21-12-2004 07:40									#31
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin Bush keeps claiming he can privatize social security for $3 trillion but all of the economists seem to believe that $7-$8 trillion is a more realistic number. Bush knows we can't afford $8 trillion when the nation's GDP is only around $12 trillion. Privatization truly seems like a Republican plot to destroy social security in steps.

Kudos to republicans in this case.

get rid of it.

But the sad fact is all the money I put in will be lost . Damn ponzi scheme!

So because of this, I'm forced to hope this system can struggle on another 40 years or so.

	21-12-2004 07:41									#32
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quote: Originally posted by Berzerker I don't read enough of the material from the anti-income tax activists but I think their argument is that "income" was defined in a much more limited manner back then. It might be because of the clause Kuci quoted... Essentially. labor was not considered income. I think the income tax was more related to the rise of corporations...

The 16th Amendment repealed the clause I quoted, Berz.

	21-12-2004 07:48									#33
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quote: Originally posted by Dissident But the sad fact is all the money I put in will be lost . Damn ponzi scheme!

Just like all the taxes you pay. SS is a tax, not a retirement investment.

	21-12-2004 07:55									#34
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This is a libertarian thread. If anything, your argument made me like it less.

	21-12-2004 07:57									#35
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That's fine. It's a terribly regressive tax. It ought to be abolished and funded from general funds.

	21-12-2004 08:00									#36
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara Just like all the taxes you pay. SS is a tax, not a retirement investment.

Yeah, social security has never been an investment it has always just been a dedicated tax.

	21-12-2004 08:03									#37
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quote: Originally posted by Jaguar This is a libertarian thread. If anything, your argument made me like it less.

me too

	21-12-2004 08:43									#38
	Re: Eliminate Social Security - Dont 'Privitize it' Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Good idea. We should also eliminate old people. Do you imagine? No drain on resources at all!

	21-12-2004 08:49									#39
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara That's fine. It's a terribly regressive tax. It ought to be abolished and funded from general funds.

Progressive taxes:
Regressive taxes:

Libertarians:

	21-12-2004 09:52									#40
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Just curious: if we were to eliminate it, what do we do about all those people -- like, say, my mother -- who are living on Social Security now?

After all, they have no savings precisely because they expected social security to be there. Are they just SOL? Are we just going to dump them on their children -- or, if they have no children, on the street?

If so, please, please initiate the drive to eliminate social security; I can't imagine anything bringing the Dems back to power more quickly.

	21-12-2004 10:04									#41
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Very true Rufus. I do agree with privatizing it or eliminating it, but I agree that we need to honor our commitment to our seniors depending on it.

At what age is someone young enough to find alternative sources of retirement income that we can cut them off? I dunno.
How to cover the trillions of dollars of funds needed to pay seniors while letting younger workers out of the system? I dunno.
How to appease/steamroll the liberals to get it passed? I dunno (but i bet it'll be expensive....)

Eliminating Social Security
Privatizing Social Security
Spending 8 Trillion to do it

	21-12-2004 10:06									#42
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If anyone can find a better solution to providing an income to the elderly, I'd like to see it.

Of course a free market solution would do what it always does: make sure that large numbers of the elderly lived in misery and died younger. That's what it was like in industrialized countries before SS schemes.

	21-12-2004 10:55									#43
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quote: Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly Just curious: if we were to eliminate it, what do we do about all those people -- like, say, my mother -- who are living on Social Security now?

How about you take care of her, you lazy ****? You lived in her for 9 months, and yet she's so poor that she lives off social security?

Way to repay her, *******.






This post were in jest, obviously, as you can see by the smiley.

	21-12-2004 11:34									#44
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Kuciwalker:

from the constitution:"The congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states and without regard to any census or enumeration." That is the 16th amendment, and it was ratified in 1913. I don't disagree that there were income taxes(hence the permenant modifier in my statement), but the income tax as we know it today began with the 16th amendment.

	21-12-2004 12:13									#45
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quote: Originally posted by Jaguar How about you take care of her, you lazy ****? You lived in her for 9 months, and yet she's so poor that she lives off social security? Way to repay her, *******. This post were in jest, obviously, as you can see by the smiley.

I know it's in jest, but it raises an interesting point.

The fact is, you could yank my mom's social security tomorrow, and she'd be okay. My sister and I would need to send her ~$500/month each, and that would make up for it. Or we could split the bill $750-$250, and whoever pays the $750 would get to claim Mom as a dependent on their taxes.

But the point is that we can do this because my Mom has a couple of kids, because those kids make a good living, and because her house is paid for and she carries no debt of any sort.

Mom would be okay. I can't say the same for the working class or the poor.

	21-12-2004 13:48									#46
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quote: Just curious: if we were to eliminate it, what do we do about all those people -- like, say, my mother -- who are living on Social Security now?

Sounds like her, and maybe your, problem.

	21-12-2004 14:20									#47
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quote: When will all of these 'libertarians' stop using their tax-payer funded roads?" -Monkspider

When we're no longer forced to fund them with our taxes? Seems the question answers itself...

quote: "I would much rather my mom was a whore than a libertarian." -kidicious

If your mom was a whore, we wouldn't trash her, jail her, stone her to death, or burn her at the stake, but we might want to **** her. What does she look like?

quote: "I refuse to become a libbie. That operation where they remove your heart and half your brain is just too much." -chegitz guevara

I'd consider the advice of a halfwit over someone who thought with their heart.

	21-12-2004 14:36									#48
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Btw, Chile has a privatised SS system and from what I've heard it works very well - puts ours to shame.

	21-12-2004 14:45									#49
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quote: Btw, Chile has a privatised SS system and from what I've heard it works very well - puts ours to shame.

I'll bet the 21% of Chileans who live in poverty and especially the native population would have some issues with your assessment.

All the world's most developed societies have some form of SS - because it's cheap and it works at providing services the market will not and cannot provide on a country wide basis.

It's all very well to mount some precious moral argument about Social Security, but the arguments for it are mostly practical ones.

	21-12-2004 14:46									#50
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Eliminate Social Security?

Why not just execute all the poor people?

	21-12-2004 14:47									#51
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quote: Originally posted by Berzerker I'd consider the advice of a halfwit over someone who thought with their heart.

So you admit that libertarianism is completely heartless?

	21-12-2004 15:05									#53
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Social security should be a need based welfare program rather than an entitlement. That would ensure its solvency immediately at no cost to the government.

	21-12-2004 15:08									#54
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But Mike, the market will miraculously make everyone well off and healthy, just like Victorian Britain did.

	21-12-2004 15:36									#55
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon But Mike, the market will miraculously make everyone well off and healthy, just like Victorian Britain did.

	21-12-2004 15:50									#56
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara That's fine. It's a terribly regressive tax. It ought to be abolished and funded from general funds.

Amen. Single working mothers spend a bigger portion of their income on SS than the super-wealthy and are just as unlikely to see any benefits.

Besides the old have had their whole lives to build wealth. Why should the wealthiest demographic be subsidized by those who are trying to get themselves established?

	21-12-2004 18:01									#57
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quote: Originally posted by Felch Besides the old have had their whole lives to build wealth. Why should the wealthiest demographic be subsidized by those who are trying to get themselves established?

Because all the old people have been paying into the system for years... As it is, none of us expect to get back anywhere near what we have put into the system.

So stop your whining

	21-12-2004 18:04									#58
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quote: Originally posted by Ming Because all the old people have been paying into the system for years... As it is, none of us expect to get back anywhere near what we have put into the system. So stop your whining

this is a fine reason to stop whining but it is not a reason to continue regressive payroll taxes.

	21-12-2004 18:13									#59
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is only one way of describing it,

If instead you look at it as an investment scheme, which was how it was originally sold to people, then by privatising the scheme theand pulling out of paying it the government is in effect committing theft. at the very least it should be privatised for people from this point on, but the government should be comitted to paying out to people who have paid in for many years, how it makes the money to fund this is its problem.

By getting rid of social security a political party becomes the ringleaders in a massive fraud. The party has taken advantage for many years of the system. Now the bills have arrived they've decided they don't want to pay. Is this the political equivalent of doing a runner from the restaurant ?

	21-12-2004 18:25									#60
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quote: Originally posted by Whoha Kuciwalker: from the constitution:"The congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states and without regard to any census or enumeration." That is the 16th amendment, and it was ratified in 1913. I don't disagree that there were income taxes(hence the permenant modifier in my statement), but the income tax as we know it today began with the 16th amendment.

No, it began much sooner. It was just unconstitutional.