The best support for the poor is a healthy and prosperous economy that credibly provides long term opportunity, training, and job skill education.
This is why Biden's horrific energy policy that triggered inflation that triggered high interest rates that have now combined into a witch's brew to create a recession is so devastating.
You have to make a distinction between unearned benefits to the unemployed, misfortunate, and lazy, and those diligent workers have purchased with their hard earned money.
Medicare is bought by workers with their payroll taxes and the continuing fees even when they retire. Medicare is not free. They take the money out of your Social Security every month.
Social Security was paid for by workers with their payroll taxes and is the return of their own money.
To reform both of these programs, there is a punishingly simple solution:
1. Give young people the chance to opt out with a small payment. They get no Medicare and Social Security, but they can buy both services -- long term healthcare and retirement funding with before tax dollars. They continue to pay a small percentage of payroll taxes.
2. Extend the eligibility term from 65 to 70 for those who are younger than 50.
These two things make those programs solvent into the next century, but what politician will do it?
Especially when the clown and bimbo TV show caucus time after time throws anyone with any ability to legislate and build consensus to the side. Any major changes to social policy must have D votes too. How's that going to happen now?
government it would be that they would tell us the truth. Out of our elected representatives, I’d say there are maybe 10-20 at most that even try to get reasonably close to truth in their public utterances. The odds are stacked against them winning the argument. We are living in a society built on and fueled by lies, greed, envy, lust, and resentment. Obama’s “fundamental transformation” is nearly complete. I’ve got little hope the current crop of Republican grifters can slow the slide, even if they wanted to try. We need a national spiritual revival. Nothing less will stop it. That’s the longest game.
Oct 5, 2023·edited Oct 5, 2023Liked by Jeffrey Carter
Long game has not be the strong suite of those who oppose the people who have slowly but surely drug us into the world of Marx. The unwind on a wholly entrenched and career quagmire of professional agency people in DC is a must. I laid out that over the next 10 years you reduce each "unconsitutional" agency by 10% reduction, so as not to shock the system to badly. That is one of the first steps in unwinding what has been one if not the single largest driver of our debt. You look at all actual expendenditures on mean's test welfare programs since just 1963 and it literally is our debt. For it we have gotten very little other than greater division and dysfunctionality. Well over 75% of all black babies over the last 2 plus decades have been born to native born black women out of wedlock. This has single handedly destroyed the black family that survived slavery and jim crow. All it took was the government getting involved to destroy it.
They are also now working on the hispanic family as well with all of this. DP Moynihan had it right in his seminal paper that so many either don't know about and or choose to ignore about the topic of the impact of welfare, literally the day the legislation was inked, on the black family. He would feel the wrath of the left forever after this.
You strip away our welfare system two things, though with glarring shocks to two communities in particular, will right itself and in a much quicker time frame then one could imagine. Our illegal immigration problem would slow to a trickle without all of the saftey nets and payouts available. We would stop be the relief valve for despotic, corrupt and often racists Latin American governments.
I think I'd get rid of birthright citizenship too. One parent an American? Fine, you can be a citizen. Fall out of the womb on US soil....not good enough
Absolutely, I agree with you. While Latin America has had more then its far share of coup's over the last 75 years, the U.S. has been the preasure relief valve that many corrupt governments south of border and without that "release valve" that the U.S. has become I do believe large portions of Latin America would be in sort of a perpetual state of revolution.
George Bush tried to reform Social Security. The most serious pol on social spending was Paul Ryan. Both of them utterly failed. Because Americans, including most R voters, like their social spending. And believe in free sh*t for at least themselves.
No pol worth their salt makes substantive proposals because that is the best way to get to a personal election loss. The only way to make a dent is some bi-partisan method with some moderate consensus. That's not happening soon, it appears. Again, few adults in the room.
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." - HL Mencken
Jeff, I like your idea on Soc. Security - I'd want to add some restrictions on investment risk however - maybe varying degrees of risk available at different ages? But I think it would work a lot better than what we are doing now.
For example, what if to end Social Security, you said anyone that is turning 18 this year will not get it? What if instead they were able to take earnings and put it in a 401(k) or some other retirement kind of account? It would be mandatory.
Or, you could enact an opt-out with the same mechanicals; it goes into a 401(k) or some other retirement kind of account. I guarantee it would be more than just 18-year-olds taking the option. Most people 40 and younger would do better to jump ship and get onto a 5-7% yearly increase instead of the 1.3% for 20 years (maybe) at retirement.
The only fix is intuitive once history and evolution are understood: Repeal 10A. Women govern through empathy, not force. Government IS force. Empathy empowers the entropy that force corrals. Empathy is the root cause of every single social pathology today. If we want a return to a civil, progressing, educated society, no-fault divorce must end (70% of divorces are initiated by women), and women need to be home raising, educating, teaching manners to their kids. THIS IS A FULL TIME JOB. Men need to be recognized for the value they bring - housing, sheltering, feeding, clothing, defending their family. The idea that gender roles that evolved over a million years can be altered because women desire it is anti-evolutionary, antisocial and essentially insane. The West rose for millennia without female suffrage; we have been declining since. This is not coincidental. It is causal.
Don't disagree with what you said. That being said. Don't mind Jim Jordan. Intelligent guy. Steve Scalise also is ok imo. Both individuals are capable. Neither one is a train wreck. The only big issue is on the health side for Scalise. Jordan has a lifetime 95% heritage action scorecard but Scalise only has a 75% lifetime. More recently, higher in the 80's.
Why would anyone give him any money? He's more competent than Gaetz by the thickness of a sheet of paper. Boehner - gone. Ryan - gone. McCarthy - gone. Good luck to the clowns and bimbos of the "freedom caucus"
Good question. Not sure. Just took a gander on open secrets. 2022 election for his campaign committee $13 million. Down from 2020 which was $18 million. Much better than 2018 which was only $1.3 million, FYI McCarthy was $28 million in 2022 and $27 mm in 2020 for his PAC.
It will still be a while before the chickens come home to roost. Even with $33 trillion its well before historical unsustainable levels. Look to Japan. National debt to GDP topped 245% and no economic disaster ensued. Combine the debt (highly deflationary) with population issues (also deflationary) and voila, zero economic growth for 30 years, but no implosion.
Yep, they will keep pushing. And Japan does not have to deal with half of the world running their boarders and getting handouts. But maybe that's why they are holding on.
The long game created these issues and the long game is needed to revise them. We've seen what sudden shocks do to society and the economy with our response to COVID. I clearly remember the 60s when Congress, like clockwork, expanded benefits in Social Security, Medicare and the rest every election cycle. Your concept of offloading some folks from the system is very similar to what President Bush (43) suggested just before the Great Recession started rumbling, scaring everyone away from equities and investing - and its the only one that makes sense. You might also get some folk who are already independent to take a smaller bite in return for greater freedom to invest - like no capital gains taxes from IRAs, etc. after 65.
Sorry, you lost me when you said it's not the defense budget. It would be one thing if our defense spending made us safer, but instead it involves the waste of hundreds of billions of dollars on white elephant weapons systems that are not suitable for fighting real wars (look up the F-35 and the Littoral ships), and on a seemingly endless series of wars that end up as military and geopolitical debacles. I understand the math behind your argument, but meaningful reform of our defense system is the only way to make cutting entitlements politically palatable. And if the Ukraine quagmire ends up being a humiliating defeat for the 'liberal rules-based order' before the 2024 election, Gaetz is going to look like a hero (and for your readers, don't bother replying that "Ukraine is winning,' or that the war is a great investment because it is weakening Russia -- the official narrative on Ukraine is one big whopper).
The best support for the poor is a healthy and prosperous economy that credibly provides long term opportunity, training, and job skill education.
This is why Biden's horrific energy policy that triggered inflation that triggered high interest rates that have now combined into a witch's brew to create a recession is so devastating.
You have to make a distinction between unearned benefits to the unemployed, misfortunate, and lazy, and those diligent workers have purchased with their hard earned money.
Medicare is bought by workers with their payroll taxes and the continuing fees even when they retire. Medicare is not free. They take the money out of your Social Security every month.
Social Security was paid for by workers with their payroll taxes and is the return of their own money.
To reform both of these programs, there is a punishingly simple solution:
1. Give young people the chance to opt out with a small payment. They get no Medicare and Social Security, but they can buy both services -- long term healthcare and retirement funding with before tax dollars. They continue to pay a small percentage of payroll taxes.
2. Extend the eligibility term from 65 to 70 for those who are younger than 50.
These two things make those programs solvent into the next century, but what politician will do it?
JLM
www.themusingofthebigredcar.com
Sorry, no appetite among the Rs for reform. Social spending is just too popular. Especially when it's not paid for. https://news.yahoo.com/paul-ryan-griped-trump-didnt-180509010.html
It's far more basic than just appetite; no courage amongst anybody including the Republicans.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Especially when the clown and bimbo TV show caucus time after time throws anyone with any ability to legislate and build consensus to the side. Any major changes to social policy must have D votes too. How's that going to happen now?
If I could be granted one wish about our federal
government it would be that they would tell us the truth. Out of our elected representatives, I’d say there are maybe 10-20 at most that even try to get reasonably close to truth in their public utterances. The odds are stacked against them winning the argument. We are living in a society built on and fueled by lies, greed, envy, lust, and resentment. Obama’s “fundamental transformation” is nearly complete. I’ve got little hope the current crop of Republican grifters can slow the slide, even if they wanted to try. We need a national spiritual revival. Nothing less will stop it. That’s the longest game.
The truth? You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!
Sorry.
Col Jessup
I was waiting for it!
Long game has not be the strong suite of those who oppose the people who have slowly but surely drug us into the world of Marx. The unwind on a wholly entrenched and career quagmire of professional agency people in DC is a must. I laid out that over the next 10 years you reduce each "unconsitutional" agency by 10% reduction, so as not to shock the system to badly. That is one of the first steps in unwinding what has been one if not the single largest driver of our debt. You look at all actual expendenditures on mean's test welfare programs since just 1963 and it literally is our debt. For it we have gotten very little other than greater division and dysfunctionality. Well over 75% of all black babies over the last 2 plus decades have been born to native born black women out of wedlock. This has single handedly destroyed the black family that survived slavery and jim crow. All it took was the government getting involved to destroy it.
They are also now working on the hispanic family as well with all of this. DP Moynihan had it right in his seminal paper that so many either don't know about and or choose to ignore about the topic of the impact of welfare, literally the day the legislation was inked, on the black family. He would feel the wrath of the left forever after this.
You strip away our welfare system two things, though with glarring shocks to two communities in particular, will right itself and in a much quicker time frame then one could imagine. Our illegal immigration problem would slow to a trickle without all of the saftey nets and payouts available. We would stop be the relief valve for despotic, corrupt and often racists Latin American governments.
I think I'd get rid of birthright citizenship too. One parent an American? Fine, you can be a citizen. Fall out of the womb on US soil....not good enough
Absolutely, I agree with you. While Latin America has had more then its far share of coup's over the last 75 years, the U.S. has been the preasure relief valve that many corrupt governments south of border and without that "release valve" that the U.S. has become I do believe large portions of Latin America would be in sort of a perpetual state of revolution.
George Bush tried to reform Social Security. The most serious pol on social spending was Paul Ryan. Both of them utterly failed. Because Americans, including most R voters, like their social spending. And believe in free sh*t for at least themselves.
No pol worth their salt makes substantive proposals because that is the best way to get to a personal election loss. The only way to make a dent is some bi-partisan method with some moderate consensus. That's not happening soon, it appears. Again, few adults in the room.
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." - HL Mencken
Jeff, I like your idea on Soc. Security - I'd want to add some restrictions on investment risk however - maybe varying degrees of risk available at different ages? But I think it would work a lot better than what we are doing now.
Get where you are coming from but people should be able to be free to choose.
For example, what if to end Social Security, you said anyone that is turning 18 this year will not get it? What if instead they were able to take earnings and put it in a 401(k) or some other retirement kind of account? It would be mandatory.
Or, you could enact an opt-out with the same mechanicals; it goes into a 401(k) or some other retirement kind of account. I guarantee it would be more than just 18-year-olds taking the option. Most people 40 and younger would do better to jump ship and get onto a 5-7% yearly increase instead of the 1.3% for 20 years (maybe) at retirement.
The only fix is intuitive once history and evolution are understood: Repeal 10A. Women govern through empathy, not force. Government IS force. Empathy empowers the entropy that force corrals. Empathy is the root cause of every single social pathology today. If we want a return to a civil, progressing, educated society, no-fault divorce must end (70% of divorces are initiated by women), and women need to be home raising, educating, teaching manners to their kids. THIS IS A FULL TIME JOB. Men need to be recognized for the value they bring - housing, sheltering, feeding, clothing, defending their family. The idea that gender roles that evolved over a million years can be altered because women desire it is anti-evolutionary, antisocial and essentially insane. The West rose for millennia without female suffrage; we have been declining since. This is not coincidental. It is causal.
Charles Murray wrote a book
describing a model of guaranteed
annual income titled
"In Our Hands", I'm not saying
this particular model is good or bad,
but it's a well written book, and covers a
lot of ground.
On Ebay, my copy was about $5
with free shipping. It sounds like it
would be a lot less expensive than what we have now.
# 1 Karl rove and tge bushes and Cheney’s sold there souls to the democrats
Remdisamer was only therapeutic for Covid it is $3,500 a hit and really doesn’t work
The two families mentioned above own or were given to bushes and Cheney’s
Ever wonder why bud never bad mouthed barrick and never stood up for Trump wala
Payoffs bribery and tge putz who helped fox call the Arizona for Biden it was all over from there hope you can see this now
Don't disagree with what you said. That being said. Don't mind Jim Jordan. Intelligent guy. Steve Scalise also is ok imo. Both individuals are capable. Neither one is a train wreck. The only big issue is on the health side for Scalise. Jordan has a lifetime 95% heritage action scorecard but Scalise only has a 75% lifetime. More recently, higher in the 80's.
Jordan for me but can he fundraise?
Why would anyone give him any money? He's more competent than Gaetz by the thickness of a sheet of paper. Boehner - gone. Ryan - gone. McCarthy - gone. Good luck to the clowns and bimbos of the "freedom caucus"
I knew John. Nice guy, but he was an establishment Republican.....not the right guy for these times.
Good question. Not sure. Just took a gander on open secrets. 2022 election for his campaign committee $13 million. Down from 2020 which was $18 million. Much better than 2018 which was only $1.3 million, FYI McCarthy was $28 million in 2022 and $27 mm in 2020 for his PAC.
It will still be a while before the chickens come home to roost. Even with $33 trillion its well before historical unsustainable levels. Look to Japan. National debt to GDP topped 245% and no economic disaster ensued. Combine the debt (highly deflationary) with population issues (also deflationary) and voila, zero economic growth for 30 years, but no implosion.
Yep, they will keep pushing. And Japan does not have to deal with half of the world running their boarders and getting handouts. But maybe that's why they are holding on.
Hope I'm not around when the shit-show implodes.
The long game created these issues and the long game is needed to revise them. We've seen what sudden shocks do to society and the economy with our response to COVID. I clearly remember the 60s when Congress, like clockwork, expanded benefits in Social Security, Medicare and the rest every election cycle. Your concept of offloading some folks from the system is very similar to what President Bush (43) suggested just before the Great Recession started rumbling, scaring everyone away from equities and investing - and its the only one that makes sense. You might also get some folk who are already independent to take a smaller bite in return for greater freedom to invest - like no capital gains taxes from IRAs, etc. after 65.
Great post Mr Carter! It's a longer game for sure and the question is, who can get us to the finish line?
Sorry, you lost me when you said it's not the defense budget. It would be one thing if our defense spending made us safer, but instead it involves the waste of hundreds of billions of dollars on white elephant weapons systems that are not suitable for fighting real wars (look up the F-35 and the Littoral ships), and on a seemingly endless series of wars that end up as military and geopolitical debacles. I understand the math behind your argument, but meaningful reform of our defense system is the only way to make cutting entitlements politically palatable. And if the Ukraine quagmire ends up being a humiliating defeat for the 'liberal rules-based order' before the 2024 election, Gaetz is going to look like a hero (and for your readers, don't bother replying that "Ukraine is winning,' or that the war is a great investment because it is weakening Russia -- the official narrative on Ukraine is one big whopper).