Bluegrassrivals

How many things has the government gotten right?

Social Security. No. It was supposed to be taxed at a max of 2% on just a small amount of income. Today its approaching 13%, on all income for the majority of Americans.. and guess what? Its not sustainable. It now needs a RADICAL reform to keep it going for the forseeable future.

Medicare, different program, same story.

Wars, only one war since world war 2 has been managed effectively. Costing trillions, and thousands of lives.

The budget, only balanced a few years over the past 50 or so... And it took a GOP house, extraordinary economy, with a Democratic adminstration gridlock to get it done. Joe Scarborough once said that he went to Washington to changed things, but left because he realized it was absolutely impossible to change.. and he wanted to be gone, before it could change HIM.

A debt inching closer to the entire GDP. Financed by foreign nations. Our hard earned money being taxed to make other nations richer. When does it end?

Program after program. I could go for days. Healthcare is broken. Education blows. Liberties curtailed in the name of terror. A constitution that no longer protects the people. States ran by the feds. Billions spent daily on programs on programs that have always been failures.

How much more are YOU willing to take? And how do we fix it all? What kind of world are we going to leave our grandkids? They may never ever forgive us...

Which is why, we MUST act now. Who will lead the coming revolution? :redboxer:

congressman Wrote:How many things has the government gotten right?

Social Security. No. It was supposed to be taxed at a max of 2% on just a small amount of income. Today its approaching 13%, on all income for the majority of Americans.. and guess what? Its not sustainable. It now needs a RADICAL reform to keep it going for the forseeable future.

Medicare, different program, same story.

Wars, only one war since world war 2 has been managed effectively. Costing trillions, and thousands of lives.

The budget, only balanced a few years over the past 50 or so... And it took a GOP house, extraordinary economy, with a Democratic adminstration gridlock to get it done. Joe Scarborough once said that he went to Washington to changed things, but left because he realized it was absolutely impossible to change.. and he wanted to be gone, before it could change HIM.

A debt inching closer to the entire GDP. Financed by foreign nations. Our hard earned money being taxed to make other nations richer. When does it end?

Program after program. I could go for days. Healthcare is broken. Education blows. Liberties curtailed in the name of terror. A constitution that no longer protects the people. States ran by the feds. Billions spent daily on programs on programs that have always been failures.

How much more are YOU willing to take? And how do we fix it all? What kind of world are we going to leave our grandkids? They may never ever forgive us...

Which is why, we MUST act now. Who will lead the coming revolution? :redboxer:

Very few!!


It seems like you've got a good head of steam worked up, so I nominate you Congressman.alute:

congressman Wrote:How many things has the government gotten right?

Social Security. No. It was supposed to be taxed at a max of 2% on just a small amount of income. Today its approaching 13%, on all income for the majority of Americans.. and guess what? Its not sustainable. It now needs a RADICAL reform to keep it going for the forseeable future.

Medicare, different program, same story.

Wars, only one war since world war 2 has been managed effectively. Costing trillions, and thousands of lives.

The budget, only balanced a few years over the past 50 or so... And it took a GOP house, extraordinary economy, with a Democratic adminstration gridlock to get it done. Joe Scarborough once said that he went to Washington to changed things, but left because he realized it was absolutely impossible to change.. and he wanted to be gone, before it could change HIM.

A debt inching closer to the entire GDP. Financed by foreign nations. Our hard earned money being taxed to make other nations richer. When does it end?

Program after program. I could go for days. Healthcare is broken. Education blows. Liberties curtailed in the name of terror. A constitution that no longer protects the people. States ran by the feds. Billions spent daily on programs on programs that have always been failures.

How much more are YOU willing to take? And how do we fix it all? What kind of world are we going to leave our grandkids? They may never ever forgive us...

Which is why, we MUST act now. Who will lead the coming revolution? :redboxer:

For an employed person the rate including Medicaid/Medicare deductions is 7.65%.

If you are self employed it is 15.3%

I have considerd how we can bring about the desperately needed reforms for our republic's survival and I have come to the conclusion that we have reached the tipping point, in that, there are more of them than us. Our only hope is to follow the example of California. California was once a prosperous conservative state, but beginning in the mid sixties and continuing through today, California received an influx of liberal leaning individuals and illegal immigrants resulting in the great "left coast". We as consitutionalists must do the same thing: pick out an area of the country, move there and shape the political process to suit our ends. I would suggest we take a look at the southeast.

lawrencefan Wrote:I have considerd how we can bring about the desperately needed reforms for our republic's survival and I have come to the conclusion that we have reached the tipping point, in that, there are more of them than us. Our only hope is to follow the example of California. California was once a prosperous conservative state, but beginning in the mid sixties and continuing through today, California received an influx of liberal leaning individuals and illegal immigrants resulting in the great "left coast". We as consitutionalists must do the same thing: pick out an area of the country, move there and shape the political process to suit our ends. I would suggest we take a look at the southeast.

As businesses have fled California to escape the high taxes and ridiculous regulations, they have taken many of their liberal employees with them. Liberalism is like a virus - it begins killing its host before its next victims even know that they have been infected.

Mr.Kimball Wrote:For an employed person the rate including Medicaid/Medicare deductions is 7.65%.

If you are self employed it is 15.3%

This is where most people are thrown off. They see that they pay 6.2% social security tax, and they think.. thats not so bad. But the fact is, your employer budgets the amount of money they can spend on their employees. This is for pay, benefits, taxes... If they set aside about 20% of their budget for it, this will typically not change --- regardless of what new fees, or expenses they are out. Its all they can afford and be profitable. With that said, your employee takes 6.2% of what they could be paying you, and pay the second half of your social security tax. This makes 12.4% that YOU pay for. Its just your employer is sendin the other half in for you. If they were required to pay all the tax, it was still be reflected in your pay --- with lower wages. ;-)

Now, do the math. whats 7.65 x 2? 15.3%... why do you think that is? hh:

congressman Wrote:This is where most people are thrown off. They see that they pay 6.2% social security tax, and they think.. thats not so bad. But the fact is, your employer budgets the amount of money they can spend on their employees. This is for pay, benefits, taxes... If they set aside about 20% of their budget for it, this will typically not change --- regardless of what new fees, or expenses they are out. Its all they can afford and be profitable. With that said, your employee takes 6.2% of what they could be paying you, and pay the second half of your social security tax. This makes 12.4% that YOU pay for. Its just your employer is sendin the other half in for you. If they were required to pay all the tax, it was still be reflected in your pay --- with lower wages. ;-)

Now, do the math. whats 7.65 x 2? 15.3%... why do you think that is? hh:

Is that different than what I said, or are you agreeing with me?

Mr.Kimball Wrote:Is that different than what I said, or are you agreeing with me?

He's agreeing and disagreeing. What he is saying is both people pay the same tax, but as self employed you pay it all. Where as an employed person the company pays one half of it, and you pay the other half out of your wages.

Beetle01 Wrote:He's agreeing and disagreeing. What he is saying is both people pay the same tax, but as self employed you pay it all. Where as an employed person the company pays one half of it, and you pay the other half out of your wages.

I thought that was what I said. Oh well.

Mr.Kimball Wrote:I thought that was what I said. Oh well.

It may well have been what you said... but, it wasn't what you typed. lol just playin around.

I guess I was thrown off on a post that stated exactly what I did, and made no other point. Hey, happens to the best of us...

The point is that, we were told that it would never go above 2 or maybe 3% i believe? Its been raised SEVERAL times since then, income limits increased, new rules.. yet, it remains insolvent.

Here's another issue... The CBO's inability to estimate accurately the future costs of programs. Take for instance this interesting article. After reading it.. ask yourself, how much will this healthcare plan REALLY cost?

Quote:Medicare (hospital insurance). In 1965, as Congress considered legislation to establish a national Medicare program, the House Ways and Means Committee estimated that the hospital insurance portion of the program, Part A, would cost about $9 billion annually by 1990.v Actual Part A spending in 1990 was $67 billion. The actuary who provided the original cost estimates acknowledged in 1994 that, even after conservatively discounting for the unexpectedly high inflation rates of the early ‘70s and other factors, “the actual [Part A] experience was 165% higher than the estimate.”

Medicare (entire program). In 1967, the House Ways and Means Committee predicted that the new Medicare program, launched the previous year, would cost about $12 billion in 1990. Actual Medicare spending in 1990 was $110 billion—off by nearly a factor of 10.

Medicaid DSH program. In 1987, Congress estimated that Medicaid’s disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payments—which states use to provide relief to hospitals that serve especially large numbers of Medicaid and uninsured patients—would cost less than $1 billion in 1992. The actual cost that year was a staggering $17 billion. Among other things, federal lawmakers had failed to detect loopholes in the legislation that enabled states to draw significantly more money from the federal treasury than they would otherwise have been entitled to claim under the program’s traditional 50-50 funding scheme.

Medicare home care benefit. When Congress debated changes to Medicare’s home care benefit in 1988, the projected 1993 cost of the benefit was $4 billion. The actual 1993 cost was more than twice that amount, $10 billion.

Medicare catastrophic coverage benefit. In 1988, Congress added a catastrophic coverage benefit to Medicare, to take effect in 1990. In July 1989, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) doubled its cost estimate for the program, for the four-year period 1990-1993, from $5.7 billion to $11.8 billion. CBO explained that it had received newer data showing it had significantly under-estimated prescription drug cost growth, and it warned Congress that even this revised estimate might be too low. This was a principal reason Congress repealed the program before it could take effect.

thecavemaster Wrote:Education blows? It's not perfect, not by a long shot, but how many people who would have ended up nowhere made it to somewhere with the help of public schools? Social security? It's not perfect, not by a long shot, but how many elderly people kept a little dignity because of it? Medicare/Medicaid? It's not perfect, not by a long shot, but how many people, old and young, received treatment, vital treatment, that would have been denied them? Interstate highway system? Send a letter from eastern Kentucky to Eugene, Oregon? 44 cents. Not bad. Not perfect, not by a long shot, but not bad. The government is not simply good; the government is not simply evil; the government is a complicated "goop" of good and evil... just like most every person I know.

If I asked you to give me 2 dollars to help me out. You give it.

I then ask for 4. You give it.

Ok, 4 didn't do it. I need 7. Hand it over..

Now lets try 9.50, should be right. Nope.

Hey, can i have 11? Sure...

Getting closer, 12.40? That should do it.

Ok, I was wrong.. I need more.

-------------------------

Thats failure. That how social security works. Its crashing. And fast. Thats failure. Thats failure. Thats failure.

Education? Where would we be without public schools.. less in debt, more competition for better education, higher incomes, more advanced technologies...

Post Office, nearly broke.

Amtrak, never has made a dime, has to be sustained by the federal government. At one point the rate of financial assistance was so high that a route from Chicago to Philadelphia would have been cheaper if the government would have bought plane tickets for the individuals.

War planning, we lose them all. We lose trillions. We lose valuable human lives at a rate that is insane.

Medicare. Broke.

The CBO. Failure. Never get it right.

Tax Code. 2nd Highest corporate tax rate in the world. Double ta***ion of income. Thousands of pages long... Failure.


Current obligations are something like 50 trillion in unfunded entitlements in the foreseeable future.

Budget growth exceeding GDP growth by double digits.

Debt thats nearly equal to total GDP.

Bank Failures, 100 so far this year. Bailout.. Failure.

New Orleans, still a slum.. nothign being done about it.

Auto bailout, failure.

Cash for Clunkers, failure.

Whatever else the government wants to do.. you guess it. Failures.

Unemployment rate continues to climb, no end in sight. Everything tried hasn't worked. Failure.

Obama. Failure.

Those that voted for him.. Fai... you can finish it.

The above poster who tried to dodge the questions I asked.. Failure.

I didn't ask you TCM to tell me that programs are evil, good, blah, whatever... I asked what have they got right? Its possible to be evil and have amazing results ya know. We killed thousands upon thousands of innocent japanese in a definite and destructive WAR CRIME.. and it ended the war. Abortion, probably lowered crime rate. What has the government got right?

I'll wait.

And just so you know: If you truly have any friends, I'm hoping you do.. Then you need to pick some new ones if you find evil among them. My friends... The best of the best. I adore them. They bring out the best in me... and vice versa.

ta***ion is a cuss word?

tax-a-tion? really?

Your empolyer matches your amount, which really is your money.

The employer matches your amount, its really your money.

someone put a post on one of the other theards listing taxes. gas,state,city,property, etc. most people pay a lot more taxes than they think.

taxation should work now.