My great aunt ran some welfare agency -- perhaps unemployment -- based in N.Y.C. either for the city or the state. She knew these people and worked on some occupational job-satisfaction task force that created some test in which over eighty per cent of American workers did not like their jobs. No surprise.
The problem is my family's mythology. While my details may be in parts apocryphal, with me contributing, Aunt Lolly was pretty amazing: Ann Arbor under-graduate and Sorbonne Masters. Sadly she died when I was three. I would have liked to have known her; might have gotten me into triple-digit I.Q. territory. 😥😉
Another problem,. Ned, is the use of the word "welfare" frequently interpreted as an unearned gift from the government to an individual. Neither Social Security nor Unemployment benefits are. Both programs are paid for by the working individual. An example of welfare is the 'oil depletion allowance' an unearned gift to the fossil fuels industry which has done NOTHING to earn it.
The fossil fuel industry employs thousands of lobbyists in Washington, D.C., and thousands elsewhere to wine, dine, bribe, suck up to, and generally corrupt the corruptible in Congress.
Just think what this country would be like if political campaigns were publicly financed and lasted weeks instead of months. And politicians could not be bought.
But could that country be this one -- when we all know perfectly well that this one has its K-12 all totally dehumanized, strangled by the profiteers of standardized testing? -- when we all know that this one has its college students massively strangled by the ghoul gargantuan dominance of group identity silos, by biz ed, and by banks and their capture of the most historic debt load ever in U.S. history?
Having worked at an executive level at one of the largest banks in the country, I can tell you that people who actually run the banks concern themselves with profitability, credit quality, soundness, sales, safety and security, growth, the current economy, and whatever glimpse of the coming environment their execs and specialists can provide. There is never any discussion of the confusing gobbledy-gook word salad you mention, something that I’m sure sounded fine when you made it up.
As I suppose the rest of your list originated as personal fever dreams.
I have an acquaintance who promotes standardized testing and has done so for years, sincerely believing, as many do, that it has benefits. He may be wrong, I don’t know.
But the silly, badly motivated conspiratorial spin you try to put on everything is misleading (because it’s made up), distracting, and useless.
And yet, with American energy 85% petro sourced, not to mention plastics, we are all dependent on products from fossil fuels. Oil executives are hardly the only wealthy folks around. And people who work for the industry or supply the industry are not just the very rich. Our dependency mind you has produced much pollution, and thanks to scale, an emerging climate crisis.
Communism I tell you. Pure unAmerican communism. Now we must without further delay, bring back our true dear leader who will lead us from this mire of madness. Who will terminate and release the shackles upon which the Great captains of American Industry have been imprisoned and lead us into prosperity and freedom.
I present to you Our Dear Leader, Orange Fatso Blubber Baby to continue his wise leadership for the next 20 years. May his sons and grandsons follow in his wisen paw steps for the next 100 years.
Before my mother died 40+ years ago, repubs were doing the “modify SS again by calling it entitlement” blather. She was livid, having worked all her life in a hosiery mill and raising eight children. So had my dad. She said I earned it, it’s not a handout. Sadly, she died within a year, so the government was off the hook. Dad followed the next year. Yep, they were the welfare kings and queens that repubs like to denigrate. There should be a memorial somewhere to the victims of the “shirtwaist fire.” Those women and girls were martyrs to the cause of the working poor everywhere. The working poor, and what’s left of the middle class are the backbones of our society. The corporate rich, the trust fund rich, those who manipulate the system while denigrating the labor force, are just pigs slurping at the trough. Teddy R was the last rugged individualist, Ronald R was just all hat, no cattle. The poorest excuse for presidential bona fides, until chump reared his orange, ugly head. Republicans have forgotten what it is to act in good faith, democrats have not.
So very true. Both of my parents died before collecting ONE cent of their EARNED SS benefits. That situation led me to retire early and take my SS right away. I was not leaving money in the government's bank! BTW, when my Dad died (a WW2 vet who served in the jungles of New Guinea) he received a paltry $250 death benefit, and insulting sum for a veteran!
Hope your Dad got GI benefits or some recognition. But your Dad was definitely not a sucker or loser. That is the ultimate insult for veterans. BTW, I was supposed to get benefits on what my husband paid into SS. I got a letter saying that I would get $631 dollars if they could give me anything. But sadly, they could not. I had paid into Tex teacher retirement from which I get a paltry sum. Seems that they invested in Enron back in the day, which kept retired educators from reaching millionaire status.
My Dad got zilch! While in New Guinea he contracted malaria and sought compensation but the VA denied his claim. Of course my Dad never talked about it or complained...that is how the greatest generation was, unselfish, patriotic and HARDLY suckers or losers! 45 must be soundly defeated!
I got a letter from SS saying they owed me 48k. Then I got a letter they changed their policy. It is all BS. I tried to fight it. They wore me down and won.
My dad died when I was age 19 and in college. Until I graduated I received a monthly support payment. I believe it was from social security but might have been a benefit to WW2 vets.
There is a memorial to those workers, those girls and women, finally: it was dedicated in 2023. https://rememberthetrianglefire.org/memorial/. It's on the site of the factory in lower Manhattan.
Lordy, just kids. And now in Arkansas, they can work in meat packing. I was afraid that chump would choose Huckabee Sanders as VP. Bet the "powers" would have loved that.
Teddy R was not a rugged individualist, being the son of a very wealthy family. But like his cousin, he knew he was lucky, while others, through no fault of their own, were not.
Well said JD! I, too, abhor the word entitlement applied to Social Security. My husband & I worked long hard hours to pay those taxes. We were probably lower to middle class. We both had college degrees. My husband had a master’s from
Penn. I was a nurse, he a social worker. We didn’t have huge salaries. My entire check for 4 years went to pay our daughter’s college without any student loans. He died right after applying for SS, and I am grateful for the benefits I receive. Add to that, Medicare, or I might be living in my car…
Sounds like my family. Counselor, nurse, contract specialist, worked to pay college also. Thanks to husbands choices, I have most of his retirement, and health ins. So grateful. Worried about my two grands though.
Fay you make a great point about welfare. Tax dollars to the undeserving? The rich get all sorts of tax breaks, but help the poor/needed oh no that makes people dependent on the government. But the poor spend every dollar they get which does in fact stimulate the economy. When the wealthy save a dollar in taxes those dollars do not get spent, hence do not stimulate the economy.
SSI, as opposed to SSA, are welfare payments. SSI benefits recipients, landlords, medical suppliers, grocers, ad infinitim.
As president, Trump tried and failed to cut all benefits drastically. SSI, Supplemental Security Income, is not the same as retirement benefits and neither are disability benefits based on FICA contributions. But some Republicans wanted to replace the entire system. GWB tried to privatize it.
“The Trump proposal would cut SSI by more than $8 billion over the next decade, shrinking benefits for roughly a quarter of a million children with disabilities by between 38 and 66 percent. It would also increase SSI’s administrative costs and improper payments”.
The Republican study group wanted to "sunset" all benefits. It "scored" an attempt to cut a children's SSI benefits. . CBO Eliminate Supplemental Security Income Benefits for Disabled Children. https://www.cbo.gov/budget-options/54742 (2018)
Background
The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program provides cash assistance to people who are disabled, aged, or both and who have low income and few assets. In 2018, 15 percent of SSI recipients, or 1.2 million people, are projected to be disabled children under age 18, receiving an average monthly benefit of $686. To receive benefits, those children must have marked, severe functional limitations and usually must live in a household with low income and few assets.
Option
This option would eliminate SSI benefits for disabled children.
When I was an Eligibility Worker Daniel, back in the late 90's early 2000's drug addicts were able to get SSI, on the grounds their addiction was a mental health disease (which it was) therefor these poor souls (mostly men and many veterans from Vietnam and Desert Storm) were able to get a minimum (I think it was around $619 back then. We usually got a conservator to handle the money and see it went for housing and food. The problem at that time was Social Security who ran the program although it didn't fund it, denied all disability on the first application. Since these men were incapable4 of representing themselves we had some attorneys who for a small flat rate taken from the lump sum would get the necessary paperwork and file the appeal for them, The client would get the check before the conservator could get it from them and many of them overdosed and killed themselves. We still treat the mentally ill in the same poor fashion today.
Welfare was not a dirty word when I was little. It was a policy aimed at the welfare of all the people. I doubt the distinction between welfare and paid-in benefits was a big deal. I never took entitlement programs as a pejorative term; simply benefits to which people were entitled for paying into them.
They do get spent, one way or another, whether directly, or through investments / savings. I won't argue about the wealth inequality issue on this one. There is huge imbalance here.
One more reason to vote for Harris/Walz. In 2022, one of the first bills Tim Walz signed into law was our 100% renewable energy standard which means by 2040, we Minnesotans will have (mostly) carbon free electricity. And farmers and other land owners will be able to garner income from turbines or solar arrays sited on their property including roof tops. And turbine technicians- who can attend a community college to earn their certificate in MN free of charge if their family’s income is below $80K, can earn a six figure salary maintaining the system. Yeah, you read that right. A six figure salary.
If Harris/Walz can make the case nationally of the incredible economic benefits of renewables, we might yet stop climate collapse. And gut the power of the oil lobby bent of destroying the planet for a buck.
Ned, my husband ran the UI unit at the Oregon Employment Agency, so I heard about the ins and outs of this program. For awhile it was well run and now it is a mess, thanks in part to incompetent agency heads (picked by the governor) and an antiquated computer system, now finally updated, but still not working that well. One of the things that really irked him were people who criticized the agency, but were first in line when they needed it.
As a card-carrying hypocrite myself, I must confess to not being above doing that. One thing to which you sensitize me, Michele, is the humanity of the much maligned bureaucrats; they often catch the flak that should be aimed higher. Thank you for showing me the way.
But, that is the Republican stategy to denigrate every program that benefits individuals. Imagine the financial boost of eliminating the employer contribution portion of social security. While SS designers probably saw this employer contribution as a form of earned compensation to the employee, I think most employers feel it is unearned compensation.
regardless, every cent ends up fueling the demand side of the economy, in turn wages and profits of the businesses which provide goods and services at all levels.
This is an excellent point - in some ways the most relevant point in a discussion of the various government support programs. "Every cent" puts a floor under demand.
As all individual support systems (SS, AFDC..welfare in the form of food stamps, WIC, housing payments, Medicaid) do....they all fuel the economy, either through dollars that supplement living expenses, pay for health care that keeps rural hospitals open or work programs, or childcare programs, etc. etc. The unearned corporate welfare just enriches their bottom line allowing stock buy backs and larger CEO compensation. Nothing for the economy here. Nothing for the nation here.
in any case, SS contributions are countered with price increases, something a wage earner cannot. Their personal demand is deferred until "pension payout" time. The economy is fundamentally circular, and behaves much like a biological ecosystem.
Well, we Social Security recipients have not actually paid for our benefits. We have paid into Social Security, but most of us will collect much more than we paid in (that’s one reason the fund has to be topped up every once in a while). And the old depletion allowance has a theoretical justification, although given what we know of global warming, it can’t be justified.
One of the most significant acts in our country that has had the most effect on the lives of our citizenships, only rivaled by Theodore Roosevelts designation of Natural park land and the civil rights act of the mid -60’s. Thanks Heather, Ms Perkins truly remarkable!
I admire her for her acute analysis, that the tale sold by the Republicans, of the lone cowboy taking care of himself, “a don’t need nah govment”, is a myth rather than reality. I think that myth holds up only for the very wealthy and very privileged white cowboys…
Yup, that's what Republicans are exactly. Even a suburban white male like me knows that. Republicans have done so much to destroy our government -- and may shut it down again soon -- that they don't deserve to be in any public office.
And as Heather points out in one of her books, "cowboy" originally referred to black cowhands. White "cowboys" referred to themselves as ranch hands or cow men. Or cow hands.
The cowboy myth came later, and all these white dudes in their pickemup trucks and boots and hats wouldn't know which end of a cow to rope.
For the modern so-called cowboy - who regulated the building of those trucks? And who paid for the roads they drive on? No such thing as a rugged individual.
Actually, even the very wealthy got there by other people's labor. Everybody, even the privileged white cowboy was dependent on other people's efforts - who made the saddle? Who made his clothing? Who allowed him to graze his herds on public land? And, or course, he was dependent on the work of members of other species. We are all interdependent.
I totally agree! But this is something that the insanely rich like Bezos Goldfingers and Darth Musk refuse to acknowledge. They think they are descendants of the pharaohs and other god-kings and that they built all their wealth themselves. But as you said, who dug the canals where they can float their yachts in? Who made the highways where they can drive their Teslas? Not Bezos or Musk, but ordinary Americans. They take the ordinary people and their labor, and the democracy and law-and-order systems that gave them freedom and a chance to pursue their wealth completely for granted. They are too rich, too entitled and too self-absorbed to see this interdependence.
"You can earn a lot of money by working hard. But you can only become rich by exploiting other people" - author unknown
That rugged individual looking after his family by himself is complete garbage. 1) Humans are social animals and have a very strong drive to be part of a group. 2) People often grouped themselves together in cities, which in the case of Europe frequently had walls. 3)Lone families out on the frontier did not often fare well. They were easy pickings for marauders of some kind. 4)Rural folks often came together to raise a barn, build a school or church, etc. 5) Ironic isn't it that the Republican folks who promote this rugged individual crap are the group that enforces conformity with a heavy hand. Look at such examples as Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.
Agree with you wholeheartedly on all points! And as to no. 5): it isn't ironic, it's downright hypocritical - but that's one of the foundations of fascism: the double standard of galactic size. Free speech! But as soon you say something they don't like, you should shut the f*ck up and they'll start complaining that they are being censored by the Church of the Left. Freedoms! But not when you want to decide whether you get pregnant or not, or which deity to worship, or who you want to love or marry. I want no government! Except the one that sets the military on those pesky Black people and those loud-mouthed women. No rules! For me, that is; you can go f*ck yourself in a concentration camp, you libtard snowflake. Etc etc.
Bill, don’t forget that Project 2025 attack Medicare by defaulting to Medicare Advantage. If a person doesn’t sign up to start with a Medicare Supplement policy, they will never be able to get the best rate. This is a gift to the health insurance lobby—they can charge whatever they want to seniors. I just heard of another Medicare Advantage policyholder who had needed medical treatment denied; her case manager stated that her Medicare Advantage insurer “denies every physical therapy” that would be approved by regular Medicare.
Don’t we all know people who’d be seriously affected by cuts to Medicare and Social Security? Here are some quick and easy talking points by Robert Reich for us to help spread the word:
"Project 2025 includes Medicaid caps that would jeopardize coverage for 18.5 million people.
It also proposes privatizing Medicare and ending the govt's ability to negotiate lower Rx costs."
Privatization is the beginning and end of all Republican ideas. Nothing pisses me off more. Slurp, slurp, slurp, and what they are slurping is the result of the “lessers” working.
And bills without COLA's included as well. For example, when H-1Bs were established to allow cheap offshore technicians to work in the US, they put a cap on their income at $60K/year. At the time that was around the average salary for programmers in the US. Companies were panicking as you recall, about Y2K because to save precious storage we had omitted the 2 position century from most dates. For a programmer, it was basically grunt work to identify, expand the dates, fix a reusable date calculations, compile the programs, test and verify results and implement.
Anyway, by 1995, $60K per year was a joke because demand for programmers had shot up and the supply hadn't kept up. And here we are 35 years later with the $60K cap in place. With a COLA that amount would likely be close to what the average programmer makes today.
I have worked with hundreds of Indians, most of whom I have the utmost respect, that come to the US and share living quarters with 2 to 4 others. And the companies they work for treat them badly and take back part of their salaries as housing fees or other expenses.
And, of course this hurts the American programmers and engineers by keeping supply high and therefore salaries are kept low. And now that it's so easy to hire off shore programmers, they are paid around 20-25% of what they would make if they relocated to the US.
Yes, the large financial services firms like GE Capital first brought in a few Indians to do Y2K and the projects went well because it was cookbook programming. Very little analysis needed. So several companies concluded that programmers are widgets so they fired their programmers and brought in Indians for half the price. It was a disaster for many companies as few Indian programmers understood the insurance applications or how to modify them for new sophisticated products like Variable Universal Life and Variable Annuities.
GE Capital went all in and total turned their IT areas over to Indian consulting firms. It was a total disaster. Within 2 years their wasn't an Indian programmer working on an GE Capital system.
A few other companies had similar experiences but only replaced a portion of their IT staffs.
Without the greedy management and Y2K and Congress messing up the H-1B Visa immigration bill, it's likely there would be more well paid American programmers.
If I don’t continue to get Social Security in the future, I will be homeless because what I make and Social Security does not cover housing food insurance. The very basic needs and I worked my whole life.
Mary, I appreciate your pointing this out. Many here in FL think that Medicare Advantage is part of Medicare. I have wondered how in the world Medicare Advantage was allowed to use the term Medicare in their title. Seems to me it would be illegal, to fraudulently imply that they are something they are not. Many seniors have been fooled by this false advertising and think that it's Medicare that is not giving them the benefits they expected! My own supplemental policy (Anthem BCBS) gave me the option of switching over to Medicare Advantage, claiming the cost might be to my advantage. But, as I usually do, I read the small print and declined.
Carol, this is very interesting to me because I am paying $147 per month for AARP's United Healthcare insurance to supplement my Medicare. I have believed it necessary in order to cover my psychiatric and chronic pain management, which was only slightly covered by Medicare. Since Covid, 95 percent of my care is virtual and I only physically see my primary care once a year. Have I been paying that $147 unnecessarily for the last decade?
Paula, all supplemental plans cost money. Your plan sounds very reasonable to me. Since Medicare only pays a portion of our medical bills, it is helpful to have a supplemental plan that covers the remainder. It's just that Medicare Advantage, which often has lower fees than other supplemental plans, has many restrictions, such as which providers one can use. My point was that many people inadvertently sign up for it assuming it is part of Medicare. It is a private insurance plan and not part of our Medicare from the government. Here is a useful site that breaks it all down:
"... not funded by Medicare. " not exactly true. If you choose a Medicare advantage plan, much of the premium you would have to pay is covered out of the same Medicare funds that would pay for Medicare parts a and b. If the actual premium is higher than what the plan you choose costs. You have to pay the extra out of your own pocket. That is why Medicare advantage plans can cost anywhere from $0 to hundreds of dollars a month. It all depends on the plan and its benefits. But the base coat of all Medicare advantage plans are covered by the same dollars that would be used to support your use of Medicare parts a and b.
“ACO REACH uses similar tactics to those found in Medicare Advantage to profit from Medicare by overcharging Medicare, financially incentivizing providers to control healthcare costs for beneficiaries, and increasing the number of beneficiaries in their plans. But while some seniors “choose” to participate in Medicare Advantage, seniors and people with disabilities are auto-enrolled into an ACO REACH through their primary care physicians (PCPs). Thus, it is physicians and physician practices which are being lured into or forced to join the ACO REACH (Many physician practices are being swooped up by private equity or created whole-cloth). Physician practices, or their controllers, are enticed by the “shared savings” they will collect if they save money on their patients, shredding the trust between doctors and patients.”
I have an advantage plan. I loved it at first but it's getting scary. I can't go back to a supplement plan because of a preexisting condition. There ought to be a law!!! I am voting Blue this November. But then again, I almost always have.
Social Security is one of my hot buttons on so many levels. Had the SS funds been kept separate from the General fund and used only for the purposes defined in the original bill, and the money invested in US Government T-Bills or similar bonds the fund would be solvent for many years past the 2035 date. I annuitized my wife's and my contributions at 3% assuming payouts starting in 2024. There would be almost $3 million in the fund with the continuing interest at 3% being sufficient to pay our monthly SS draw -- forever.
Of course we cannot predict how long any of us will draw SS but rich Republicans like Senator Rick Scott of FL who defrauded SS and Medicare out of hundreds of millions of dollars want to take away the only money that millions of the 70 million SS recipients receive.
None of us had an option to NOT pay into SS just as we didn't have an option to pay our Federal Income Tax, but Republicans are dead set on reducing or eliminating SS payouts.
Unfortunately many for profit eldercare entities and even some hospitals have become extractive industries - extracting Social Security and Medicare dollars in return for substandard care.
I think we need to teach children in school about how to manage, at least personal finances. I never learned anything about stocks or annuities or any of those financial tools, and I am the poorer for it.
You describe perfectly how Social Security taxes are kept separate (the Social Security Old Age Trust Fund and the Social Security Disability Trust Fund) and invested only in U. S. Treasury securities.
The problem is that things change.
There are now (relatively) more old people drawing benefits and (relatively) fewer young people working and paying taxes than when current tax rates and benefit rates were established.
The first Social Security Trustees Report in 1941 said, "... the essential assurance of future financial soundness of the system, with its rising rate of disbursement, rests on a graduated increase in contribution rates or provision of income from other sources, or both."
Actually, the baby boomer generation is far larger than any other age group, and when payments to boomers peak in 2034, the slope of the ratio of contributions will return to normal levels.
Once upon a time, I made proposals to flatten the curve. From an ABA article December 01, 2011 FINANCIAL PLANNING
Social Security—Maybe Charity Should Begin at Home
By Daniel F. Solomon
Share:
For most of its history, Social Security was a terrific bargain: our parents and grandparents most probably received significantly more benefits than they paid into the Social Security Trust Fund. The trust fund comprises the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Funds (OASDI, collectively).
In most cases, because our family units could rely on these benefits, they were able to enjoy enough financial independence to send people like us to school so that we could become lawyers—productive and, in some cases, wealthy, members of society. For 75 years, the Social Security Trust Fund has helped enable American society to achieve far beyond the aspirations of its founders, ultimately providing more than subsistence to retirees by also protecting widows, orphans, and disabled people. The dignity provided to needy beneficiaries surely far outweighs the economic value of the funds.
However, financial experts have long predicted a future insolvency of the funds. A majority of Americans have invested in the funds, recognize their social utility, and do not want to burden their heirs. Although there have been legislative attempts to “fix” the system, there is no consensus how to do it. The Congressional Research Service reported:
For example, for workers who earned average wages and retired in 1980 at age 65, it took 2.8 years to recover the value of the retirement portion of the combined employee and employer shares of their Social Security taxes plus interest. For their counterparts who retired at age 65 in 2002, it will take 16.9 years. For those retiring in 2020, it will take 20.9 years.
Geoffrey Kollmann and Dawn Nuschler, “Social Security Reform” (October 2002).
The National Commission on Social Security Reform (informally known as the “Greenspan Commission” after its chairman) was appointed by the Congress and President Ronald Reagan in 1981 in response to a short-term financing crisis that Social Security faced at that time. Estimates were that the OASI Trust Fund would run out of money possibly as early as August 1983. Congress rendered a compromise that extended the retirement age from 65 to 67, through a deal that raised payroll taxes and trimmed benefits enough to keep Social Security solvent. See Jackie Calmes, “Political Memo: The Bipartisan Panel: Did It Really Work?” New York Times, January 18, 2010. However, the legislation addressed only the immediate problem and did not address the long-term viability of the fund. See also Rudolph G. Penner, “The Greenspan Commission and the Social Security Reforms of 1983,” in Triumphs and Tragedies of the Modern Presidency, David Abshire, Editor. Washington: Center for the Study of the Presidency, pp. 129–31.
The George W. Bush administration commission deliberated on the issue and then called for a transition to a combination of a government-funded program and personal accounts (“individual” or “private accounts”) through partial privatization of the system.
President Barack Obama reportedly strongly opposes privatization or raising the retirement age but supports raising the cap on the payroll tax ($106,800 in 2009) to help fund the program. He has appointed a National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which is to report and offer another fix.
Current estimates predict that payroll taxes will only cover 78% of the scheduled payout amounts after 2037. This declines to 75% by 2084. 2010 OASDI Trust- ees Report, Figure II.D2, www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2010/ trTOC.html.
Although the congressional plan was to ensure solvency through Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax, there is a private means to help: to also consider the humanitarian and charitable nature of the Social Security Administration (SSA), which has been possible since a legislative fix in 1972. Before then, bequests naming Social Security or a trust fund as a beneficiary could not be accepted, which caused problems in administration of some estates. Money gifts or bequests may be accepted for deposit by the managing trustee of the OASI and DI funds. Section 170(c)(l) of the Internal Revenue Code lists the U.S. government among the educational or charitable organizations to which donations are acceptable. Gifts must be unconditional, except that the donor may designate to which fund the gift should be donated. If no fund is designated, the gift is credited to the OASI Trust Fund.
However, SSA has not publicized its charitable persona. Although the agency has received some gifts and bequests, they have been insignificant and not given consideration in a possible fix. The concept has been so unimportant to the experts that the Annual Statistical Supplement to the Social Security Bulletin does not specify how much the administration has received in gifts and bequests. Total revenue from gifts to the trust funds has been quite small. From 1974 to 1979 the most received in any one year was $91,949.88. During that period, the average annual amount was only $39,847. In 1980, almost two-thirds of the gifts were less than $100. The median gift size was $50. One person, for example, donated $13.11. She arrived at that amount by applying 5.85% (the employee tax rate then in effect) to her benefit amount and donated it to help “‘shore up’ the sagging, dwindling Social Security fund.” However, the 2010 Social Security Trustees Report lists them as about $98,000 (www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2010/III_ cyoper.html#2). Compared to many other charities, this is a paltry amount.
Apparently, SSA has never done a feasibility study nor marketing research to determine how an aggressive campaign could raise funds to support Social Security, or how gifts and bequests could reduce the current estimates of impending doom. According to some estimates total deductions taken for all charities next year would be $413.5 billion. Estimates for fiscal year 2011 are that SSA will spend $730 billion. That amount is already covered through “contributions” (taxes), but it is reasonable that charitable contributions to the trust fund could significantly lessen taxpayer exposure for impending doom, if not return the fund to solvency.
As lawyers, we have the capacity to remind our families, our clients, and the public at large that there is a way to contribute to help endow future generations in the pursuit of the same kind of social stability that Social Security provided to our parents and grandparents.
Daniel F. Solomon is an administrative law judge at the U.S. Department of Labor, member of the ABA House of Delegates, past chair of the National Conference of Administrative Judiciary, Judicial Division, president of the Federal Administrative Law Judges Conference, and author of Breaking Up with Cuba (McFarland, 2011). All opinions expressed are those of the author and not any organization or group.
Raise the cap. They currently are aggressively raising the cap.
Why not charge a Trustifarian tax that pays money into the SS trust fund?
My daughter dated a man who was almost 40 and lived off of his uncle's inheritance. He delivers pizza's part time because he said "it was fun."
In "The Man in the High Castle" they call these people "worthless eaters." They suck resources from society and do nothing. Look at the list of billionaires who pay an average of 8.5% in Federal Taxes, and see how many are "trustifarians."
I don't know the answer, but they are parasites on society and should be required to pay into SS.
After a major in physics and chemistry. I am reminded that AOC won a prestigious micro-biology science prize in her teens.
“Alumni of the International Science and Engineering Fair… have gone on to create major companies, win the Nobel Prize, and now Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has become the youngest member of Congress,” said Maya Ajmera, president and CEO of the Society for Science & the Public, and publisher of Science News."
JL - Thanks for the link. AOC is truly amazing. I can't think of anything she wouldn't have excelled at.
Like Obama she was undersold into politics. "Community organizer vs Constitutional Law Professor." "Bartender vs. International Science Award Winner" Marketing works I guess.
I'm not trying to put down bartenders however or community organizers for that matter.
A bartender in Lincoln, NE told me that she had a masters degree in philosophy from UNL. I asked her if she was going to get her PHD. She said, "No, I'd just be one of a thousand bartenders with a PHD in philosophy or political science."
I laughed, but of course she was spot on. I suspect many of us have similar stories about bartenders, waiters and cooks we have had the pleasure to chat with.
Philosophy is way under rated, perhaps because of how, (I get the impression that) it is generally taught, as preparation for for an academic specialty, which if it is once again only preparation for an academic specialty, affords little opportunity for growth. I have some similar thoughts about how the scientific method appears to be taught to those not aiming to be scientific professionals. Education at its best cultivates insights and tools that expand our day to day understandings and competences, and expands our bubble of awareness. I would say something similar about how history is often taught, HCR is an exception.
I attended a college that presented the key philosophical ideas, scientific thinking, and history as an ongoing evolutionary process of our current circumstances as tools that we could incorporate into our own kit, and pick up on the state of understanding where others left off; irrespective of our specific career goals, or pursuits of happiness. That's a WORKING, incorporated understanding of how and why those disciplines work, and why they matter; as opposed to prep for winning quiz shows. It seems like those who are attracted to this forum were exposed to that more process-oriented approach thinking as well.
In my view, every human being builds and accepts a working philosophy, though it seems that few think of it in those terms. MAGA bristles with unexamined philosophical propositions, as does (and am I biased in supposing more actively contemplated benchmarks?) does liberalism. (Is that not part and parcel of what liberalism is?). I see science, my college major, as underpinned by an epistemology, a foundational theory of knowledge, and (at it's best) a commitment to intellectual integrity.
Applied Enlightenment Era philosophy is evident in US founding documents, and those tools abidingly and beneficially put to work (when applied with good faith and integrity) in the guidance of American culture. There is no "finish line", and we remain on that journey.
Yes, by all means, we need to thank Rachel Scott for her professional behavior and for asking questions of Trump that nobody in mainstream media has the nerve to ask.
She allowed us to see his true "intelligence" and his true mean-spirited nature.
I only wish his followers could see that side of him.
I wonder if de Toqueville would find Americans "so generous, so kind, so charitable desposed" If he witnessed a Trump rally.
We definitely need to thank Rachel Scott for her courage.
And yes, Rump's cult followers will see his stupid and mean-spirited nature - but they will worship him even more for it, because they want to be a racist, misogynistic a**hole just like their orange idol. It's a cult after all.
We can only hope that voters somewhere in the middle are appalled by Rump's behaviour and have them reconsider voting for him...
An extreme sociopath appears incapable of compassion, but we all have a dose of reptilian nature", some more than others. Nature and nurture. Demagogues are skilled at "summoning the devil" in our human nature. Japan, Germany and Italy are different today then the were in WWII. Still, the danger never goes entirely away. It seems to be in our genes as well as our collaborative political values.
The simple fact that everyone with a shred of integrity gets threatened by Trump's MAGATs should be enough to tell us who Trump is! He is not only a narcissistic sociopath, but also a stochastic terrorist.
I think it is also worth noting that ALL of the social safety net programs were initiated under Presidents that were Democrats. Eleanor Roosevelt may be the most influential First Lady ever and FDR was smart enough to listen to her.
I would argue that most of the First Ladies are/were wiser than their husbands and have saved us all from mistakes they might have otherwise made. From what I have read, even Melania was an influential adviser to DonOLD as hard as that is to believe.
Yes, I read the Perkins biography - excellent - and I just finished reading Doris Kearn Goodwin's book about FDR and Eleanor in the 1940s, which was also really good. I learned a lot.
We need more Woodys to tell the tale, or sing the truth as only they can. Listening to lyrics these days is a crap shoot. But when they hit the mark, it’s a bulls eye…
Dear Heather, in the spirit of Frances Perkins, I offer this; Advocacy for Breastfeeding Mothers, for family support:
Today I talked to a dear friend, who is a young nursing mom. We talked about the kind of community support needed for moms to get 24 weeks of time off, to be able to nurse the baby 24/7. My friend is in one of the growth spurt stages, at about 3 months, when the baby is nursing every hour or 2. This is what brings in a bigger milk supply. She is so tired, but she is committed to doing what she can, to help her baby grow. Her baby was premature, and that makes this even more important.
There is a ton of data that childcare issues really matter. If our political candidates will address this, and say they advocate helping get women "disability" (healthy!) time- off for nursing newborns, we will save money on pediatric hospitalizations. We will increase family stability at a time of major exhaustion for women trying to nurse 24/7. We will help babies get nurturance and basic trust formation, which is the most important baseline for healthy personality and character development.
I would like this issue to be in the Democratic platform, that we are advocating for women to get 24 weeks time off for nursing and being home with babies. Even if they are NOT able to nurse, the mother-child bond is strengthened by being able to BE together. The mother mirrors the feelings of the baby, and this connection with the baby is vital to healthy growth. This is not being punitive to those who cannot nurse, it is trying to advocate for the best-case possibility. This will reduce food allergies in children. It will strengthen physical and mental development, and protect children from early infectious disease spreading in communities. When I got this idea passed through the California Medical Association in 2004, we did not have the budget in California to make it happen. But the fastest signatures for my petition were from DADS and GRANDPAS! They see their wives and daughters struggling to do the best for the babies, and they immediately signed on. We can change the ethos of this country from "workaholic" and frenetic, and only caring about individuals, to family-oriented and sustainable development. We can undo decades of forcing overwork on women who are trying to be homemakers and also hold jobs and be responsible members of society. IF the dads and grandfathers will help us, this can become the most popular political point in the campaign. Babies cannot vote, or we would WIN!
Help us help families to get the support they need! 95% of women are working, and we all need help to be able to stay sane and be good mothers. Please pass this on! Copy and paste. Send it to my favorite coach-- Tim Walz! Ask the Democrats you know to put it into the discussions in the Convention! THANK YOU!
We must not leave the fathers out of the plan. Many places have family leave for both mothers and fathers since it is also important for babies to bond with their fathers from infancy.
I have a nephew with a generous paternity leave plan - he and his wife alternated who stayed home and, together, were able to have a parent at home for the first 4 or 6 months after their daughter was born - I thought that was wonderful. My son, on the other hand, who is a lawyer in NYC, got 2 weeks and was pretty much on call for all of it.
The dads get paternity leave, but not that long a time. In California, they can get up to 12 weeks, but 8 weeks paid time off. It is uneven. It will be great if the Harris/Walz team is able to put a plan out there which works to make flexible time off possible for the maximum number of parents.
Because it's an election year, of course the Republicans are claiming they will protect Social Security. But as sure as tomorrow's sunrise, they'll look to strangle it next year if they were to end up in the majority.
It’s easy to forget how and how many times W and Cheney tried to give all the Social Security money to Wall Street, year after year, until they imploded Wall Street too, shining many klieg lights on the idiocy and danger of their prostrate proposals. Look at the US Fed links at <uswealthclock.com> to see just how little the wealthiest suffered from 2007 to 2009, and beyond. ( hint - not at all, compared to the 90% of us )
Frances Perkins is, in my mind, one of two women in the mid 20th Century who while never serving in elected office, so greatly influenced public policy and the Commonwealth of our Country, that we owe them a perpetual debt of gratitude. The other was Rachel Carson, whose "Silent Spring" and subsequent well researched and written books quietly opened our collective minds to another aspect of our constitutional obligation to promote the general welfare albeit in the environmental realm.
Heather's piece tonight is quite lovely. In one aspect however it misses the vivid nature of Ms. Perkins' awakening to her own advocacy. She truly "witnessed" the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, having been on the street outside, literally watching as one young woman after another, all from Southern and Eastern Europe, the "illegals" of their day whether Romanian and Ukranian Jews or Italian and Croatian Catholics, leaped to their death from on high, so as to avoid a most grisly death by fire, in the cramped and locked confines of their abhorrent working circumstances.
The fierce focus that defined Ms. Perkins was borne on that March day in Manhattan.
I'm not sure if it was in the 1962 speech that Heather mentioned, but I know that later in her life, Frances Perkins stated that "the entire New Deal was based upon the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire".
May she, and all the countless, anonymous fellow Americans she fought for never be forgotten
Rachel Carson was hounded by the chemical industry for writing 'Silent Spring', disparaging her as a Communist, threatening her with lawsuits. Even as she was dying from breast cancer made to testify in congressional hearings. She died of the cancer in 1964, within 2 years of the book being published.
Such a remarkable woman who died too young yet wrote some very important, timely and groundbreaking books in those years. The 'Sea Around Us' is also outstanding, well written and researched. But 'Silent Spring' is what many people and organizations from Greenpeace to the EPA have said was a main inspiration for the global environmental movement and concern for a living planet Earth.
The treatment of her is what decent people can expect from rogue corporations if repubs gain more of a foothold. Her books and her voice still resonate with those who have an iota of concern for the future of the earth and her inhabitants. She did not scream into a void, but worked to connect with not only her generation but future ones as well. Repubs just saw her as a nuisance, standing between them and the almighty buck. May her spirit live on. Needed now more than ever.
She certainly succeeded in connecting with and influencing, enormously, succeeding generations, in my opinion. And she told the truth, simply, comprehendably, and without spin, about the disturbing situation that she witnessed - unlike the RWNJs of the Heritage Society and their ilk. Thank goodness for RC.
That seems like heroic now, when she probably just thought that it was the right thing to do. Normal human behavior is so rare with the repub cretins that I am shocked when I see it. That takes absolutely nothing from the actions of Rachel Carson. She is a heroine of the highest order in my book.
As I was trying to think of how to reply to this comment, I watched 2 scrub jays splashing around and drinking from a hanging bird bath just outside my window. Then there were a couple of gold finches, I probably could have touched them they were so close.
I think she didn't just think it was the right thing to do, but imperative that she must take action and say something about the overuse and adverse effects of pesticides/herbicides, what she called biocides.
Rachel Carson would be so disappointed and sad to see the conditions of our oceans and new formulated pesticides like neonicotinoids that have been causing massive killoffs of native bees, honeybees, and other pollinators for decades now. She is definitely a heroine for her efforts and research, for posthumously having DDT banned, for her words and concern forever remembered by me too.
Thanks. It was a defining moment for the abuses of worker that was also horrifying and widespread without governmental intervention.
"-That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men (sic), deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,"
"Rugged individualism" has it's role, but it's only part of the story. We are a deeply social species. Baby sea turtles hatch and scramble to the surf when mom's long gone. As newborns, we would hardly survive a day without others; and I can "do my own thing" because a learned from others, and am aided by others in many ways, including collaboratively protecting a safe enough environment in which it's safe enough to be meaningfully an individual.
We have driven by the Frances Perkins Center when it wasn't open, but it is very high on our bucket list to be able to visit when it is open.
For a video on the August 15, 2021 FPC Garden Party that we had first hoped to attend, see the following link. The featured speakers were Juana Rodriguez-Vazquez (once an immigrant farm worker like a friend who became the Executive Secretary to the head of US West), Dr. Heather Cox Richardson, and Senator Elizabeth Warren (who had a podium made from barn wood by one of the sponsors of the FPC, and used it all across the country during her Presidential run).
Their messages are every bit as meaningful today as they were 3 years ago tomorrow.
In watching Governor/Coach Walz speech to AFSCME members he talked about project 2025 changing child labor laws. Arkansas has already done it. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has already changed child labor laws so that kids can work in meat packing plants. Unions gave us the 40 hour work week, the 8 hour work day, child protection. If trump's masters get him into the White House &:the presidency they will gut everything that FDR & unions & other labor supporters have attained for the every day Joe & Jane that work. In a country where executives get insanely high salaries & bonuses by manipulating prices, stock buy backs, dividends etc it's obvious that there is more than enough money to go around. Those executives would have no positions or salaries if they didn't have employees doing the work, manufacturing the product, providing the "elbow grease" to get the job done. But it seems those same bosses ignore the importance of a living wage in favor of another yacht or mansion for themselves.
The Greed of most million/ billionaires is unmatched. It is grotesque. And with all that money they are buying the type of government that will keep the money rolling in to them! Everyone else be damned!
This is the time to get the country back for the working person & make the grotesquely wealthy pay their fair share.
Child labor laws -- you'd have thought those would have been sacrosanct, ever since the 19th century. You'd have thought. You'd have been wrong.
Broadly speaking, two forces, two parties at work in the USA, the party of Cain and the party of Abel... the party of "Am I my brother's keeper?" (No. My brother's killer.) And that of men and women well aware of how we depend on one another, for we're all in this together.
But when we come to Sarah Huckabee Sanders enabling the employment of kids in meat packing plants, that's the kind of thing you'd expect of a cruel foreign invader... not of your own people. Plainly another hangover from slave owning.
* * *
What passes for "rugged individualism" so divides and atomizes human communities that we end up with mindless mass conformism. A strong sense of individual responsibility -- thinking for oneself, questioning hand-me-down notions, answering for oneself, that is one thing; that "-ism" and all the assorted ideological mindrot that comes with it, is quite another. A diseased, even criminal, mentality, as opposed to a healthy one.
Return to normalcy, I notice that we share the keywords GROTESQUE and GROTESQUELY, and that we are both using them in relation to the absurdly showy ultra-vulgarity that goes with limitless unassuageable greed.
It was architecture that got me using these words, first in Ireland, later in Russia -- especially in Moscow, where reactions to the dull uniformity of socialist housing took such ridiculously perverse forms.
But the spread of gross, overblown ugliness has been worldwide, starting with cars, infecting souls, contaminating entire societies.
No humor. Striking, the total absence of any sense of the ridiculous... how so many human beings, both individuals and masses, have come to look and behave like caricatures.
MAGA, with its Coney Island sideshow Caesar... and the juvenile mine's-bigger-than-yours idiocy of so many of our political, hitech and financial giants. Carnival giants, egos like galaxies.
I read your 'letters' daily. I am a single, elderly woman who worked many years and now benefits from Social Security and its related programs. I was moved and inspired to read about Frances Perkins and what she accomplished directly and through enlisting others. I knew about the horror of the Triangle Shirt Fire. But I didn't realize all that went into forming a structure that our country could use for its citizens who needed support and/or assistance. Thank you so much for reawakening my sense of our country's history with its glory and its shame. Somehow after reading your letters, I do feel some hope for our future.
I receive my late wife's survivor Social Security Benefits since her death from pancreatic cancer. My brother during his struggles with mental illness also benefits from Social Security.
I am not a fan of knowing that some of my federal income tax is helping Israel drop bombs in Gaza. However, as a self employed person, I pay Social Security gladly, knowing that the money goes where it is needed...
I am concerned, however, about the system's solvency...
I don’t know why more people are not talking about raising the ceiling or even eliminating the ceiling on the payroll tax. That would keep Social Security solvent for decades, depending on whether they raise or eliminate it
Yes! Eliminate the ceiling on FICA taxes. And apply FICA taxes to all income, not just wage income. It is unfair for poor and middle-class wage earners to pay over 14% of their compensation (including the employer contribution to their FICA taxes), while people with annual incomes in the millions pay close to 0% in FICA taxes. Scrap the cap to put Social Security on a sound basis and to make it closer to fair. Not fair, mind you. That would require progressive FICA taxes, but let’s just start with flat FICA taxes. What we have now is regressive FICA taxation.
Okay let's try to be a little bit fair here. There are plenty of billionaires. But that doesn't mean all or even most of them have billions in income. Most have billions in assets, but income is significantly lower than their net worth. And right now we don't have a net worth tax although many of us have advocated for that in the future (Liz Warren has been pushing a net worth tax for quite a while).
Yes they are still megarich and most pay far less in taxes as a percentage of their net worth than the rest of us but let's be correct when we criticize this. Thx for listening.
Yes I had the thought that few would make more than a billion or even that much in a year. And yet I think what I said is technically true, or true enough for informal discussion. A news item claimed that over several years Trump paid from 0 to $750 dollars in income tax, and other billionaires have been said to pay nothing. Some years ago. Warren Buffet, who claimed to use no loophole legerdemain, said the the woman who empties his waste basket pays a greater share of her income in tax than he (and he was not OK about it). I overgeneralize o a forum such this as it is informal and long posts more rarely read, but yes, i want to be fundamentally accurate and informed where I might be slipping.
Parenthetically. HRC has written more than once about how old school Republicans introduced a graduated federal income tax to pay for the Civil War. They reasoned that it was only fair that those more easily pay a proportionally larger share should do so.
Warren Buffet is not the only one proposing taxes on wealth (that is, net worth). Piketty’s data shows that without wealth taxes (together with steeply progressive income taxes) capitalist economies are intrinsically unstable. So, wealth taxes (on the extremely wealthy, not on the bottom 99%) are a requirement for stability, not a luxury. And yes, wealth taxes would require the holders of wealth to cash in sone of their wealth annually to pay their wealth taxes. That is not a bug. It is part the purpose of wealth taxes.
We are talking about annual income, not wealth. Wealth tax is another matter. According to Piketty, who has the data, we should have wealth taxes too, if we want a stable capitalist system. But FICA is a a tax on annual income, not wealth.
They do pay lower taxes on capital gains, which for many high income people is substantial. Many view this as double taxation-money you earn then invest is taxed when you sell the stock or other asset-home, art, jewelry, etc., but taxes are only on the amount above what you paid.
That's only part of the many options to reduce taxation that are only available to the well off (including me, since my retirement income comes from investments). I think the wealthier you are the more that is true, which is to say nothing of shadowy offshore shenanigans, much of which is "perfectly legal" even though an obvious con. Big corporations do it openly, let alone legally anonymous shell corporations that take a Sherlock Homes to even identify who owns them. It is innately easier for those with money to make disproportionately more, something that the rules should regulate, not accelerate.
Well, now that the trust fund is run down, there is nothing to raid. We need to tax all forms of income for Social Security.
Edit: I'm mistaken, there is still money in the trust fund. We just need to tax more to back the funds withdrawn in order to not further raise the national debt.
Mim…..^^^^THIS!!!^^^^ There should be no ceiling on the payroll tax IMHO…I mean, really, the wealthiest among us can’t cough it up??!! Love the saying “make a living, not a killing”…..when does one actually have “enough”??
The US Constitution, with Amendments, attempts to support justice for the individual AND the society. The rights of both are inextricably intertwined. A free, open and just society knows that individual rights and social justice are two ways of looking at the same thing.
I sure hope so. even Obama was pushing a round about cut to SS benefits with the "Chained CPI" (which didn't fly). Ike (who could not have imagined imagined the power hate radio and Internet in the US) said:
“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
In today’s climate he would be a center-left Democrat. It seems to me he was the last really decent Republican politician, certainly President. (My parents and some of my friends’ parents were very decent, honorable people who were Republicans, but not politicians.)
👍 Agree about Ike. He was the first president I was “aware” of as a kid—tho’ only in the way a kid is aware of politics. I came to understand, as the Republicans who replaced him in office, that he mostly stood apart from and “above” them. Some years ago I remarked to a friend that he was the last Republican president I admired.
From a letter from President Eisenhower to his brother, Edgar Newton Eisenhower, November, 8 1954 with more context:
"Now it is true that I believe this country is following a dangerous trend when it permits too great a degree of centralization of governmental functions. I oppose this — in some instances the fight is a rather desperate one. But to attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by it. The political processes of our country are such that if a rule of reason is not applied in this effort, we will lose everything — even to a possible and drastic change in the Constitution. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon “moderation” in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H.L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
Eisenhower was conservative with a small "c" but clearly in the country before party camp. Nixon was more of an opportunist, and though most hold Reagan in much higher regard than Nixon, I think Reagan was worse. It wasn't really "government" that Reagan was attacking (his party has used every trick in the book to dominate government since) but rather the of, by and for the people version of it.
I think it is hard to believe Eisenhower was a Republican insofar as what we call Republican today is really nothing of the sort. MAGA openly rejects the Republic and clamors for some form of dictator. That would sound alarmist if Trump had not flirted with promising to be one, and points to current dictators (even North Korea's Kim) as models of good governance; to say nothing of Project 2025. His claim of not having to vote after the coming election is ominous however you interpret it.
I certainly agree with you that Reagan in pure political terms was far worse than Nixon. NIxon's principle problem was getting caught for his own paranoia in Watergate. Reagan took the country down a very dark path which has led us to today.
And i think Eisenhower would almost never be what is now considered to be a Republican.
Correction - they are now Texas oil billionaires, their numbers are not negligible and they are not stupid. Ike lived in a more sane time, although he might argue the point.
They had to point out to Dr. Evil in "Goldmember" that a million dollars is not what it used to be, but also for decades more and more of the total ownerhip and politcal influence of America has run to the 1%, exactly what "Reaganomics" was designed to deliver.
The Eisenhower era was both both more and less sane, but what HCR calls "the Liberal Consensus" was certainly saner than virtual civil war. Economic equity and opportunity were in some ways more reasonable, but social equity (and with it, economic injustices) more stratified for minorities (including gays) and women. Far less w*ke.
Wasn't it Everett Dirksen who said a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money. It was in junk bond idiocy days, so it might have been millions back then. A million dollars is not what it used to be. Explains a lot. The rich are feeling poorer and need to compensate. . Ha
Many voters who pay the tax throughout the year are unaware of the payroll tax ceiling.($168,600 for 2024). Let’s keep sharing with every voter we talk with and ask..Do you think this is fair?📣
I almost couldn’t bear what W/Dickie did with my tax money, same with chump. Now, as a recent widow, I pay more than ever. I’d love for it to go to something besides another yacht for greedy bitches and bastards of the Republican persuasian
The most extreme of them claim absolutely nothing should be provide without private profit; schools, roads, the military. I recall some red state outlawed municipally operated Internet access, literally arguing it deprived businesses of the rightful profit. It's as extreme and unworkable as the argument that everything should belong to the state. The right tool for the right job works for me. Like you really shouldn't hammer nails with a microscope.
Personally, I would like for the internet to be like the PO, a public utility. They would want to turn it over to Boeing. Good example of what can go wrong...
In eye opening exhibit. Of course Britain had produced powerful and crafty monarch Queens. Marie Curie had won two Nobel Prizes. Weird how difficult it is to pry prejudice out our our sense of normalcy. Some have yet to be convinced. And good for FDR for "getting it".
My father was a self employed grocery store owner in 1935 and was not required to contribute to Social Security but he did. What a difference it made in his retirement. Bless his foresightedness.
We must improve and support Social Security, Medicare, and other safety nets to protect our safety nets from greedy, rich, and wealthy people who gain wealth and power through the toils and suffering of workers, consumers, and taxpayers. 💙
There are nations in which nearly all meaningful wealth is in the hands of a few families, while most persons scratch for survival. Reaganomics has been pushing us that way for decades, and the "GOP" is eager to push us even farther. What's in it for us?
Bless Frances Perkins, and all the Democrats who work to keep and improve Social Security. We must elect Harris/Walz!
My great aunt ran some welfare agency -- perhaps unemployment -- based in N.Y.C. either for the city or the state. She knew these people and worked on some occupational job-satisfaction task force that created some test in which over eighty per cent of American workers did not like their jobs. No surprise.
The problem is my family's mythology. While my details may be in parts apocryphal, with me contributing, Aunt Lolly was pretty amazing: Ann Arbor under-graduate and Sorbonne Masters. Sadly she died when I was three. I would have liked to have known her; might have gotten me into triple-digit I.Q. territory. 😥😉
Another problem,. Ned, is the use of the word "welfare" frequently interpreted as an unearned gift from the government to an individual. Neither Social Security nor Unemployment benefits are. Both programs are paid for by the working individual. An example of welfare is the 'oil depletion allowance' an unearned gift to the fossil fuels industry which has done NOTHING to earn it.
Can't really say NOTHING, Fay.
The fossil fuel industry employs thousands of lobbyists in Washington, D.C., and thousands elsewhere to wine, dine, bribe, suck up to, and generally corrupt the corruptible in Congress.
Just think what this country would be like if political campaigns were publicly financed and lasted weeks instead of months. And politicians could not be bought.
I can imagine such a country, Harvey.
But could that country be this one -- when we all know perfectly well that this one has its K-12 all totally dehumanized, strangled by the profiteers of standardized testing? -- when we all know that this one has its college students massively strangled by the ghoul gargantuan dominance of group identity silos, by biz ed, and by banks and their capture of the most historic debt load ever in U.S. history?
Having worked at an executive level at one of the largest banks in the country, I can tell you that people who actually run the banks concern themselves with profitability, credit quality, soundness, sales, safety and security, growth, the current economy, and whatever glimpse of the coming environment their execs and specialists can provide. There is never any discussion of the confusing gobbledy-gook word salad you mention, something that I’m sure sounded fine when you made it up.
As I suppose the rest of your list originated as personal fever dreams.
I have an acquaintance who promotes standardized testing and has done so for years, sincerely believing, as many do, that it has benefits. He may be wrong, I don’t know.
But the silly, badly motivated conspiratorial spin you try to put on everything is misleading (because it’s made up), distracting, and useless.
Why not spend some time learning a few facts?
Hey, the Brits do it. But we like corporate sponsored reality television.
Yes, PLEASE!
Agreed, Phil, I should have said nothing beneficial (:-)
In fact Fay, we could even say, something harmful. A welfare that supports something harmful.
And yet, with American energy 85% petro sourced, not to mention plastics, we are all dependent on products from fossil fuels. Oil executives are hardly the only wealthy folks around. And people who work for the industry or supply the industry are not just the very rich. Our dependency mind you has produced much pollution, and thanks to scale, an emerging climate crisis.
Communism I tell you. Pure unAmerican communism. Now we must without further delay, bring back our true dear leader who will lead us from this mire of madness. Who will terminate and release the shackles upon which the Great captains of American Industry have been imprisoned and lead us into prosperity and freedom.
I present to you Our Dear Leader, Orange Fatso Blubber Baby to continue his wise leadership for the next 20 years. May his sons and grandsons follow in his wisen paw steps for the next 100 years.
Don't forget the sarcasm alert, Bill.
One of the finest critiques of such lobbying is the move "Thank You For Smoking"
None of those lobbyists for fundamentally greedy and destructive industries are decent human beings.
I preferred the insider. Mainly because of the casting. Both great films.
Before my mother died 40+ years ago, repubs were doing the “modify SS again by calling it entitlement” blather. She was livid, having worked all her life in a hosiery mill and raising eight children. So had my dad. She said I earned it, it’s not a handout. Sadly, she died within a year, so the government was off the hook. Dad followed the next year. Yep, they were the welfare kings and queens that repubs like to denigrate. There should be a memorial somewhere to the victims of the “shirtwaist fire.” Those women and girls were martyrs to the cause of the working poor everywhere. The working poor, and what’s left of the middle class are the backbones of our society. The corporate rich, the trust fund rich, those who manipulate the system while denigrating the labor force, are just pigs slurping at the trough. Teddy R was the last rugged individualist, Ronald R was just all hat, no cattle. The poorest excuse for presidential bona fides, until chump reared his orange, ugly head. Republicans have forgotten what it is to act in good faith, democrats have not.
So very true. Both of my parents died before collecting ONE cent of their EARNED SS benefits. That situation led me to retire early and take my SS right away. I was not leaving money in the government's bank! BTW, when my Dad died (a WW2 vet who served in the jungles of New Guinea) he received a paltry $250 death benefit, and insulting sum for a veteran!
Hope your Dad got GI benefits or some recognition. But your Dad was definitely not a sucker or loser. That is the ultimate insult for veterans. BTW, I was supposed to get benefits on what my husband paid into SS. I got a letter saying that I would get $631 dollars if they could give me anything. But sadly, they could not. I had paid into Tex teacher retirement from which I get a paltry sum. Seems that they invested in Enron back in the day, which kept retired educators from reaching millionaire status.
My Dad got zilch! While in New Guinea he contracted malaria and sought compensation but the VA denied his claim. Of course my Dad never talked about it or complained...that is how the greatest generation was, unselfish, patriotic and HARDLY suckers or losers! 45 must be soundly defeated!
I got a letter from SS saying they owed me 48k. Then I got a letter they changed their policy. It is all BS. I tried to fight it. They wore me down and won.
It sounds like you and Fay ran into some of the same issues as retired educators.
My dad died when I was age 19 and in college. Until I graduated I received a monthly support payment. I believe it was from social security but might have been a benefit to WW2 vets.
Probably the SS survivors benefit.
My youngest bro got a check as a teenager. Last thing he needed. My parents were retired (he was a surprise). Never did get that.
J. Hall, I am sorry that you faced so BIG a loss at so young an age.
My dad also fought in New Guinea in WWII. I believe his death benefit was the same and he got a headstone.
There is a memorial to those workers, those girls and women, finally: it was dedicated in 2023. https://rememberthetrianglefire.org/memorial/. It's on the site of the factory in lower Manhattan.
Lynn Spann Bowditch, thank you for the very powerful Link. Three 14 year old teens died:
Rosa Grasso,
Kate Leon &
Rosearea Maltese
There was no surname for Lauletta, age 33.
Lordy, just kids. And now in Arkansas, they can work in meat packing. I was afraid that chump would choose Huckabee Sanders as VP. Bet the "powers" would have loved that.
Thank you, they gave us as much by their deaths as any service member, in my opinion
Teddy R was not a rugged individualist, being the son of a very wealthy family. But like his cousin, he knew he was lucky, while others, through no fault of their own, were not.
Rose Kennedy seemed to know that too.
I think President John Kennedy sort of knew that as did Sentors Bobby and Ted. Caroline and John-John seemed to exhibit that humility.
Great comment!!!
JD, my dad had nothing good to say about Rosie as he called FDR, but did not turn down his social security.
Well said JD! I, too, abhor the word entitlement applied to Social Security. My husband & I worked long hard hours to pay those taxes. We were probably lower to middle class. We both had college degrees. My husband had a master’s from
Penn. I was a nurse, he a social worker. We didn’t have huge salaries. My entire check for 4 years went to pay our daughter’s college without any student loans. He died right after applying for SS, and I am grateful for the benefits I receive. Add to that, Medicare, or I might be living in my car…
Sounds like my family. Counselor, nurse, contract specialist, worked to pay college also. Thanks to husbands choices, I have most of his retirement, and health ins. So grateful. Worried about my two grands though.
Here! Here!, JD
Fay you make a great point about welfare. Tax dollars to the undeserving? The rich get all sorts of tax breaks, but help the poor/needed oh no that makes people dependent on the government. But the poor spend every dollar they get which does in fact stimulate the economy. When the wealthy save a dollar in taxes those dollars do not get spent, hence do not stimulate the economy.
SSI, as opposed to SSA, are welfare payments. SSI benefits recipients, landlords, medical suppliers, grocers, ad infinitim.
As president, Trump tried and failed to cut all benefits drastically. SSI, Supplemental Security Income, is not the same as retirement benefits and neither are disability benefits based on FICA contributions. But some Republicans wanted to replace the entire system. GWB tried to privatize it.
See. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Trump, House Republican Cuts to SSI Would Harm Children With Disabilities, Sept. 18, 2017, Kathleen Romig and Guillermo Herrera. https://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/trump-house-republican-cuts-to-ssi-would-harm-children-with-disabilities
“The Trump proposal would cut SSI by more than $8 billion over the next decade, shrinking benefits for roughly a quarter of a million children with disabilities by between 38 and 66 percent. It would also increase SSI’s administrative costs and improper payments”.
The Republican study group wanted to "sunset" all benefits. It "scored" an attempt to cut a children's SSI benefits. . CBO Eliminate Supplemental Security Income Benefits for Disabled Children. https://www.cbo.gov/budget-options/54742 (2018)
Background
The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program provides cash assistance to people who are disabled, aged, or both and who have low income and few assets. In 2018, 15 percent of SSI recipients, or 1.2 million people, are projected to be disabled children under age 18, receiving an average monthly benefit of $686. To receive benefits, those children must have marked, severe functional limitations and usually must live in a household with low income and few assets.
Option
This option would eliminate SSI benefits for disabled children.
When I was an Eligibility Worker Daniel, back in the late 90's early 2000's drug addicts were able to get SSI, on the grounds their addiction was a mental health disease (which it was) therefor these poor souls (mostly men and many veterans from Vietnam and Desert Storm) were able to get a minimum (I think it was around $619 back then. We usually got a conservator to handle the money and see it went for housing and food. The problem at that time was Social Security who ran the program although it didn't fund it, denied all disability on the first application. Since these men were incapable4 of representing themselves we had some attorneys who for a small flat rate taken from the lump sum would get the necessary paperwork and file the appeal for them, The client would get the check before the conservator could get it from them and many of them overdosed and killed themselves. We still treat the mentally ill in the same poor fashion today.
Welfare was not a dirty word when I was little. It was a policy aimed at the welfare of all the people. I doubt the distinction between welfare and paid-in benefits was a big deal. I never took entitlement programs as a pejorative term; simply benefits to which people were entitled for paying into them.
They do get spent, one way or another, whether directly, or through investments / savings. I won't argue about the wealth inequality issue on this one. There is huge imbalance here.
One more reason to vote for Harris/Walz. In 2022, one of the first bills Tim Walz signed into law was our 100% renewable energy standard which means by 2040, we Minnesotans will have (mostly) carbon free electricity. And farmers and other land owners will be able to garner income from turbines or solar arrays sited on their property including roof tops. And turbine technicians- who can attend a community college to earn their certificate in MN free of charge if their family’s income is below $80K, can earn a six figure salary maintaining the system. Yeah, you read that right. A six figure salary.
If Harris/Walz can make the case nationally of the incredible economic benefits of renewables, we might yet stop climate collapse. And gut the power of the oil lobby bent of destroying the planet for a buck.
Agree! I’ve been working since I was 14 years old and paying into social security for 50 years. That is my money, there is no welfare here.
Yes entitlements! AND we ARE entitled to the money we paid in! These dimwits dont seem to understand that or dont want to.
Regardless of how government support is funded or where it is aimed, any payout always flows back into the demand side of the economy.
And acts as an 'automatic stabilizer'.
Ned, my husband ran the UI unit at the Oregon Employment Agency, so I heard about the ins and outs of this program. For awhile it was well run and now it is a mess, thanks in part to incompetent agency heads (picked by the governor) and an antiquated computer system, now finally updated, but still not working that well. One of the things that really irked him were people who criticized the agency, but were first in line when they needed it.
As a card-carrying hypocrite myself, I must confess to not being above doing that. One thing to which you sensitize me, Michele, is the humanity of the much maligned bureaucrats; they often catch the flak that should be aimed higher. Thank you for showing me the way.
But, that is the Republican stategy to denigrate every program that benefits individuals. Imagine the financial boost of eliminating the employer contribution portion of social security. While SS designers probably saw this employer contribution as a form of earned compensation to the employee, I think most employers feel it is unearned compensation.
regardless, every cent ends up fueling the demand side of the economy, in turn wages and profits of the businesses which provide goods and services at all levels.
This is an excellent point - in some ways the most relevant point in a discussion of the various government support programs. "Every cent" puts a floor under demand.
As all individual support systems (SS, AFDC..welfare in the form of food stamps, WIC, housing payments, Medicaid) do....they all fuel the economy, either through dollars that supplement living expenses, pay for health care that keeps rural hospitals open or work programs, or childcare programs, etc. etc. The unearned corporate welfare just enriches their bottom line allowing stock buy backs and larger CEO compensation. Nothing for the economy here. Nothing for the nation here.
Exactly....which I think business owners would understand but somehow don't. That their SS contribution fuels their bottom line.
in any case, SS contributions are countered with price increases, something a wage earner cannot. Their personal demand is deferred until "pension payout" time. The economy is fundamentally circular, and behaves much like a biological ecosystem.
Well, we Social Security recipients have not actually paid for our benefits. We have paid into Social Security, but most of us will collect much more than we paid in (that’s one reason the fund has to be topped up every once in a while). And the old depletion allowance has a theoretical justification, although given what we know of global warming, it can’t be justified.
and there is a real conundrum to significant reduce, let alone eliminate, fossil fuel 85% energy dependence, not to mention plastics et al.
How right you are!
Regret my now deleted response. I misunderstood what you said, Fay. I agree with your analysis; many thanks.
Thank you for the clarification!
Aspiring to triple-digit IQ territory… really, Ned
tee-hee
Jokester
Euphemism for class clown, my first calling in life. 😉
Seriously, J.D., while we disagree at times, I appreciate your spirited attitude. 💡
I didn't mean to disparage your comment
Yes, we KAM!!!!
Aha!
Amen, sister!!
🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊
💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙
One of the most significant acts in our country that has had the most effect on the lives of our citizenships, only rivaled by Theodore Roosevelts designation of Natural park land and the civil rights act of the mid -60’s. Thanks Heather, Ms Perkins truly remarkable!
I admire her for her acute analysis, that the tale sold by the Republicans, of the lone cowboy taking care of himself, “a don’t need nah govment”, is a myth rather than reality. I think that myth holds up only for the very wealthy and very privileged white cowboys…
And think of the farm subsidies. Cowboys and "The West" are a myth. And I'm from the West and drove cattle.
Heh, I bet you as a “cowgirl” would call the Republicans “all hat and no cattle” then 😉
Yup, that's what Republicans are exactly. Even a suburban white male like me knows that. Republicans have done so much to destroy our government -- and may shut it down again soon -- that they don't deserve to be in any public office.
And as Heather points out in one of her books, "cowboy" originally referred to black cowhands. White "cowboys" referred to themselves as ranch hands or cow men. Or cow hands.
The cowboy myth came later, and all these white dudes in their pickemup trucks and boots and hats wouldn't know which end of a cow to rope.
For the modern so-called cowboy - who regulated the building of those trucks? And who paid for the roads they drive on? No such thing as a rugged individual.
They'd probably throw themselves off their horse with their own lasso.
P.S. "Pickemup trucks"... I'm so stealing this.
well.... either end of a cow can be roped, depending on which rodeo event is being held! just sayin'....
Actually, even the very wealthy got there by other people's labor. Everybody, even the privileged white cowboy was dependent on other people's efforts - who made the saddle? Who made his clothing? Who allowed him to graze his herds on public land? And, or course, he was dependent on the work of members of other species. We are all interdependent.
I totally agree! But this is something that the insanely rich like Bezos Goldfingers and Darth Musk refuse to acknowledge. They think they are descendants of the pharaohs and other god-kings and that they built all their wealth themselves. But as you said, who dug the canals where they can float their yachts in? Who made the highways where they can drive their Teslas? Not Bezos or Musk, but ordinary Americans. They take the ordinary people and their labor, and the democracy and law-and-order systems that gave them freedom and a chance to pursue their wealth completely for granted. They are too rich, too entitled and too self-absorbed to see this interdependence.
"You can earn a lot of money by working hard. But you can only become rich by exploiting other people" - author unknown
So very true. Reward attribution is stacked.
That rugged individual looking after his family by himself is complete garbage. 1) Humans are social animals and have a very strong drive to be part of a group. 2) People often grouped themselves together in cities, which in the case of Europe frequently had walls. 3)Lone families out on the frontier did not often fare well. They were easy pickings for marauders of some kind. 4)Rural folks often came together to raise a barn, build a school or church, etc. 5) Ironic isn't it that the Republican folks who promote this rugged individual crap are the group that enforces conformity with a heavy hand. Look at such examples as Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.
Agree with you wholeheartedly on all points! And as to no. 5): it isn't ironic, it's downright hypocritical - but that's one of the foundations of fascism: the double standard of galactic size. Free speech! But as soon you say something they don't like, you should shut the f*ck up and they'll start complaining that they are being censored by the Church of the Left. Freedoms! But not when you want to decide whether you get pregnant or not, or which deity to worship, or who you want to love or marry. I want no government! Except the one that sets the military on those pesky Black people and those loud-mouthed women. No rules! For me, that is; you can go f*ck yourself in a concentration camp, you libtard snowflake. Etc etc.
We must protect Social Security and Medicare as well as all of the programs that allow everyone to prosper. HCR, great summary.
Bill, don’t forget that Project 2025 attack Medicare by defaulting to Medicare Advantage. If a person doesn’t sign up to start with a Medicare Supplement policy, they will never be able to get the best rate. This is a gift to the health insurance lobby—they can charge whatever they want to seniors. I just heard of another Medicare Advantage policyholder who had needed medical treatment denied; her case manager stated that her Medicare Advantage insurer “denies every physical therapy” that would be approved by regular Medicare.
Don’t we all know people who’d be seriously affected by cuts to Medicare and Social Security? Here are some quick and easy talking points by Robert Reich for us to help spread the word:
"Project 2025 includes Medicaid caps that would jeopardize coverage for 18.5 million people.
It also proposes privatizing Medicare and ending the govt's ability to negotiate lower Rx costs."
https://www.threads.net/@rbreich/post/C-DaALnIE9B?xmt=AQGzDfxVmRapASEYG47jeHzNayWj61emSazW8mxQLWddsQ
Privatization is the beginning and end of all Republican ideas. Nothing pisses me off more. Slurp, slurp, slurp, and what they are slurping is the result of the “lessers” working.
And bills without COLA's included as well. For example, when H-1Bs were established to allow cheap offshore technicians to work in the US, they put a cap on their income at $60K/year. At the time that was around the average salary for programmers in the US. Companies were panicking as you recall, about Y2K because to save precious storage we had omitted the 2 position century from most dates. For a programmer, it was basically grunt work to identify, expand the dates, fix a reusable date calculations, compile the programs, test and verify results and implement.
Anyway, by 1995, $60K per year was a joke because demand for programmers had shot up and the supply hadn't kept up. And here we are 35 years later with the $60K cap in place. With a COLA that amount would likely be close to what the average programmer makes today.
I have worked with hundreds of Indians, most of whom I have the utmost respect, that come to the US and share living quarters with 2 to 4 others. And the companies they work for treat them badly and take back part of their salaries as housing fees or other expenses.
And, of course this hurts the American programmers and engineers by keeping supply high and therefore salaries are kept low. And now that it's so easy to hire off shore programmers, they are paid around 20-25% of what they would make if they relocated to the US.
I remember Y2K, Ha. The system is rigged, is it not.
Yes, the large financial services firms like GE Capital first brought in a few Indians to do Y2K and the projects went well because it was cookbook programming. Very little analysis needed. So several companies concluded that programmers are widgets so they fired their programmers and brought in Indians for half the price. It was a disaster for many companies as few Indian programmers understood the insurance applications or how to modify them for new sophisticated products like Variable Universal Life and Variable Annuities.
GE Capital went all in and total turned their IT areas over to Indian consulting firms. It was a total disaster. Within 2 years their wasn't an Indian programmer working on an GE Capital system.
A few other companies had similar experiences but only replaced a portion of their IT staffs.
Without the greedy management and Y2K and Congress messing up the H-1B Visa immigration bill, it's likely there would be more well paid American programmers.
If I don’t continue to get Social Security in the future, I will be homeless because what I make and Social Security does not cover housing food insurance. The very basic needs and I worked my whole life.
If I don’t continue to get social security
Loopholes are the means by which they win, we lose. Always.
Mary, I appreciate your pointing this out. Many here in FL think that Medicare Advantage is part of Medicare. I have wondered how in the world Medicare Advantage was allowed to use the term Medicare in their title. Seems to me it would be illegal, to fraudulently imply that they are something they are not. Many seniors have been fooled by this false advertising and think that it's Medicare that is not giving them the benefits they expected! My own supplemental policy (Anthem BCBS) gave me the option of switching over to Medicare Advantage, claiming the cost might be to my advantage. But, as I usually do, I read the small print and declined.
Carol, this is very interesting to me because I am paying $147 per month for AARP's United Healthcare insurance to supplement my Medicare. I have believed it necessary in order to cover my psychiatric and chronic pain management, which was only slightly covered by Medicare. Since Covid, 95 percent of my care is virtual and I only physically see my primary care once a year. Have I been paying that $147 unnecessarily for the last decade?
Paula, all supplemental plans cost money. Your plan sounds very reasonable to me. Since Medicare only pays a portion of our medical bills, it is helpful to have a supplemental plan that covers the remainder. It's just that Medicare Advantage, which often has lower fees than other supplemental plans, has many restrictions, such as which providers one can use. My point was that many people inadvertently sign up for it assuming it is part of Medicare. It is a private insurance plan and not part of our Medicare from the government. Here is a useful site that breaks it all down:
https://www.healthline.com/health/medicare/what-is-better-medicare-or-medicare-advantage#enrolling
Thank you!
Technically, I suppose it is funded out of Medicare money. But it is such a ripoff.
Jen, it is a privately funded insurance and not funded by Medicare at all. Hope this helps to explain it:
https://www.healthline.com/health/medicare/what-is-better-medicare-or-medicare-advantage#enrolling
"... not funded by Medicare. " not exactly true. If you choose a Medicare advantage plan, much of the premium you would have to pay is covered out of the same Medicare funds that would pay for Medicare parts a and b. If the actual premium is higher than what the plan you choose costs. You have to pay the extra out of your own pocket. That is why Medicare advantage plans can cost anywhere from $0 to hundreds of dollars a month. It all depends on the plan and its benefits. But the base coat of all Medicare advantage plans are covered by the same dollars that would be used to support your use of Medicare parts a and b.
“ACO REACH uses similar tactics to those found in Medicare Advantage to profit from Medicare by overcharging Medicare, financially incentivizing providers to control healthcare costs for beneficiaries, and increasing the number of beneficiaries in their plans. But while some seniors “choose” to participate in Medicare Advantage, seniors and people with disabilities are auto-enrolled into an ACO REACH through their primary care physicians (PCPs). Thus, it is physicians and physician practices which are being lured into or forced to join the ACO REACH (Many physician practices are being swooped up by private equity or created whole-cloth). Physician practices, or their controllers, are enticed by the “shared savings” they will collect if they save money on their patients, shredding the trust between doctors and patients.”
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/aco-reach-medicare-privatization
I have an advantage plan. I loved it at first but it's getting scary. I can't go back to a supplement plan because of a preexisting condition. There ought to be a law!!! I am voting Blue this November. But then again, I almost always have.
😡😡😡😡😡
Social Security is one of my hot buttons on so many levels. Had the SS funds been kept separate from the General fund and used only for the purposes defined in the original bill, and the money invested in US Government T-Bills or similar bonds the fund would be solvent for many years past the 2035 date. I annuitized my wife's and my contributions at 3% assuming payouts starting in 2024. There would be almost $3 million in the fund with the continuing interest at 3% being sufficient to pay our monthly SS draw -- forever.
Of course we cannot predict how long any of us will draw SS but rich Republicans like Senator Rick Scott of FL who defrauded SS and Medicare out of hundreds of millions of dollars want to take away the only money that millions of the 70 million SS recipients receive.
None of us had an option to NOT pay into SS just as we didn't have an option to pay our Federal Income Tax, but Republicans are dead set on reducing or eliminating SS payouts.
Unfortunately many for profit eldercare entities and even some hospitals have become extractive industries - extracting Social Security and Medicare dollars in return for substandard care.
I think we need to teach children in school about how to manage, at least personal finances. I never learned anything about stocks or annuities or any of those financial tools, and I am the poorer for it.
Me too😬😩
Jen. Me too😩😬
You hit my hot buttons too, Gary. Ronald Reagan....ffs.
Gary Loft:
You describe perfectly how Social Security taxes are kept separate (the Social Security Old Age Trust Fund and the Social Security Disability Trust Fund) and invested only in U. S. Treasury securities.
The problem is that things change.
There are now (relatively) more old people drawing benefits and (relatively) fewer young people working and paying taxes than when current tax rates and benefit rates were established.
The first Social Security Trustees Report in 1941 said, "... the essential assurance of future financial soundness of the system, with its rising rate of disbursement, rests on a graduated increase in contribution rates or provision of income from other sources, or both."
Actually, the baby boomer generation is far larger than any other age group, and when payments to boomers peak in 2034, the slope of the ratio of contributions will return to normal levels.
Once upon a time, I made proposals to flatten the curve. From an ABA article December 01, 2011 FINANCIAL PLANNING
Social Security—Maybe Charity Should Begin at Home
By Daniel F. Solomon
Share:
For most of its history, Social Security was a terrific bargain: our parents and grandparents most probably received significantly more benefits than they paid into the Social Security Trust Fund. The trust fund comprises the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Funds (OASDI, collectively).
In most cases, because our family units could rely on these benefits, they were able to enjoy enough financial independence to send people like us to school so that we could become lawyers—productive and, in some cases, wealthy, members of society. For 75 years, the Social Security Trust Fund has helped enable American society to achieve far beyond the aspirations of its founders, ultimately providing more than subsistence to retirees by also protecting widows, orphans, and disabled people. The dignity provided to needy beneficiaries surely far outweighs the economic value of the funds.
However, financial experts have long predicted a future insolvency of the funds. A majority of Americans have invested in the funds, recognize their social utility, and do not want to burden their heirs. Although there have been legislative attempts to “fix” the system, there is no consensus how to do it. The Congressional Research Service reported:
For example, for workers who earned average wages and retired in 1980 at age 65, it took 2.8 years to recover the value of the retirement portion of the combined employee and employer shares of their Social Security taxes plus interest. For their counterparts who retired at age 65 in 2002, it will take 16.9 years. For those retiring in 2020, it will take 20.9 years.
Geoffrey Kollmann and Dawn Nuschler, “Social Security Reform” (October 2002).
The National Commission on Social Security Reform (informally known as the “Greenspan Commission” after its chairman) was appointed by the Congress and President Ronald Reagan in 1981 in response to a short-term financing crisis that Social Security faced at that time. Estimates were that the OASI Trust Fund would run out of money possibly as early as August 1983. Congress rendered a compromise that extended the retirement age from 65 to 67, through a deal that raised payroll taxes and trimmed benefits enough to keep Social Security solvent. See Jackie Calmes, “Political Memo: The Bipartisan Panel: Did It Really Work?” New York Times, January 18, 2010. However, the legislation addressed only the immediate problem and did not address the long-term viability of the fund. See also Rudolph G. Penner, “The Greenspan Commission and the Social Security Reforms of 1983,” in Triumphs and Tragedies of the Modern Presidency, David Abshire, Editor. Washington: Center for the Study of the Presidency, pp. 129–31.
The George W. Bush administration commission deliberated on the issue and then called for a transition to a combination of a government-funded program and personal accounts (“individual” or “private accounts”) through partial privatization of the system.
President Barack Obama reportedly strongly opposes privatization or raising the retirement age but supports raising the cap on the payroll tax ($106,800 in 2009) to help fund the program. He has appointed a National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which is to report and offer another fix.
Current estimates predict that payroll taxes will only cover 78% of the scheduled payout amounts after 2037. This declines to 75% by 2084. 2010 OASDI Trust- ees Report, Figure II.D2, www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2010/ trTOC.html.
Although the congressional plan was to ensure solvency through Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax, there is a private means to help: to also consider the humanitarian and charitable nature of the Social Security Administration (SSA), which has been possible since a legislative fix in 1972. Before then, bequests naming Social Security or a trust fund as a beneficiary could not be accepted, which caused problems in administration of some estates. Money gifts or bequests may be accepted for deposit by the managing trustee of the OASI and DI funds. Section 170(c)(l) of the Internal Revenue Code lists the U.S. government among the educational or charitable organizations to which donations are acceptable. Gifts must be unconditional, except that the donor may designate to which fund the gift should be donated. If no fund is designated, the gift is credited to the OASI Trust Fund.
However, SSA has not publicized its charitable persona. Although the agency has received some gifts and bequests, they have been insignificant and not given consideration in a possible fix. The concept has been so unimportant to the experts that the Annual Statistical Supplement to the Social Security Bulletin does not specify how much the administration has received in gifts and bequests. Total revenue from gifts to the trust funds has been quite small. From 1974 to 1979 the most received in any one year was $91,949.88. During that period, the average annual amount was only $39,847. In 1980, almost two-thirds of the gifts were less than $100. The median gift size was $50. One person, for example, donated $13.11. She arrived at that amount by applying 5.85% (the employee tax rate then in effect) to her benefit amount and donated it to help “‘shore up’ the sagging, dwindling Social Security fund.” However, the 2010 Social Security Trustees Report lists them as about $98,000 (www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2010/III_ cyoper.html#2). Compared to many other charities, this is a paltry amount.
Apparently, SSA has never done a feasibility study nor marketing research to determine how an aggressive campaign could raise funds to support Social Security, or how gifts and bequests could reduce the current estimates of impending doom. According to some estimates total deductions taken for all charities next year would be $413.5 billion. Estimates for fiscal year 2011 are that SSA will spend $730 billion. That amount is already covered through “contributions” (taxes), but it is reasonable that charitable contributions to the trust fund could significantly lessen taxpayer exposure for impending doom, if not return the fund to solvency.
As lawyers, we have the capacity to remind our families, our clients, and the public at large that there is a way to contribute to help endow future generations in the pursuit of the same kind of social stability that Social Security provided to our parents and grandparents.
Daniel F. Solomon is an administrative law judge at the U.S. Department of Labor, member of the ABA House of Delegates, past chair of the National Conference of Administrative Judiciary, Judicial Division, president of the Federal Administrative Law Judges Conference, and author of Breaking Up with Cuba (McFarland, 2011). All opinions expressed are those of the author and not any organization or group.
When things change , it's time to adjust.
Lift the cap.
Raise the cap. They currently are aggressively raising the cap.
Why not charge a Trustifarian tax that pays money into the SS trust fund?
My daughter dated a man who was almost 40 and lived off of his uncle's inheritance. He delivers pizza's part time because he said "it was fun."
In "The Man in the High Castle" they call these people "worthless eaters." They suck resources from society and do nothing. Look at the list of billionaires who pay an average of 8.5% in Federal Taxes, and see how many are "trustifarians."
I don't know the answer, but they are parasites on society and should be required to pay into SS.
Yes, on behalf of our loved ones...
https://jonathanbrownson.substack.com/p/social-security?r=gdp9j
What a surprise, a woman made SS happen.
And she was a Social Worker, too!
After a major in physics and chemistry. I am reminded that AOC won a prestigious micro-biology science prize in her teens.
“Alumni of the International Science and Engineering Fair… have gone on to create major companies, win the Nobel Prize, and now Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has become the youngest member of Congress,” said Maya Ajmera, president and CEO of the Society for Science & the Public, and publisher of Science News."
https://qz.com/1481551/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-won-a-2007-isef-science-fair-prize-for-her-microbiology-research
JL - Thanks for the link. AOC is truly amazing. I can't think of anything she wouldn't have excelled at.
Like Obama she was undersold into politics. "Community organizer vs Constitutional Law Professor." "Bartender vs. International Science Award Winner" Marketing works I guess.
I'm not trying to put down bartenders however or community organizers for that matter.
A bartender in Lincoln, NE told me that she had a masters degree in philosophy from UNL. I asked her if she was going to get her PHD. She said, "No, I'd just be one of a thousand bartenders with a PHD in philosophy or political science."
I laughed, but of course she was spot on. I suspect many of us have similar stories about bartenders, waiters and cooks we have had the pleasure to chat with.
Philosophy is way under rated, perhaps because of how, (I get the impression that) it is generally taught, as preparation for for an academic specialty, which if it is once again only preparation for an academic specialty, affords little opportunity for growth. I have some similar thoughts about how the scientific method appears to be taught to those not aiming to be scientific professionals. Education at its best cultivates insights and tools that expand our day to day understandings and competences, and expands our bubble of awareness. I would say something similar about how history is often taught, HCR is an exception.
I attended a college that presented the key philosophical ideas, scientific thinking, and history as an ongoing evolutionary process of our current circumstances as tools that we could incorporate into our own kit, and pick up on the state of understanding where others left off; irrespective of our specific career goals, or pursuits of happiness. That's a WORKING, incorporated understanding of how and why those disciplines work, and why they matter; as opposed to prep for winning quiz shows. It seems like those who are attracted to this forum were exposed to that more process-oriented approach thinking as well.
In my view, every human being builds and accepts a working philosophy, though it seems that few think of it in those terms. MAGA bristles with unexamined philosophical propositions, as does (and am I biased in supposing more actively contemplated benchmarks?) does liberalism. (Is that not part and parcel of what liberalism is?). I see science, my college major, as underpinned by an epistemology, a foundational theory of knowledge, and (at it's best) a commitment to intellectual integrity.
Applied Enlightenment Era philosophy is evident in US founding documents, and those tools abidingly and beneficially put to work (when applied with good faith and integrity) in the guidance of American culture. There is no "finish line", and we remain on that journey.
Excellent. Thanks for that.
Thank you, from another chemist.
And a chemist before that!
Can I get a heads up for another brave and black woman, namely Rachel Scott? I read today that she received death threats from the MAGAts after asking poor Donny nasty questions… https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/04/trump-interview-nabj-abc-host
Yes, by all means, we need to thank Rachel Scott for her professional behavior and for asking questions of Trump that nobody in mainstream media has the nerve to ask.
She allowed us to see his true "intelligence" and his true mean-spirited nature.
I only wish his followers could see that side of him.
I wonder if de Toqueville would find Americans "so generous, so kind, so charitable desposed" If he witnessed a Trump rally.
We definitely need to thank Rachel Scott for her courage.
And yes, Rump's cult followers will see his stupid and mean-spirited nature - but they will worship him even more for it, because they want to be a racist, misogynistic a**hole just like their orange idol. It's a cult after all.
We can only hope that voters somewhere in the middle are appalled by Rump's behaviour and have them reconsider voting for him...
An extreme sociopath appears incapable of compassion, but we all have a dose of reptilian nature", some more than others. Nature and nurture. Demagogues are skilled at "summoning the devil" in our human nature. Japan, Germany and Italy are different today then the were in WWII. Still, the danger never goes entirely away. It seems to be in our genes as well as our collaborative political values.
I have no doubt he would be alarmed by the scope of the MAGA movement.
I wish all journalists were like Rachel Scott!
Here's a (very) partial list of people I would love to see interview Donny and JD
Brian Tyler Cohen
Rachel Scott
David Packman
John Fugelsang
Jordan Klepper
Jennifer Rubin
Alexandra Petri
Me too! The Orange Felon should be treated like the liar that he is!
Once and for All.
The cruel liar that he is.
The simple fact that everyone with a shred of integrity gets threatened by Trump's MAGATs should be enough to tell us who Trump is! He is not only a narcissistic sociopath, but also a stochastic terrorist.
That's his game. He will never get his own tiny hands dirty, but rile up his cult followers to do the job for him...
I think he fancies himself something like a SpaceForce Galactic Emperor. Puppet master of all he surveys.
I think it is also worth noting that ALL of the social safety net programs were initiated under Presidents that were Democrats. Eleanor Roosevelt may be the most influential First Lady ever and FDR was smart enough to listen to her.
I would argue that most of the First Ladies are/were wiser than their husbands and have saved us all from mistakes they might have otherwise made. From what I have read, even Melania was an influential adviser to DonOLD as hard as that is to believe.
It's a very low bar.
Flat on the ground if not under it.
Of course!
There's a great biography of her that came out some years ago. Well worth the read.
Eleanor was no slouch either.
Yes, I read the Perkins biography - excellent - and I just finished reading Doris Kearn Goodwin's book about FDR and Eleanor in the 1940s, which was also really good. I learned a lot.
Men in Denim built this land.
Men in suits destroyed it.
Frances Perkins made a plan.
FDR employed it.
Your second sentence reminded me of the Woody Guthrie lyrics…
“ Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.”
That line keeps going through my mind when I read the news.
We need more Woodys to tell the tale, or sing the truth as only they can. Listening to lyrics these days is a crap shoot. But when they hit the mark, it’s a bulls eye…
Nicely done!!
The first two lines have been in existence for decades.
I add the next two to give Frances Perkins the credit she is due.
Dear Heather, in the spirit of Frances Perkins, I offer this; Advocacy for Breastfeeding Mothers, for family support:
Today I talked to a dear friend, who is a young nursing mom. We talked about the kind of community support needed for moms to get 24 weeks of time off, to be able to nurse the baby 24/7. My friend is in one of the growth spurt stages, at about 3 months, when the baby is nursing every hour or 2. This is what brings in a bigger milk supply. She is so tired, but she is committed to doing what she can, to help her baby grow. Her baby was premature, and that makes this even more important.
There is a ton of data that childcare issues really matter. If our political candidates will address this, and say they advocate helping get women "disability" (healthy!) time- off for nursing newborns, we will save money on pediatric hospitalizations. We will increase family stability at a time of major exhaustion for women trying to nurse 24/7. We will help babies get nurturance and basic trust formation, which is the most important baseline for healthy personality and character development.
I would like this issue to be in the Democratic platform, that we are advocating for women to get 24 weeks time off for nursing and being home with babies. Even if they are NOT able to nurse, the mother-child bond is strengthened by being able to BE together. The mother mirrors the feelings of the baby, and this connection with the baby is vital to healthy growth. This is not being punitive to those who cannot nurse, it is trying to advocate for the best-case possibility. This will reduce food allergies in children. It will strengthen physical and mental development, and protect children from early infectious disease spreading in communities. When I got this idea passed through the California Medical Association in 2004, we did not have the budget in California to make it happen. But the fastest signatures for my petition were from DADS and GRANDPAS! They see their wives and daughters struggling to do the best for the babies, and they immediately signed on. We can change the ethos of this country from "workaholic" and frenetic, and only caring about individuals, to family-oriented and sustainable development. We can undo decades of forcing overwork on women who are trying to be homemakers and also hold jobs and be responsible members of society. IF the dads and grandfathers will help us, this can become the most popular political point in the campaign. Babies cannot vote, or we would WIN!
Help us help families to get the support they need! 95% of women are working, and we all need help to be able to stay sane and be good mothers. Please pass this on! Copy and paste. Send it to my favorite coach-- Tim Walz! Ask the Democrats you know to put it into the discussions in the Convention! THANK YOU!
With love and hope,
Martina Nicholson MD FACOG (ObGyn)
Santa Cruz Ca
We must not leave the fathers out of the plan. Many places have family leave for both mothers and fathers since it is also important for babies to bond with their fathers from infancy.
I have a nephew with a generous paternity leave plan - he and his wife alternated who stayed home and, together, were able to have a parent at home for the first 4 or 6 months after their daughter was born - I thought that was wonderful. My son, on the other hand, who is a lawyer in NYC, got 2 weeks and was pretty much on call for all of it.
The dads get paternity leave, but not that long a time. In California, they can get up to 12 weeks, but 8 weeks paid time off. It is uneven. It will be great if the Harris/Walz team is able to put a plan out there which works to make flexible time off possible for the maximum number of parents.
If Republicans were truly pro family values they would support this kind of legislation. Instead, they veto every bill that would support children.
Because it's an election year, of course the Republicans are claiming they will protect Social Security. But as sure as tomorrow's sunrise, they'll look to strangle it next year if they were to end up in the majority.
It’s easy to forget how and how many times W and Cheney tried to give all the Social Security money to Wall Street, year after year, until they imploded Wall Street too, shining many klieg lights on the idiocy and danger of their prostrate proposals. Look at the US Fed links at <uswealthclock.com> to see just how little the wealthiest suffered from 2007 to 2009, and beyond. ( hint - not at all, compared to the 90% of us )
We can’t forget! — best luck to US, b.rad
Not coincidentally.
I hope we all know better than to believe anything a trumpublican says. We can’t be allowed to be gulled by this lying scum one day more.
Count on it. If it were a stock, guaranteed riches. They will always keep trying to dismantle every FDR action. And create a billionaires paradise.
Michael, please notice that when Republicans say they intend to "protect" Social Security, they are referring to plans to eviscerate it.
Evening to All!
Frances Perkins is, in my mind, one of two women in the mid 20th Century who while never serving in elected office, so greatly influenced public policy and the Commonwealth of our Country, that we owe them a perpetual debt of gratitude. The other was Rachel Carson, whose "Silent Spring" and subsequent well researched and written books quietly opened our collective minds to another aspect of our constitutional obligation to promote the general welfare albeit in the environmental realm.
Heather's piece tonight is quite lovely. In one aspect however it misses the vivid nature of Ms. Perkins' awakening to her own advocacy. She truly "witnessed" the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, having been on the street outside, literally watching as one young woman after another, all from Southern and Eastern Europe, the "illegals" of their day whether Romanian and Ukranian Jews or Italian and Croatian Catholics, leaped to their death from on high, so as to avoid a most grisly death by fire, in the cramped and locked confines of their abhorrent working circumstances.
The fierce focus that defined Ms. Perkins was borne on that March day in Manhattan.
I'm not sure if it was in the 1962 speech that Heather mentioned, but I know that later in her life, Frances Perkins stated that "the entire New Deal was based upon the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire".
May she, and all the countless, anonymous fellow Americans she fought for never be forgotten
Add Eleanor Roosevelt; Rachel Carson was critically influential and maligned unmercifully by chemical companies, and their politicians
Rachel Carson was hounded by the chemical industry for writing 'Silent Spring', disparaging her as a Communist, threatening her with lawsuits. Even as she was dying from breast cancer made to testify in congressional hearings. She died of the cancer in 1964, within 2 years of the book being published.
Such a remarkable woman who died too young yet wrote some very important, timely and groundbreaking books in those years. The 'Sea Around Us' is also outstanding, well written and researched. But 'Silent Spring' is what many people and organizations from Greenpeace to the EPA have said was a main inspiration for the global environmental movement and concern for a living planet Earth.
The treatment of her is what decent people can expect from rogue corporations if repubs gain more of a foothold. Her books and her voice still resonate with those who have an iota of concern for the future of the earth and her inhabitants. She did not scream into a void, but worked to connect with not only her generation but future ones as well. Repubs just saw her as a nuisance, standing between them and the almighty buck. May her spirit live on. Needed now more than ever.
She certainly succeeded in connecting with and influencing, enormously, succeeding generations, in my opinion. And she told the truth, simply, comprehendably, and without spin, about the disturbing situation that she witnessed - unlike the RWNJs of the Heritage Society and their ilk. Thank goodness for RC.
Indeed, and thank goodness for Heather Cox Richardson for doing that as well.
That seems like heroic now, when she probably just thought that it was the right thing to do. Normal human behavior is so rare with the repub cretins that I am shocked when I see it. That takes absolutely nothing from the actions of Rachel Carson. She is a heroine of the highest order in my book.
As I was trying to think of how to reply to this comment, I watched 2 scrub jays splashing around and drinking from a hanging bird bath just outside my window. Then there were a couple of gold finches, I probably could have touched them they were so close.
I think she didn't just think it was the right thing to do, but imperative that she must take action and say something about the overuse and adverse effects of pesticides/herbicides, what she called biocides.
Rachel Carson would be so disappointed and sad to see the conditions of our oceans and new formulated pesticides like neonicotinoids that have been causing massive killoffs of native bees, honeybees, and other pollinators for decades now. She is definitely a heroine for her efforts and research, for posthumously having DDT banned, for her words and concern forever remembered by me too.
Yes, may the spirits of Rachel Carson and Frances Perkins live on in future generations. Both are needed now more than ever.
Thanks. It was a defining moment for the abuses of worker that was also horrifying and widespread without governmental intervention.
"-That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men (sic), deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,"
"Rugged individualism" has it's role, but it's only part of the story. We are a deeply social species. Baby sea turtles hatch and scramble to the surf when mom's long gone. As newborns, we would hardly survive a day without others; and I can "do my own thing" because a learned from others, and am aided by others in many ways, including collaboratively protecting a safe enough environment in which it's safe enough to be meaningfully an individual.
Yeah Daniel…you are right about that fire…and it was unbelievably brutal!
Good points, there, Daniel. Many thanks.
We have driven by the Frances Perkins Center when it wasn't open, but it is very high on our bucket list to be able to visit when it is open.
For a video on the August 15, 2021 FPC Garden Party that we had first hoped to attend, see the following link. The featured speakers were Juana Rodriguez-Vazquez (once an immigrant farm worker like a friend who became the Executive Secretary to the head of US West), Dr. Heather Cox Richardson, and Senator Elizabeth Warren (who had a podium made from barn wood by one of the sponsors of the FPC, and used it all across the country during her Presidential run).
Their messages are every bit as meaningful today as they were 3 years ago tomorrow.
See https://francesperkinscenter.org/programs-events/fpc-garden-party-2021/
In watching Governor/Coach Walz speech to AFSCME members he talked about project 2025 changing child labor laws. Arkansas has already done it. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has already changed child labor laws so that kids can work in meat packing plants. Unions gave us the 40 hour work week, the 8 hour work day, child protection. If trump's masters get him into the White House &:the presidency they will gut everything that FDR & unions & other labor supporters have attained for the every day Joe & Jane that work. In a country where executives get insanely high salaries & bonuses by manipulating prices, stock buy backs, dividends etc it's obvious that there is more than enough money to go around. Those executives would have no positions or salaries if they didn't have employees doing the work, manufacturing the product, providing the "elbow grease" to get the job done. But it seems those same bosses ignore the importance of a living wage in favor of another yacht or mansion for themselves.
The Greed of most million/ billionaires is unmatched. It is grotesque. And with all that money they are buying the type of government that will keep the money rolling in to them! Everyone else be damned!
This is the time to get the country back for the working person & make the grotesquely wealthy pay their fair share.
The UAW has apparently sued both Trump and Musk for advocating in favor of firing striking workers, something that is against the law.
Child labor laws -- you'd have thought those would have been sacrosanct, ever since the 19th century. You'd have thought. You'd have been wrong.
Broadly speaking, two forces, two parties at work in the USA, the party of Cain and the party of Abel... the party of "Am I my brother's keeper?" (No. My brother's killer.) And that of men and women well aware of how we depend on one another, for we're all in this together.
But when we come to Sarah Huckabee Sanders enabling the employment of kids in meat packing plants, that's the kind of thing you'd expect of a cruel foreign invader... not of your own people. Plainly another hangover from slave owning.
* * *
What passes for "rugged individualism" so divides and atomizes human communities that we end up with mindless mass conformism. A strong sense of individual responsibility -- thinking for oneself, questioning hand-me-down notions, answering for oneself, that is one thing; that "-ism" and all the assorted ideological mindrot that comes with it, is quite another. A diseased, even criminal, mentality, as opposed to a healthy one.
Peter🎯
It's not the Huckabee's and peers children having jobs in meat packing plants.
Return to normalcy, I notice that we share the keywords GROTESQUE and GROTESQUELY, and that we are both using them in relation to the absurdly showy ultra-vulgarity that goes with limitless unassuageable greed.
It was architecture that got me using these words, first in Ireland, later in Russia -- especially in Moscow, where reactions to the dull uniformity of socialist housing took such ridiculously perverse forms.
But the spread of gross, overblown ugliness has been worldwide, starting with cars, infecting souls, contaminating entire societies.
No humor. Striking, the total absence of any sense of the ridiculous... how so many human beings, both individuals and masses, have come to look and behave like caricatures.
MAGA, with its Coney Island sideshow Caesar... and the juvenile mine's-bigger-than-yours idiocy of so many of our political, hitech and financial giants. Carnival giants, egos like galaxies.
Black holes where hearts should be.
Thank you for honoring Frances Perkins. She is an inspirational social work pioneer.
Dear Heather,
I read your 'letters' daily. I am a single, elderly woman who worked many years and now benefits from Social Security and its related programs. I was moved and inspired to read about Frances Perkins and what she accomplished directly and through enlisting others. I knew about the horror of the Triangle Shirt Fire. But I didn't realize all that went into forming a structure that our country could use for its citizens who needed support and/or assistance. Thank you so much for reawakening my sense of our country's history with its glory and its shame. Somehow after reading your letters, I do feel some hope for our future.
Ditto, Kay.
I receive my late wife's survivor Social Security Benefits since her death from pancreatic cancer. My brother during his struggles with mental illness also benefits from Social Security.
I am not a fan of knowing that some of my federal income tax is helping Israel drop bombs in Gaza. However, as a self employed person, I pay Social Security gladly, knowing that the money goes where it is needed...
I am concerned, however, about the system's solvency...
I don’t know why more people are not talking about raising the ceiling or even eliminating the ceiling on the payroll tax. That would keep Social Security solvent for decades, depending on whether they raise or eliminate it
Yes! Eliminate the ceiling on FICA taxes. And apply FICA taxes to all income, not just wage income. It is unfair for poor and middle-class wage earners to pay over 14% of their compensation (including the employer contribution to their FICA taxes), while people with annual incomes in the millions pay close to 0% in FICA taxes. Scrap the cap to put Social Security on a sound basis and to make it closer to fair. Not fair, mind you. That would require progressive FICA taxes, but let’s just start with flat FICA taxes. What we have now is regressive FICA taxation.
And those in the billions in income pay 0% in income taxes, or relatively very little.
Okay let's try to be a little bit fair here. There are plenty of billionaires. But that doesn't mean all or even most of them have billions in income. Most have billions in assets, but income is significantly lower than their net worth. And right now we don't have a net worth tax although many of us have advocated for that in the future (Liz Warren has been pushing a net worth tax for quite a while).
Yes they are still megarich and most pay far less in taxes as a percentage of their net worth than the rest of us but let's be correct when we criticize this. Thx for listening.
Yes I had the thought that few would make more than a billion or even that much in a year. And yet I think what I said is technically true, or true enough for informal discussion. A news item claimed that over several years Trump paid from 0 to $750 dollars in income tax, and other billionaires have been said to pay nothing. Some years ago. Warren Buffet, who claimed to use no loophole legerdemain, said the the woman who empties his waste basket pays a greater share of her income in tax than he (and he was not OK about it). I overgeneralize o a forum such this as it is informal and long posts more rarely read, but yes, i want to be fundamentally accurate and informed where I might be slipping.
Parenthetically. HRC has written more than once about how old school Republicans introduced a graduated federal income tax to pay for the Civil War. They reasoned that it was only fair that those more easily pay a proportionally larger share should do so.
Warren Buffet is not the only one proposing taxes on wealth (that is, net worth). Piketty’s data shows that without wealth taxes (together with steeply progressive income taxes) capitalist economies are intrinsically unstable. So, wealth taxes (on the extremely wealthy, not on the bottom 99%) are a requirement for stability, not a luxury. And yes, wealth taxes would require the holders of wealth to cash in sone of their wealth annually to pay their wealth taxes. That is not a bug. It is part the purpose of wealth taxes.
We are talking about annual income, not wealth. Wealth tax is another matter. According to Piketty, who has the data, we should have wealth taxes too, if we want a stable capitalist system. But FICA is a a tax on annual income, not wealth.
Loopholes are the Repub bread, butter and caviar
Or McNuggets if you're Trump.
He’s a poor excuse for classy elite…if only he knew
They do pay lower taxes on capital gains, which for many high income people is substantial. Many view this as double taxation-money you earn then invest is taxed when you sell the stock or other asset-home, art, jewelry, etc., but taxes are only on the amount above what you paid.
That's only part of the many options to reduce taxation that are only available to the well off (including me, since my retirement income comes from investments). I think the wealthier you are the more that is true, which is to say nothing of shadowy offshore shenanigans, much of which is "perfectly legal" even though an obvious con. Big corporations do it openly, let alone legally anonymous shell corporations that take a Sherlock Homes to even identify who owns them. It is innately easier for those with money to make disproportionately more, something that the rules should regulate, not accelerate.
Say it loud and say it proud, Rex!!!
But not in Italy! Very rude word.
Very!
I must hsve lost track somewhere in this thread. What word are you talking about?
Decency and modesty forbid me to reply. Miss that one, catch the next...
Remember Al Gore's "lock box" for Social Security to keep Congress from raiding it? I wonder why we quit demanding it.
Well, now that the trust fund is run down, there is nothing to raid. We need to tax all forms of income for Social Security.
Edit: I'm mistaken, there is still money in the trust fund. We just need to tax more to back the funds withdrawn in order to not further raise the national debt.
Mim…..^^^^THIS!!!^^^^ There should be no ceiling on the payroll tax IMHO…I mean, really, the wealthiest among us can’t cough it up??!! Love the saying “make a living, not a killing”…..when does one actually have “enough”??
Make a living, not a killing. Reminds me of “we have enough to satisfy the need, but not the greed.”
The US Constitution, with Amendments, attempts to support justice for the individual AND the society. The rights of both are inextricably intertwined. A free, open and just society knows that individual rights and social justice are two ways of looking at the same thing.
Mim; I believe that will happen. The political winds are shifting. It’s palpable.
I sure hope so. even Obama was pushing a round about cut to SS benefits with the "Chained CPI" (which didn't fly). Ike (who could not have imagined imagined the power hate radio and Internet in the US) said:
“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
Wow that is a great quote from Eisenhower. Hard to believe that guy was a republican.
In today’s climate he would be a center-left Democrat. It seems to me he was the last really decent Republican politician, certainly President. (My parents and some of my friends’ parents were very decent, honorable people who were Republicans, but not politicians.)
👍 Agree about Ike. He was the first president I was “aware” of as a kid—tho’ only in the way a kid is aware of politics. I came to understand, as the Republicans who replaced him in office, that he mostly stood apart from and “above” them. Some years ago I remarked to a friend that he was the last Republican president I admired.
Signs in Texas called him a commie, back in the 60’s. It was rare then.
From a letter from President Eisenhower to his brother, Edgar Newton Eisenhower, November, 8 1954 with more context:
"Now it is true that I believe this country is following a dangerous trend when it permits too great a degree of centralization of governmental functions. I oppose this — in some instances the fight is a rather desperate one. But to attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by it. The political processes of our country are such that if a rule of reason is not applied in this effort, we will lose everything — even to a possible and drastic change in the Constitution. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon “moderation” in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H.L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
Eisenhower was conservative with a small "c" but clearly in the country before party camp. Nixon was more of an opportunist, and though most hold Reagan in much higher regard than Nixon, I think Reagan was worse. It wasn't really "government" that Reagan was attacking (his party has used every trick in the book to dominate government since) but rather the of, by and for the people version of it.
I think it is hard to believe Eisenhower was a Republican insofar as what we call Republican today is really nothing of the sort. MAGA openly rejects the Republic and clamors for some form of dictator. That would sound alarmist if Trump had not flirted with promising to be one, and points to current dictators (even North Korea's Kim) as models of good governance; to say nothing of Project 2025. His claim of not having to vote after the coming election is ominous however you interpret it.
I certainly agree with you that Reagan in pure political terms was far worse than Nixon. NIxon's principle problem was getting caught for his own paranoia in Watergate. Reagan took the country down a very dark path which has led us to today.
And i think Eisenhower would almost never be what is now considered to be a Republican.
Correction - they are now Texas oil billionaires, their numbers are not negligible and they are not stupid. Ike lived in a more sane time, although he might argue the point.
They had to point out to Dr. Evil in "Goldmember" that a million dollars is not what it used to be, but also for decades more and more of the total ownerhip and politcal influence of America has run to the 1%, exactly what "Reaganomics" was designed to deliver.
The Eisenhower era was both both more and less sane, but what HCR calls "the Liberal Consensus" was certainly saner than virtual civil war. Economic equity and opportunity were in some ways more reasonable, but social equity (and with it, economic injustices) more stratified for minorities (including gays) and women. Far less w*ke.
Wasn't it Everett Dirksen who said a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money. It was in junk bond idiocy days, so it might have been millions back then. A million dollars is not what it used to be. Explains a lot. The rich are feeling poorer and need to compensate. . Ha
Many voters who pay the tax throughout the year are unaware of the payroll tax ceiling.($168,600 for 2024). Let’s keep sharing with every voter we talk with and ask..Do you think this is fair?📣
I commented on the same idea, but you were first!
I almost couldn’t bear what W/Dickie did with my tax money, same with chump. Now, as a recent widow, I pay more than ever. I’d love for it to go to something besides another yacht for greedy bitches and bastards of the Republican persuasian
I expand on this observation in an article I posted around noontime...
https://jonathanbrownson.substack.com/p/social-security?r=gdp9j
If we cannot get Harriet Tubman onto our currency, we could do far worse than putting up Frances Perkins.
Sacajawea appeared on the dollar coin and Republicans went apoplectic.
Repubs are always apoplectic, it’s called living with progress for the average Joe. They are always seeking their comfort - privatization
The most extreme of them claim absolutely nothing should be provide without private profit; schools, roads, the military. I recall some red state outlawed municipally operated Internet access, literally arguing it deprived businesses of the rightful profit. It's as extreme and unworkable as the argument that everything should belong to the state. The right tool for the right job works for me. Like you really shouldn't hammer nails with a microscope.
Personally, I would like for the internet to be like the PO, a public utility. They would want to turn it over to Boeing. Good example of what can go wrong...
To put Perkins achievements in context as a woman of that era. Here's a WWII poster designed to convince US employers that "Women Are Teachable". https://forgottenfiles.substack.com/p/women-are-teachable-1942-45
In eye opening exhibit. Of course Britain had produced powerful and crafty monarch Queens. Marie Curie had won two Nobel Prizes. Weird how difficult it is to pry prejudice out our our sense of normalcy. Some have yet to be convinced. And good for FDR for "getting it".
Had to save this. My grand girls need to see it
😂
My father was a self employed grocery store owner in 1935 and was not required to contribute to Social Security but he did. What a difference it made in his retirement. Bless his foresightedness.
We must improve and support Social Security, Medicare, and other safety nets to protect our safety nets from greedy, rich, and wealthy people who gain wealth and power through the toils and suffering of workers, consumers, and taxpayers. 💙
There are nations in which nearly all meaningful wealth is in the hands of a few families, while most persons scratch for survival. Reaganomics has been pushing us that way for decades, and the "GOP" is eager to push us even farther. What's in it for us?
Servitude
Essentially.
You load 16 tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
Ernie nailed it.