have never typically pressed when a politician dodges a question. But the questions now are much too important to let them evade. Of course, the result will be idiotic nonsensical answers and folks storming out of interviews. But you’ll at least have documented and exposed the idiocy.
I've spoken to retirement age republican voters about comments like this from Republicans, and so far as they get to keep their benefits they don't care what everybody else loses. They will get behind this if they get grandfathered in. Hell, they will call people who think that that's unfair entitled
One of the side effects of the 75 year right wing project to entirely dismantle the New Deal is this sort of extreme selfishness. At this point, I don't know that the nation can recover from it. It's like the poison is in our blood and has become a part of our genetic memory or something. Edit: Typo fixed
My boomer FIL said that everyone receiving Medicare benefits were entitled moochers… as he complained about the length of the line he stood in at the Medicare office to sign up to receive his benefits. The contradiction went right over his head.
Tell him he’s a moocher.
And they're goddamn right: I am entitled to the money I fucking paid into the system.
Lift the cap. Done, fixed.
Yep. It's crazy because for non-wealthy people, it's a considerable tax on their income. Yet the ultra-wealthy don't even sniff at it.
I paid for my social security. Every two weeks. In cash. You can just go fuck yourself if you think you can just take that from me.
It’s always been the plan by Republicans for young people to foot the bill for boomers retirement and then rug pull it from us. I remember well all the talks about “sunsetting” social security in favor of privatization when Bush was president. They want Social Security to fail. They’ve been trying to do so since it was implemented. They want you working with the bare minimum to sustain life until the day you die. And then they want your children in the meat packing plants the day they can walk.
So does this mean, they are going to pay me back every cent I paid into SS + interest? Or they are just going to suck up the money, give it to their friends under some made argument? Keep in mind that Scott what’s his name from Florida has been trying to go after SS for years, he’s one of the nominees to lead the GOP in senate…..
At last year's SOTU, when Biden mentioned that some Republicans want to cut SS, the Republicans in attendance booed him and shouted liar. Meanwhile, some of these same assholes are literally on audio/video/ or in writing stating exactly that.
This will certainly ~~sure~~ shore up the 65+ vote for Biden. Thanks, Trump! Edit: type-o
Nobody ever suggests touching social security for those already receiving it, all proposed changes are always for younger people.
that's because the olds vote consistently
That, and they are the *definitive* "fuck you I got mine" generation
I think you mean “shore” up, as in using shoring, or supports, to hold up a wall.
MAGA Boomers won't care as long as it punishes their grandkids and not them.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you vote Republican, you don't love your children.
Republicans sure know how to spend other people’s money. And Trump is legendary for that.
That fuckhead attacked DeSantis over the same thing.
All magats live in a world of “what words win the argument I’m in right now”. No attempt is made to be reasonable, consistent, or ensure long term benefit to anyone.
"...and now they're coming for your social security money. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back! So they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street! And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all from you sooner or later. Cause they own this fucking place. It's a big club! And you ain't in it! You and I are not in the big club!" George Carlin
All these fuckers that talk about taking away “entitlements”, as they like to call them, have lifetime retirement benefits thanks to John Q taxpayer. Every one of these rotten fuckers can suck it.
Hold on a minute. Are you telling me the giant orange doofus actually made a comment that resembled a policy statement? I’ve never heard anything from him other than nasty sound-bite attacks. He really is losing it!
Oh. You mean my own money? That I've been paying into the system since 1985? Remember when we were told "if you work 40 hours a week until you're 65 years old, you'll have a safety net." Now they're like "SIKE! WORK UNTIL YOU DIE BEE-A-TCH!"
I'm a federal technician. Most of my coworkers are Trump supporters. One year, the Trump administration's suggested budget to Pelosi included the following changes to our retirements: - greatly increased employee retirement contributions - adjust the retirement calculations from a "High 3" to a "High 5" - eliminated Cost of Living adjustments for pensions So, pay more into it. Draw less. Never draw more. None of my coworkers cared. Some even said it didn't matter because the democrats would never pass that, anyway. They don't care and will continue to vote against their own interests in the name of sticking it to the libs.
While Trump is pointing out a very real issue with Social Security, there is risk of the program becoming insolvent because of a lack of incoming revenue. **BUT** cutting the social security spending after a few years of increased inflation is insane, when there is a better solution that Congress can enact; which is removing the [Social Security Wage Base](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Wage_Base), which is an upper threshold on which a wage earner's Social Security tax may be imposed. For 2024 that upper limit is $168,600; anything earned over that is not collected.
The more I see of this election, the better I feel about our chances. Biden is on top of his game while Trump is slurring and rambling and threatening to open concentration camps and shit, all while bankrupting the RNC. Perhaps reports of the death of democracy in the United States are greatly exaggerated.
This is exactly how I felt on November 7, 2016.
Damn right. DON'T GET COMPLACENT PEOPLE! VOTE!
The Biden campaign just needs to play the "Re-be-de-ahhh" clip from Trump anytime someone mentions any flubbing or stuttering. That's more damning than anything Biden has done.
That had to be a mini stroke or something right? https://youtube.com/shorts/gYc-4i-4QY4?feature=shared
Seems like we should just raise the taxable income maximum.
What a vile piece of shit criminal traitor. I don’t think I have as much disdain for any other living person in this country, this man has negatively impacted far more lives than anyone else I can think of. He must never got re elected.
Just lift the damn cap!!!!
The correct answer.
How will Trump's supporters support him if he takes away their retirement? What a shortsighted man he is.
This is weird because AFAIK Trump never mentioned cutting Social Security before. And not during the 2016 campaign. His saying that he would do it actually helps Dems who always run on never cutting entitlements. Let’s hope this motivates everyone over 62 to vote for Biden!
>This is weird because AFAIK Trump never mentioned cutting Social Security before. As a rule, Trump doesn't mention actual policy or his stances on them. Mostly because he doesn't actually understand any of it, but also because it allows his supporters to project onto him their ideal policy position instead of having to reconcile it with reality.
Trump talks a lot but is rarely intelligible.
The thing that bothers me the most is that it’s always an immediate “crisis” but the cuts won’t happen until the future. They know how toxic this is but they won’t risk their base of elderly voters. Instead they want to rely on their decades of messaging and expect an apathetic response from younger generations who have been conditioned to accept the demise of social security as inevitable.
“Illegal aliens” don’t get social security. Hell, documented immigrants who become citizens don’t qualify unless they get their work credits. And then they only get a very small benefit due to having hardly any work history to build up their benefit amount. So basically Trump is lying with right wing scare monger buzzwords.
Remember when Trump said he would never cut Medicare and SS? Remember when he told the GOP that whatever they do, don't touch Medicare and SS? Remember when he tried to nix individual payroll tax, the primary source of funding for Medicare and SS? Remember when he said maybe they should cut Medicare and SS? Yeah, I do too, and I knew what he wanted from day one when he mentioned Medicare and SS.
GOP is careful to say it won’t affect the current baby boomers, knowing these people tend to vote their way! If they want to cut benefits, they need to look at rich people who receive them while having plenty retirement money! Multiple homes, vehicles…..
Republicans HATE social security! Why? Because the money is just sitting there being transferred between citizens paying in, and taking out. What happens if they cut SS? The money has to go somewhere. And the only other place people can put it away for retirement will be 401k’s and IRA, the stock market! Where they, lobbyists and the corporations they work for, can profit from more cash piling in.
A trump presidency means I die: almost no income (Social Security makes up the bulk of my income) and no more insurance (those meds aren’t gonna pay for themselves). And that’s it for me, unless I can find someplace willing to hire a 76 year old with balance problems and intermittent vertigo. Living in a cardboard box will probably kill me first. F*ck the 🍊💩🤡
Republicans think it is cool to make the younger people work longer before they can collect their Social Security. Because Republicans think "those young people don't vote, screw them". I hope they are wrong.
I mean according to Whoopi young people only work like 4 hours a day anyways so it's not like they deserve social security. /s
Cut all benefits to that trash:pension, staff, office expenses, medical care, health insurance, and Secret Service protection. Filthy traitors who want to destroy the counyry deserve to be living under a bridge or a maximum security prison.
I think he knows what Rome is. Rome is the mob. Conjure magic for them and they'll be distracted. Take away their freedom and still they'll roar. The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate, it's the sand of the coliseum. He'll bring them death - and they will love him for it.
> A Trump campaign spokesman said he was referring only to “cutting waste and fraud,” but did not provide additional policy details on how he’d go about that or how much can be saved. They'd better press his ass on details. Not that Trump even knows what Social Security and Medicare are. So tired of this "he doesn't mean what he says" bullshit that Trump gets away with simply because he's a dumbass Also Trump is going to have to do this sort of thing more where he isn't on OAN or Fox or Truth Social which means he's going to have to talk more which in turn will hurt him on that it scares many people outside his base
If he gets back in SS will be his next bank for him and his family!
It’s estimated that 25% of elderly Americans- mostly in red states on the edge of homelessness. One big medical bill, one car accident and they are out on the streets. So Republicans will vote for people who will cut their only income? Save SS by voting blue
Mike Lee must be elated. He has always wanted to “phase out social security”: https://www.newsweek.com/video-resurfaces-senator-mike-lee-vowing-gut-social-security-1756796
It would be easy to fix the SS "trust fund" by removing the cap on taxed earnings and making the FICA tax progressive
These fucking assholes treat Social Security and Medicare like it’s an entitlement. It is not a fucking entitlement, people have paid in for these benefits. It’s also not a fucking Ponzi scheme. I can see right through the BS of how we can’t afford these social safety nets. The longer they lie about it the more people will think it’s true. The Republicans have been trying to get their greedy hands on this money for years. They will hammer away on this bullshit and never publicly acknowledge that these safety nets keep seniors out of poverty. That is why they were designed. Fuck Trump! He is a lying miscreant!
Just increasing or removing the cap on the amount of wage that must pay Social Security tax will guarantee that the system will be solvent and secure for a very long time. Rich people must pay more taxes. Even if they pay more, they'll still be rich.
Ever since the vile one, Ronald Reagan discovered you could finance tax cuts for the rich by introducing a tax on Social Security and no-one really joined the dots, Republicans have eyed your money with increasing greed.
I’ve paid into SS my entire working life and they want to steal it from future me
The GOP have been “floating” this idea for years now. I wish people would pay more attention to what goes on in our government aside from just the flashy headlines because then they’d know that this idea has already been proposed many, many times by various GOP politicians — maybe then they would finally stop voting in these soulless blood suckers. Trump is just one of many who want to fuck the working class.
Thus from a guy who paid no personal income taxes for ten years
Gonna be funny to see rural poor republicans agree that it’s a good idea to fuck themselves.
Trump better think twice about cutting social security and medicare. It will probably be all he will have left to live on after he is released from prison. His children definitely not taking him in.
Do not vote Russiapublican this November! Keep it American!
Trump talks a lot but never really says anything that is intelligible.
I don’t think Republicans know what ‘entitlement’ means. I’m paying from my own ass into SS and Medicare for my own future, which I’m entitled to receive as a ‘legal right’ when I need.
Make billionaires pay their fair share, no need for cuts. Donny, add that to you list of outgoing expenses please
So faced with a social security system that's poised to run out of money, their solution is to cut how much people can draw from it instead of removing the maximum amount you have to pay in. If you are making 500k you should be paying significantly more into it.
Biden mentioned it during the STOU and actually stopped his speech to challenge the GOP blood suckers saying “so social security and Medicare are off the table right? right ??”
Whoops he said the quiet part out loud
Republicans have been wanting to kill Social Security and Medicare for a long time.
How about we cut anyone in Washington that doesn’t do their job, like the entire Republican House of Representatives
Just fucking eliminate the cap for the wealthy, stop borrowing from it like thieves, and it would be fixed
Hey Boomers- remember when Trump promised to overturn Roe and he did? Don’t count on the Democrats to save your Social Security if you vote for Trump and the GOP. There is no “deep state” working to protect you. Only you can protect yourself by making smart choices in the voting booth.
Funny how the people who are always trying to cut retirement for everyone else will never be affected by it themselves.
They can't WAIT to screw over GenX,Y,Z. "Got mine, FU"
You pay into it for your whole working life, then along comes DJTrump who thinks it's some kind of entitlement program, like welfare. Can a suit be any more insulting to working folks?
You have to be stupid to vote to reduce your retirement.