Thompson touches the 3rd rail: Reduce future SS retiree benefits

If you ask me, this guy was DOA when he "announced." Hey Fred, why don't you and your clueless gang of thieves stop STARTING WARS and bankrupting the American Economy before you go after Senior citizens?

Nail meet coffin. Camel meet straw.

Anyone else think this guy is officially toasted? He's done. Stick a fork in him. What a bumblefuck.

Thompson: Reduce Future Retirees Benefits

Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson on Friday proposed reducing benefits promised to future retirees and establishing a system of voluntary personal retirement accounts under Social Security to help shore up the program's finances.

"If somebody's got a better idea let them put it on the table," said the former Tennessee senator in a challenge to fellow Republicans as well as Democrats vying for the White House in 2008.

President Bush proposed roughly similar changes three years ago, but they proved so controversial that they never came to a vote in either house of the Republican-controlled Congress. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071110/ap_on_el_pr/thompson_social_security;_ylt=AmIEjUkIkU0w9M0F2mtKsyis0NUE

Get bent, Fred.

Stick a fork in this guy, he's done.

Even here in Tennessee, especially among the retired and soon to be retired, that will be the kiss of death.

Kind of too bad too, because I thought he'd be easy to beat in the General Election.

This guy bored me about as much as Boosch!

Wow, what a titanic disappointment Fred Thompson must be to the people who were so gung-ho for him not a few months ago.

and now that he has proposed it, Fred is finito.

You support Fred's right-wing neocon SS proposal? You believe in the right-wing manufactured "crisis" myth?

Say it ain't so.

If that is true, there are only two possible solutions.

1. Increase payroll taxes
2. Reduce benefits.

Do you know of a better solution?
I would prefer #2 over #1 because SS tax is already regressive.
But they should make the tax applicable to all incomes. Currently
people earning over 100k or so are not taxed on the higher income.
But that alone won't cover the projected shortfall according to
non-partisan gov't agency.

The 3 major taxcuts, 1962 by JFK, 1982 by Reagan and 2001 by GWB have all
resulted in more tax collected by the US treasury. So it may and may not work
to our advantage.

The one who doesn't have a lawyer, and who just coughs up after pawning something.

wealthiest citizens. SS will not be running out of money in 15 years, but they do need to start using the Trust Fund in about 10 years, which has been 'loaned' to the general budget.

Gore was right about the lock box.

Whoever told you that it will "run out of funds in 15 years" is badly misinformed.

And even the 2041 thing isn't very scary, because rolling back Bush's tax cuts could fix SS permanently, as could removing the 90k witholding cap.

when I will be a ripe 101 years old LOL. Well my mother lived
to be 102 so I am not giving up.

I prefer the third. When you're old enough to start collecting SS...you will want and need every possible penny. Don't reduce benefits.

How about Gore's lock box? If we stop using SS funds for general purposes and start saving it in a special account and collecting interest on it...the problem would be solved. Plus making those making more than $100,000 to continue paying. That can be their contribution to society and thanks to all society for giving them what they are blessed/fortunate to have...sort-of-a patriotic thing to do.

We could also raise the retirement age...especially after everyone has Health Care. We are living longer you know. That would also give impetus to people to live a better, healthier life style. lol

For 3 decades or so, the government has simply "borrowed" the excess
tax collected on SS and spent it. All SS account has is a drawer full
of IOU's from the treasury. That would be just fine if US Treasury had
surpluses. But instead all they have is a huge national debt in the
TRILLION's. What a crock. How could the congress allow such a theft???

a decrease in social security. Many of them are divorced, widowed or unmarried women who have little or no pension or retirement savings.

Many of them were married to guys who had lost a lot in the de-industrialization that started in the 1970s, or were divorced early and lived on the kind of wages business used to give women (not that it is perfect today).

Because of problems in our health care system, many people can be completely wiped out by health care costs because either they had crappy insurance or were laid off and couldn't afford any individual policies (which are grotesquely expensive).

I think that increasing taxes is the only way. The cut-off is for the maximum benefit as well as the maximum contribution. It is difficult to get those above the max to contribute. I would suggest a surcharge on their income taxes to help pay for social security. I would also add that surcharge to investment income, with some carve-outs.

I think that something could be worked out.

Medicaid and Medicare are much more difficult to fund. Don't expect any help from the Feds to put your parents in assisted care or a nursing home when the time comes. And it will.

It looks like simply raising the cap on SS taxes or realistic growth in the economy would cover most of that short fall. As it is, there is no immediate crisis in SS.

I can't understand why there is a cap on earnings subject to
social security tax. OK, I understand that these high paycheck
earners won't be paid any more than the current maximum monthly
payment. But SS is basically an insurance arrangement. It is NOT
an investment device. So it is perfectly OK to stiff the highly
paid people.

That's the third right-wing talking point you've spouted in only a few posts. What's the deal?

there is no denying that if for example you make twice the current cutoff limit,
yet you get the same monthly benefit as the person who made half your earnings,
you are getting stiffed compared to that other person.

BUT I DON'T SEE ANYTHING WRONG IN THAT!!

Like I said it is an isurance program, NOT an investment deal.

This will come to be known as Thompson's turd-in-the-punchbowl moment. Buh bye, Freddie.

:rofl:

Nixon and Ford agree : lazy and stupid!

But I think they might be right on ol' Fred.

Is Fred as dead in the water as any rational electorate would have him? Don't bet on it. The corporate media is likely to try to put this story on the back page, and then go into a phony frenzy about "indecent exposure" should a strong breeze lift up Senator Clinton's skirt during a campaign stop and someone's motor drive capture a glimpse of her panties. The media critters covering this election process are as often as not the same a@@-clowns who covered the 2000 election and who chose not to do their homework concerning George Walker Bush and chose to trash then-vice president Gore instead.

That Iowa waitress was right.

Because our unethical gubermint miscalculates inflation (for example by excluding energy and food, just don't move or eat and you'll be fine). The gubermint's inflation rate is what is used to calculate Social Security payments. If the real inflation rate were used, Social Security payments would be almost 70% higher.

http://www.shadowstats.com/cgi-bin/sgs/article/id=343

But stealing from widows, orphans and the disabled is sooo much more preferable than making millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share of taxes. What's the good of being rich if you can't make the poor suffer?

That's starting to kick in now.

I don't see how they figure the $632 a month they pay on full SSI disability has kept up with inflation, or even kept up with sanity. But like you said, easier to cheat the poor and disabled than to convince Americans to tax the rich. The reason for that is very simple - most Americans dream of someday joining the rich class. Because of that, they don't want to vote against the class they aspire to.

eduction would be eliminated.

"I frankly don't see the need for it," Thompson said. "It's too expensive."

Under a Thompson administration, most school buildings would be converted to storage and the larger administrative buildings would become regional outlets for the stock exchange, investment banking, and other financial entitities' district offices.

Thompson conceded that his proposals regarding both social security privatization and public education would likely draw the ire of progressive voters, but he dismissed their concerns.

"Liberals will complain about just about anything," Thompson said. "They'll caterwaul about social security and the schools all night long if you let 'em."

Thompson said his team assures him that his privatization initiatives will likely bolster his polling, which has been mysteriously dropping of late. "

You were a part of a congress that took the money coming into SS and squandered it, a good portion went to this damned war, that appears to be going on forever.

Leave the money alone, isn't that part of the RW agenda?

I also have to wonder if you send your checks back to SS every month? Seems to me, those that crow the most, are the first ones to make sure they got their SS $ in the bank while they holler.

How about "Means Testing"? If you have $750,000+ in the bank, or if you insist on working as a CEO for $25M a year until you are 75, why do you need the money that has grown incrementally? You get back precisely what you put in since age 65, 7.5% of your wages up to $75.000...That's about $5625, per year...of course if you get the "good check" from SS, it's about $1250+ per month, or about $15.000 per year...Pretty good "investment", you've just about tripled what you put in...Don't these people ever do the math?

Back to the table...Leave the SS money ALONE!

caveat: the numbers might be wrong here, as I don't have the tables in front of me just now, but it's pretty darn close...:)

Because it would make SS the equivalent of a WELFARE program, and we must never speak the dreaded "W" word aloud.

The right-wing mission to make "welfare" a dirty word was accomplished long ago - to the extent that you couldn't even make means-testing fly with mainstream Democrats. That horse is out of the barn, and it's been out since Clinton threw welfare under the bus and sent the message that Democrats were getting out of the entitlement business.

the wealthy that receive SS, that they would be the first to lose the benefit. This is an important point to make to silence those that would push for the dismantling of SS. The only way to silence them is to hold them accountable to a position they will lose money if they adhere to the position.

When "means testing" is brought into the equation, the proponents of radical SS reform are silenced almost immediately because they are shown to be the sadistic greedy people they are.

Where the focus should lie is the looting of the SS account over the past and present. If that $ had been left alone, there would be trillions of dollars in the system...but they took what was not being paid out immediately, and spent it as quickly as they could...that is the crux of the problem.

Hahahaha...Cabbage Face probably just drove the final stake into the heart of his campaign.