No Middle Class Tax Hikes?

[Riot]

Originally Posted by joeydb

END the entitlements. There, I said it. They were never sustainable. There is truly be no such thing as an "entitlement", in spite of the frequency and energy with which that political term has been used. You are not entitled to anyone else's money but your own.

Sunset the social security program. Nobody is getting any "yield" on this "retirement program". You get less money than what you put in, if and when the government sees fit to pay you. I'm at the age where I'm not likely to see a dime from it, yet I'm forced to pay the FICA line item out of my check.

It's time to end the supremacy of the non-contributor. If you don't work, then you can't expect to live like you do work. Keep unemployment compensation and make real statistics on what the TRUE unemployment numbers are. At least that requires that we keep looking for jobs.

Everything, every budget entry: social programs, military spending, all of it must be eligible to be slashed. Foreign aid should become a thing of the past -- we can't afford it any more, and borrowing money from China to give to Haiti or any other country is ridiculous. And let's start calling in the loans we gave others, just like China expects us to pay up.

Liberalism is an obsolete anachronism that was a nuisance infection to the body that is the United States, and we have allowed it to grow to the point where it is life threatening.

The national debt MUST be REPAID. That's the only way to truly preserve the individual freedoms we have. Debtors are never free -- they are always beholden to their creditors -- until the debt is paid off.

In all honesty, Joey - are you saving, now, so at the age of retirement you'll have $1,000,000 to cover very basically 20 years of retirement, and pay for yourself? Are you currently saving at least 10-20% of your gross income every year, with an average 8-10% return over time? Starting at age 20 or so? Few Americans are.

I think it's important to remember that the reason Social Security was created has not gone away. Starving, homeless old people - well, we are America. I don't think we should do that to our elderly. I don't believe in, "Every man for himself" 100% of the time.

Nor do I believe in complete American isolation on the world scene. This is 2010, not the 19th century.

That said, most people nowadays are getting out more than they put into Social Security, as they are living longer, etc. That is one of the reasons why Social Security is upside down. That said, it is currently funded through 2025.

"Liberalism" - in the form of Bill Clinton - put us into a positive budget, with extra money, with the federal deficit beginning to be paid off, and significant reduction in the deficit over the first 10 years. Unfortunately, that setup was reversed, not done, which has put the country in a terrible place. So "liberalism" doesn't seem an obsolete anachronism to me.

And if you are viewing it within the context of federal fiscal irresponsibility (I can't tell), you have the wrong party, judging by the facts of the the past 40-50 years of American history. Increasing taxes, increasing deficit, is a Republican thing.

For example, the largest single entitlement, $$ wise, in the past 40 years, with the exception of the start of Medicare - just occurred in the Bush administration, and unfortunately, was not funded.