Social Security and Medicare 101. Why GOP wants them gone.

[rateyes]

Social Security funds taken from our paychecks go to pay beneficiaries. Up to this point, more is taken in than is paid out each year. The surplus is invested in a special government bond instrument that only the Social Security administration can buy. For the past 80 some years, SS has run a surplus, meaning there has never been a need to cash the bonds to pay beneficiaries. However, in a few years, unless the cap is lifted, the bonds will need to be redeemed to keep paying out. In other words, the SS administration has been lending money to the government. The GOP wants to never have to pay its obligations to the workers. They don’t want to honor their debt obligations. They just gave a windfall to the richest Americans, and hope to use the excuse of not having the funds to pay SS benefits. The biggest problem that SS faced over the years is the fact that people are living longer than they were supposed to. People aren’t dying fast enough, and they continue to collect benefits. Heck, I have an aunt who will be 108 this Sunday, who has collected SS for 40+ years.

Why are people living longer? One word: Medicare. The big reason why the GOP wants to cut Medicare is to make it too expensive for people to stay alive!

All money is debt, folks! The cash in your pocket is a debt instrument backed by the word of the US Treasury. The SS fund is a huge pile of money that the rich mofos don’t want to pay out to those who hold those bonds: Me and you!

It is really that damned simple.

[BigmanPigman]

1. The GOP's goal: bankrupt and kill Americans.

[rateyes]

2. Thats right. The way our monetary system is designed

is to keep money flowing uphill. That’s the system.

[BigmanPigman]

6. Only since 1980 and Reagun has it been this bad.

Look at the DU videos forum at the bottom of the Home Page posted today. Robert Reich's explanation is simple and illustrated. He is brilliant and correct.

[Irish_Dem]

8. I think they have two lists: Kill and Keep Alive

Sorry for the blunt titles of the lists, cannot think of more gentle names to call them.

The first two groups on the kill list are the elderly and sick children. These two groups really irritate the GOP and they are gunning for them. Basically these two groups have zero profit centers and are money sponges.

I think the opioid users are another group they wish to be gone, and there will be little or no money to assist with rehab, prevention, etc.

The Keep Alive list seems to consist of people who will be worker bees, and generate revenue for the 1%. I think it was Paul Ryan who recently said he wants women to have more children to provide a labor force.

I could add more groups to each list, but you get the drift.

[BigmanPigman]

11. You are correct.

That is what the Nazis did...gas the old, sick, gypies/poor, children, disabled, etc. After that life will resemble Fritz Lang's film Metropolis.

[Irish_Dem]

14. Yes the Nazi euthanasia programs are good examples.

Also they will take advantage of natural disasters to cull the population like Bush did with Katrina, and Trump did with PR.

And Blue states can probably forget about any getting any help either if disaster strikes.

By curtailing health care, they can also get rid of people who have chronic or acute illnesses or disease. And by allowing the drug companies to keep the price of medications high, that will also cull the population.

[Matthew28]

3. Control

Without the safetynet the rich can rule like the barons of old over 90% of this country.

The GOP main goal is to turn the American people into serfs. They the rich would love to go back to the 18th century when we had no regulations or workers rights in order to bleed every drop of blood out of the American people.

[rateyes]

4. Except the peasants eventually revolt!

[Ferrets are Cool]

5. Most of what you say here is true....

however, it is probably untrue that we live a lot longer than we are supposed to live.
Explained here:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-s-friedman-phd/were-not-really-living-mu_b_852940.html

"The fallacy arises from the fact that life expectancy is measured from birth, but years in retirement is measured from about age 65. Reductions in infant and child mortality have been dramatic during the 20th century, but 65-year-olds today are not strikingly healthier or longer-living than 65-year-olds of the previous generation or two. If life were being extended for decades there would be lots of 115-year-old Americans running around, but there aren’t any at all."

[rateyes]

7. Life expectancy has risen considerably though since

Medicare. My mother is 83 yrs old, and I know had it not been for Medicare she would have died in her late 60s.

[Voltaire2]

9. despite your mother's experience, the facts are that at age 65

life expectancy has risen only by about 5 years since medicare started. That is across the entire population. Individuals of course can have different results.

[Dawson Leery]

10. Everything you said.

In this respect, Republicans are worse than Fascists.

[Jspur]

12. GOP wants them gone

because they are Rich and the Rich just want to see the 99 percent suffer. They are just that evil.

[cos dem]

13. A pop quiz for your conservative friends: how much as Social Security contributed to the debt?

It's a simple question with an easy answer, requiring no research.

The answer is a big, fat zero. 0. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

By law, SS is not allowed to run a deficit. It can only pay out up the limit of what it has taken in.
So, you can ask, why would the republicans cut SS if it doesn't contribute to the debt?

The problem is twofold.
1. As the SS surplus decreases, the ability to borrow that money for other goodies disappears.
2. As the bonds must be paid off (generally with revenue) to pay the beneficiaries, that revenue is also not available to funnel into the pockets of plutocrats.

For most of us, the logical answer is more revenue. For idiots, the answer is to cut benefits. By cutting benefits, the kleptocrats and plutocrats are stealing from the pockets of the "working class" (many of whom voted for said klepto/plutocrats).

[rateyes]

16. Bingo!

[KT2000]

15. Wall Street wants that money

because they will manage it so much better - like tank the market for bigger payoffs and pay themselves bonuses.

[procon]

17. Solve the problem by raising the cap and welcoming more immigrants. nt