WaltLongmire wrote:
1) Certain American people are terribly ignorant & have marginal critical thinking skills.

2) The Trump Big Lie campaign worked bigly.

3) Fake News has an impact on what people think.

4) America...we have a problem.

yes
yes
yes
yes

djsunyc wrote:

WaltLongmire wrote:
1) Certain American people are terribly ignorant & have marginal critical thinking skills.

2) The Trump Big Lie campaign worked bigly.

3) Fake News has an impact on what people think.

4) America...we have a problem.

yes
yes
yes
yes

And the system is designed so that their votes carry more weight than yours...They also have leveraged influence in the Senate compared to the big state voter...So they are more likely to be able to impact laws more than you can...

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/gop-plan-major-social-security-cuts

We'll have a story coming shortly on what I just mentioned a short time ago: that Republicans are now planning to pass major cuts to Social Security this year. Specifically, this bill is being introduced by Rep. Sam Johnson, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee's Social Security Subcommittee, the committee with jurisdiction over Social Security.

Until then let me cover the broad details of the plan.

Unlike the Bush-era plan to partially phase out Social Security and replace it with private investment accounts, this plan takes a different approach. Through a variety of mechanisms, this plan simply cuts benefits and introduces means testing. To look at specific cuts, changes in eligibility and so forth look at pages 2 and 3 on this official Social Security Administration scoring document analyzing the plan. The benefit cuts appear to hit everyone but are weighted toward more affluent recipients.

The big picture is that the current Social Security Trust Fund is predicted to be exhausted in the mid-late 2030s. So roughly in 20 years. People often refer to this as 'bankruptcy'. But that's not really accurate. At that point Social Security would only be able to pay 79% of benefits recipients will be entitled to in those years.

By 2090, that percentage falls to 74%. So it's fairly stable after that drop-off in the 2030s.

Now there are a number of ways to cover that shortfall - the most obvious is to remove or alter the so-called 'cap' on Social Security taxes. Once you get over $118,500 of income per year you stop paying Social Security taxes. So your Social Security tax rate is much higher if you make $50,000 a year than if you make $500,000 a year. Change that and most of the problem disappears. You could also combine ditching the 'cap' with much milder cuts than the one envisioned here. You could also rejigger the cap in ways that allowed you to increase benefits.

Here's a snippet from a 2015 TPM article which notes how the entire shortfall problem could be solved even without getting rid of the cap entirely ...

One of the co-sponsors of that bill was Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), now ranking member of Senate Finance's Social Security subcommittee. Brown spoke in favor of the CAP report last week and told TPM that he would soon introduce legislation of his own. The CAP report said that because of growing income inequality, the percentage of the collective national income taxed for Social Security had fallen from 90 percent to 83 percent. Raising the cap in 2015 to again tax 90 percent of the nation's applicable income would close Social Security's $11.1 trillion shortfall over the next 75 years by more than one-fourth, according to CAP.
The plan with this new GOP bill is to proactively solve this problem entirely with cuts and really big cuts. Out over 75 years, the GOP proposal has the Trust Fund growing substantially out into the infinite horizon. In other words, a lot of the cuts are more than are necessary to pay for all benefits even if you leave the 'cap' in place.

I will say that this new bill is different and I think not as bad (extremely low bar) as the partial phase out of Social Security which President Bush tried to push in 2005. Because you have the same essential mechanisms in place. This is a huge benefit cut. Benefits could later be raised again if there was the political will to do so. The means testing component probably does more to endanger the future of the program in political terms.

More soon.

holfresh wrote:

djsunyc wrote:GOP plans social security cuts

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/gop-plan-major-social-security-cuts

We'll have a story coming shortly on what I just mentioned a short time ago: that Republicans are now planning to pass major cuts to Social Security this year. Specifically, this bill is being introduced by Rep. Sam Johnson, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee's Social Security Subcommittee, the committee with jurisdiction over Social Security.

Until then let me cover the broad details of the plan.

Unlike the Bush-era plan to partially phase out Social Security and replace it with private investment accounts, this plan takes a different approach. Through a variety of mechanisms, this plan simply cuts benefits and introduces means testing. To look at specific cuts, changes in eligibility and so forth look at pages 2 and 3 on this official Social Security Administration scoring document analyzing the plan. The benefit cuts appear to hit everyone but are weighted toward more affluent recipients.

The big picture is that the current Social Security Trust Fund is predicted to be exhausted in the mid-late 2030s. So roughly in 20 years. People often refer to this as 'bankruptcy'. But that's not really accurate. At that point Social Security would only be able to pay 79% of benefits recipients will be entitled to in those years.

By 2090, that percentage falls to 74%. So it's fairly stable after that drop-off in the 2030s.

Now there are a number of ways to cover that shortfall - the most obvious is to remove or alter the so-called 'cap' on Social Security taxes. Once you get over $118,500 of income per year you stop paying Social Security taxes. So your Social Security tax rate is much higher if you make $50,000 a year than if you make $500,000 a year. Change that and most of the problem disappears. You could also combine ditching the 'cap' with much milder cuts than the one envisioned here. You could also rejigger the cap in ways that allowed you to increase benefits.

Here's a snippet from a 2015 TPM article which notes how the entire shortfall problem could be solved even without getting rid of the cap entirely ...

One of the co-sponsors of that bill was Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), now ranking member of Senate Finance's Social Security subcommittee. Brown spoke in favor of the CAP report last week and told TPM that he would soon introduce legislation of his own. The CAP report said that because of growing income inequality, the percentage of the collective national income taxed for Social Security had fallen from 90 percent to 83 percent. Raising the cap in 2015 to again tax 90 percent of the nation's applicable income would close Social Security's $11.1 trillion shortfall over the next 75 years by more than one-fourth, according to CAP.
The plan with this new GOP bill is to proactively solve this problem entirely with cuts and really big cuts. Out over 75 years, the GOP proposal has the Trust Fund growing substantially out into the infinite horizon. In other words, a lot of the cuts are more than are necessary to pay for all benefits even if you leave the 'cap' in place.

I will say that this new bill is different and I think not as bad (extremely low bar) as the partial phase out of Social Security which President Bush tried to push in 2005. Because you have the same essential mechanisms in place. This is a huge benefit cut. Benefits could later be raised again if there was the political will to do so. The means testing component probably does more to endanger the future of the program in political terms.

More soon.

I guess they have to pay for tax cuts and increased military spending they promised...

Yeah but NOTHING can pay for the Tax Cuts and Military Spending. Just look at how much Bush's Tax Cuts and Military adventures cost us!!! These guys NEVER learn. They keep doing the same crap over and over even tho it's been proven not to work and proven to only increase the debt. Sure the rich get more wealthy and things look good for a short time, but it's a Sugar High. All of the stuff Trump is doing have that same Sugar High quick boost but no long term value.

The Lincoln Memorial has been the site for many of the United States’ most historic rallies, from the civil rights and anti-Vietnam protests of the 1960s to the Million Man March in 1995. However, for the thousands of women planning to march on Washington following Donald Trump’s inauguration, the landmark won’t be available for rallying.

The National Park Service, on behalf of the Presidential Inauguration Committee, months ago reserved access to the landmark by filing a “massive omnibus blocking permit.” Permits for inaugural events have traditionally reserved most of the National Mall, Pennsylvania Avenue, the Washington Monument, and of course, the Lincoln Memorial, for days and weeks before, during, and after the inauguration, which will take place on Jan. 20, 2017.

Mike Litterst, a spokesman for the National Park Service, said the public will not be barred from these spaces, since they will be open for inaugural events. He also noted that the Presidential Inauguration Committee’s permits were filed a year in advance, 10 months before the organizers of the Women’s March on Washington filed a permit for the Lincoln Memorial — and permits are generally issued on a “first come, first serve” basis.

The Women’s March on Washington was organized for Jan. 21, the day following the inauguration and was set to be held at the Lincoln Memorial. According to a Facebook event, over 136,000 people are due to attend. Litterst said the National Park Service is currently working with the march’s organizers to find an alternative space for people to gather. He said the regulations being used for the 2017 inauguration do not differ from the rules used for the past two inauguration ceremonies since the current rules came into effect in 2008, before Barack Obama’s first inauguration the following year.

“The process and the procedures that we’re using for 2017 are the same rules that we’ve used for the past two inauguration ceremonies,” he said.

http://time.com/4595399/women-march-washington-lincoln-memorial/

The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.

Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.

“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.”

reub wrote:You guys have to stop acting like such whining babies. You lost the election fair and square so just give the guy a chance.

have you read this thread? if you see the content, and you see what you perceive as "whining", then why enter the thread?

obviously it's an emotional time for many of us.

this election was influenced BY A FOREIGN GOVERNMENT. but ok, let's just stop whining.

djsunyc wrote:so the exxon guy leading the SOS search makes even more sense thanks to his ties to putin/russia.