A Blast From the Past: The Republicans STILL Want to Dismantle Medicare, Privatize Social Security, etc.
Why We Still Need The Social Safety Net; Why We Can't Elect Trump and other Republicans to Shut These Programs Down (Updated September 26, 2016):
The Republicans want to dismantle Medicare:
The Facebook conversation about Social Security and Medicare was lively with people talking about possible fixes to these programs and about their future financial issues:
Michael wrote:
"Medicare and social security can be fixed! The GOP doesn't consider fixing it an option."
Zachary wants to get rid of Medicare and Social Security because, well, he's special!
Zachary, who must be in his late 20's or early 30's, replied:
Zachary, who must be in his late 20's or early 30's, replied:
"Getting rid of it seems like a perfect fix to me. I can take care of myself better than the government can, clearly. I mean look, all this money I am paying into Social Security and Medicare and what am I going to get out of it 35 years from now? Even IF I get a little of what I am paying for in the end, I would absolutely get MUCH more if I invested it myself.
Some people are stupid, I understand that. If you don't trust yourself to prepare for your own future then by all means, give your money to the government and hope that they will take care of you.
But I'm not stupid, and I should have the CHOICE of investing my own money in my own future... it is called liberty! Maybe you have heard of it Linda? If not, you can read all about it in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution ;)
And Linda, I think you are smart for wanting Medicare and SS to stick around. You are close to retirement. I can understand why you want me to keep paying into it... so that you can have that money for your retirement. I can't really hold that against you, after all, you paid into it your entire life too so that your parents generation could retire.
However, can you understand why I want to keep my money? I am afraid it won't be there when it is time for me to retire. Besides that, I KNOW I can create a better retirement for myself if I was able to invest MY own money in MY own retirement.
Robert is right. Eventually we need to stop this kick-the-can-down-the-roadPonzi scheme before we run out of road. It can't work forever and my generation, as it is seeming, is going to be the ones who get screwed. But what does your generation care? You'll be long gone by that time.... like true Ponzi scheme fashion. Shameful!
Ah, Zachary, the folly of youth!
Zachary, it is clear that you are young and don't understand what may yet befall you.
Zachary, it is clear that you are young and don't understand what may yet befall you.
They changed the social security retirement age when I was in my early 30's. We were all healthy, employed at good paying jobs, and we'd thought we'd keep that good health and those good high-paying jobs (that enabled us to save bundles) forever. Very few people complained when they raised that retirement age because we thought, "It won't happen to us; we'll never have to depend on social security."
What the future holds for us
Now many of those same healthy fully-employed people are disabled, sick, out of work (and not likely to be rehired). Some wound up with children with disabilities or other problems who required (or still require) significant cash outlays for their care and upkeep. I know people who were pushed out of their high-paying jobs when they were 50 or 55 and still had children at home to support. They never again made the money they used to make, and, even though they had been saving regularly, they found that their savings were simply not enough to get through years of low-paying or no-paying jobs until retirement. I know people who started businesses, sometimes after such a layoff, and the businesses went bust... taking most of their retirement savings with them.
There is a reason that these social safety net programs were set up and there is a reason that those nasty old liberal Democrats (and some caring Republicans in the past) supported them: BECAUSE WITHOUT HEALTH CARE and SOCIAL SECURITY FOR THE OLD AND the SICK, the ELDERLY and the SICK WERE LIVING IN ABJECT POVERTY, OFTEN SUFFERING AND DYING OF PREVENTABLE DISEASES.
Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.
Many in the younger generation have NO IDEA what life was like without these "social safety nets" that you scorn. Most of your parents, people in their 40's, 50's, and 60's, don't know. The generation that remembers the misery of people who simply could not "save" for retirement is mostly gone. It's too bad that you didn't pay attention in American history... There were plenty of books, plenty of stories of people living in misery and squalor here in the United States. We still have people in poverty, but it is nothing now like it was.
Zachary, maybe you are one of the superior few who can work enough and save enough and be lucky enough to never need Disability, Social Security, or Medicare... but first of all, as I said, you really have no idea what the future will hold for you, and secondly: Don't you have one shred of humanity in you to want to make sure that the least of your fellow countrymen don't live and die in misery? Remember that Social Security and Medicare are not necessarily for you. They are for all of us.
Do the words "We the People" mean nothing to you.. despite your seeming desire to invoke the Constitution?
Do the words "We the People" mean nothing to you.. despite your seeming desire to invoke the Constitution?
Zachary is going to invest his social security and medicaire money with somebody like Bernie Madoff and then go to the free emergency room that e all pay for. The right will allow the industry to regulate itself so...
ReplyDeleteExactly, Richard. And even if Zachary doesn't need Social Security or Medicare... what about his parents, his grandparents, his aunts, his uncles, the cousin with a chronic diseases, the nice neighbor lady who babysat him when he was 6? Does he really want all of those people to live out the rest of their lives in some kind of dirty one room flat somewhere? We tried the "each to his own" way of dealing with the old and the sick, and it didn't work.
ReplyDeleteShow me where, in the US Constitution, the Founders and Framers gave the US Government permission to do this. You cannot because it is not in the US Constitution. I can show you Congressman Colonel Davy Crockett's words to prove you wrong, as he had to recant his previous vote and admit he was wrong and acted unconstitutionally out of an ill-informed but caring heart. I can also show you Chile, which privatized its version of Social Security and everyone became far better off. I can also show you that if you had invested all your Social Security taxes in the stock market that, despite the major collapse, you would still be far better off today than with the Social Security Trust Fund (which is empty and is paying out more than it takes in), provided you are older than 30. I can show you SocSec and Medicare are both collapsing and bankrupting the US.
ReplyDeleteI can show you a whole lot of fact-based information if your emotionalist selves care to look. Feel free to peruse my fact-based site at your leisure. Perhaps you're not too old and set in your emotionalist ways to learn a thing or two about that history you refuse to learn from.
Show me where they didn't.
DeleteAs I wrote above, which you probably didn't bother to read, Social Security is for all of us, not just you, not just me. It's to keep old and disabled people, perhaps former neighbors, perhaps relatives, perhaps a teacher, perhaps the parents of one of your childhood friends, off of the streets, living decently with heat and food.
All I can say, John, is that I am glad that I don't know you. You sound like a greedy old miser, and I'm glad that most of the American people don't agree with you as well.
Stop the B.S. about the Constitution, a very flexible document, and join the 21st century.