Eliminate income taxes for the 95% on the bottom.

[SwimExpert]

Reducing Social Security benefits effects the elderly and the infirmed. Should they suffer because the wealthy want to get wealthier?

So, the poor and middle class are now "the wealthy"? And eliminating income taxes on them so they can use them as they see fit, to both increase economic activity as well as funding their own retirements, is them wanting to get wealthier?

You're a very strange creature.

 

[The Rabbi]

The bottom 40% have a negative tax rate. THey get back more than they pay in.

That is false.

Wrong.
CBO Top 40 Paid 106.2 of Income Taxes Bottom 40 Paid -9.1 Got Average of 18 950 in Transfers CNS News

Look, you've already been humiliated by the responses in thi thread to your idiotic ideas and theories. Why prolong the pain? Just admit you're stupid and move on to the next thread.

 

[Nosmo King]

Reducing Social Security benefits effects the elderly and the infirmed. Should they suffer because the wealthy want to get wealthier?

So, the poor and middle class are now "the wealthy"? And eliminating income taxes on them so they can use them as they see fit, to both increase economic activity as well as funding their own retirements, is them wanting to get wealthier?

You're a very strange creature.

Cutting benefits for the elderly and the infirmed makes no sense whatsoever. The way Congress has been bought by the wealthy, any adjustments to the marginal tax rate will inevitably mean a windfall for the rich.

 

[g5000]

The 65 year old of today is far healthier and fit than the 65 year old of 1935. Simple fact.

Actually, it's far more subjective. Yes, the average 65 year old is more fit today, but there isn't that much difference in the health of an average 65 year old today than in 1935. The main reason the average lifespan has increased is because medical development has provided far more effective treatments for the maladies that effect older individuals. Cancer, heart attacks, and strokes are substantially more survivable today than they were back then. Longer lifespans are not due to the frailty of old age setting in later. It's because frailty is more survivable.

But more to the point, I think you missed the underlying problem. Increases in average fitness longevity do not match increases in average life longevity in a year-for-year manner. Currently, the average lifespan for American males is 77.5 years. Back in 1935 it was 60 years. That's a 17+ year increase. If we envision that increase continuing the same rate, then 80 from now we could expect an average lifespan of 95 years old. Do you really think it's reasonable to expect people to continue working until they are 87 years old (your proposed retirement age of 70 plus 17 years to account for increased life expectancy)?

Your suggestion to index the retirement age to population demographics is interesting. But I think it would be too volatile to be effective. It would be subject to yearly variations in birth and death rates. At the current moment, the oldest 9% of the population is older than it will likely be when Generation X starts to retire. The retirement age would constantly be going up and down. There would be instances of people reaching their retirement age one year but dropping below it the following year.

What is wrong with the retirement age going up and down?

 

[SwimExpert]

Cutting benefits for the elderly and the infirmed makes no sense whatsoever.

Are you saying it's impossible for people to take care of themselves? Have the elderly not had a lifetime proceeding their old age? Did they not have the opportunity to save their own retirement funds?

I said we should cut spending. I did not say to what end benefits should be cut. It seems to me that we should refocus the remaining spending more appropriately.

The way Congress has been bought by the wealthy, any adjustments to the marginal tax rate will inevitably mean a windfall for the rich.

Let me get this straight....eliminating taxes on the bottom 95% of earners equates a windfall for the rich? Moron, rich people would be the only ones left paying income taxes. How is that a "windfall" for the rich?

 

[nodoginnafight]

The 65 year old of today is far healthier and fit than the 65 year old of 1935. Simple fact.

Actually, it's far more subjective. Yes, the average 65 year old is more fit today, but there isn't that much difference in the health of an average 65 year old today than in 1935. The main reason the average lifespan has increased is because medical development has provided far more effective treatments for the maladies that effect older individuals. Cancer, heart attacks, and strokes are substantially more survivable today than they were back then. Longer lifespans are not due to the frailty of old age setting in later. It's because frailty is more survivable.

But more to the point, I think you missed the underlying problem. Increases in average fitness longevity do not match increases in average life longevity in a year-for-year manner. Currently, the average lifespan for American males is 77.5 years. Back in 1935 it was 60 years. That's a 17+ year increase. If we envision that increase continuing the same rate, then 80 from now we could expect an average lifespan of 95 years old. Do you really think it's reasonable to expect people to continue working until they are 87 years old (your proposed retirement age of 70 plus 17 years to account for increased life expectancy)?

Your suggestion to index the retirement age to population demographics is interesting. But I think it would be too volatile to be effective. It would be subject to yearly variations in birth and death rates. At the current moment, the oldest 9% of the population is older than it will likely be when Generation X starts to retire. The retirement age would constantly be going up and down. There would be instances of people reaching their retirement age one year but dropping below it the following year.

What is wrong with the retirement age going up and down?

IMHO - not a thing.

We are living much longer and enjoying better health much longer than when this stuff was set up. No problem with me if we work longer too.

 

[g5000]

Cutting benefits for the elderly and the infirmed makes no sense whatsoever.

Are you saying it's impossible for people to take care of themselves? Have the elderly not had a lifetime proceeding their old age? Did they not have the opportunity to save their own retirement funds?

History has shown that not everyone earns enough money to carry them through their retirement. The quality of life for seniors has been vastly improved since the enactment of Social Security and Medicare.

If someone is earning a subsistence income, how the hell are they going to save up for retirement?

Social Security rose out of the Depression in which millions of people had their nest eggs wiped out. And recent history has demonstrated that Wall Street is just as predatory as it has ever been.

If you eliminate Social Security, I can guarantee you that America will quickly demand it back when millions of seniors are unable to survive.

And before you say they will able to take the savings from not having a payroll tax, I will point out once again that history shows us in the days before payroll taxes people were still not able to save up for retirement. And they lived a lot less as long as we do!

I said we should cut spending.

Any jackass can say "cut spending". It takes intelligence and courage to say exactly what should be cut and by how much.

You said "cut spending on food stamps". Food stamps only make up $80 billion of the budget. You didn't say eliminate food stamps. Just cut back on them. We have a half trillion dollar deficit, so you have at least $450 billion to go.

 

[g5000]

Ban tax expenditures. Presto, you go from a half trillion deficit to a half trillion surplus.

How do you want to spend that? I say use some to cut the tax rates for everyone, and use the rest to pay down the debt. Once the debt is paid off, lower tax rates even more.

 

[SwimExpert]

The bottom 40% have a negative tax rate. THey get back more than they pay in.

That is false.

Wrong.
CBO Top 40 Paid 106.2 of Income Taxes Bottom 40 Paid -9.1 Got Average of 18 950 in Transfers CNS News

Look, you've already been humiliated by the responses in thi thread to your idiotic ideas and theories. Why prolong the pain? Just admit you're stupid and move on to the next thread.

Humiliated? Not in the slightest. Your own stupidity is your humiliation, not mine. For example, not only are you sourcing an unreliable reference, you're committing fallacy of accident. You are drawing conclusions about individuals, based on a wide sweeping statistic that offers little to no reference.

There are many people who have a zero tax liability. Some are low income, some are very high income. Some have income in a medial range. Your are trying to imply that all people in the bottom 40% receive tax refunds in excess of the taxes they paid. That is a patently false proposition.

 

[SwimExpert]

I'm not sure if this thread is hilarious or depressing. Liberals hating on the idea of people being able to survive without the government spoon feeding them. So called conservatives running scared from putting into action the kind of tried and tested conservative economic plan that gave us one of our best economic times in history, by a champion conservative president.

 

[Chris]

Tax capital gains and income and raise the minimum wage.
Reward work, not ownership.

 

[SwimExpert]

Tax capital gains and income and raise the minimum wage.
Reward work, not ownership.

Raise your own wage. Work for reward, don't demand entitlement for it.