On a host of issues, Trump and his lieutenants are itching to portray DeSantis as the “establishment” figure — the one who is preferred by the supposedly squishy party bigwigs like Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell. One of Trump’s biggest impacts on the GOP was largely shelving the budget-slashing austerity economics of former Speaker Ryan and ushering in a free-spending, debt-ballooning era that combined tax cuts for the rich, with a rhetorical cease-fire on threats to the bennies of the masses — ranging from Social Security to Medicare.
I'm interested in that phrase "bennies of the masses." It's like "opium of the masses." That's got to be intentional — using "bennies" to mean benefits when "bennies" has been slang for benzedrine — i.e., amphetamine — since the 1950s.
From Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" (1957): "There’s another photo of Joan simpering over a cookpot; her hair is long and unkempt; she’s high on benny and God knows what she’s saying as the camera is snapped…'Don’t point that nasty old thing at me.'""Opium of the people" — also translated as "opium of the masses" — has its own Wikipedia article:
The full sentence from Marx translates (including italics) as: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."...
In [Marx's] view, religion... reduced people's immediate suffering and provided them with pleasant illusions which gave them the strength to carry on.... [B]y focusing on the eternal rather than the temporal, religion turns the attention of the oppressed away from the exploitation and class structure that encompasses their everyday lives.... In Marx’s view, once workers finally overthrow capitalism, unequal social relations will no longer need legitimating and people’s alienation will dissolve, along with any need for religion.
Assuming Rolling Stone intended to refer to Marx's analogy of religion to opium, we're prodded to think about whether government benefits are like amphetamine. Do things like Social Security and Medicare give us "euphoria, change in desire for sex, increased wakefulness, and improved cognitive control"? If we get too much, do we experience "psychosis (e.g., delusions and paranoia)"?
If they cut our "bennies," what do we do? Without "opium," in Marx's view, we'd have more clarity and energy, and maybe we'd revolt, but without "bennies," we have less energy and are less excited about crazy things.
In which case, what? What would we do in that newly dulled, enervated condition? Choose DeSantis over Trump?
Posts
87 comments:
One of Trump’s biggest impacts on the GOP was largely shelving the budget-slashing austerity economics of former Speaker Ryan and ushering in a free-spending, debt-ballooning era
-----
Horseshit. The free spending, debt ballooning era came because the GOP doesn't give a damn about cutting spending. They've been piggies at the trough for far longer than Trump was president. Paul Ryan's supposed austerity was a joke, and talk about cutting social security or Medicare is, at this point, a GOPe lie that gets thrown out every election. Trump is simply the first to be honest that it's not going to happen.
protip: Don't believe what you read.. ESPECIALLY in the Rolling Stone
Ann: May I suggest you consider a “Worse than Trump” tag.
Benny was the bouncer at the Palais de Dance
He'd slash your granny's face up given half a chance
He'd sell you back the pieces, all for less than half a quid
He thought he was the meanest
Until he met with Savage Sid
Now Sidney was a greaser with some nasty roots
He poured a pint of Guinness over Benny's boots
Benny looked at Sidney
Sidney stared right back in his eye
Sidney chose a switchblade
And Benny got a cold meat pie
Oh! what a terrible sight
Much to the people's delight
One hell of a fight
Sidney grabbed an 'atchet, buried it in Benny's head
The people gasped as he bled
The end of a Ted?
Well, they dragged him from the wreckage of the Palais in bits
They tried to stick together all the bits that would fit
But some of him was missing
And part of him arrived too late
So now he works for Jesus
As the bouncer at St. Peter's Gate
According to my sources, Trump has quietly hired Haven Monahan and put him in charge of kicking people in the nuts.
This is the latest talking point--the "debt ceiling" needs to be raised, and there is politics going on. Lying Joe stated the other day that "40 percent of the debt was incurred during the term of my predecessor."
This may or may not be true, and Trump was no deficit hawk, but everybody used covid as a reason to blow out the budget, and Biden and the Dems can hardly claim to be struggling to stem the tide.
It's all Trump's fault, plus the Republicans are natural meanies who are going to throw Grammy out in the snow. It gets old.
If Trump ran as a Democrat he’d win in a landslide.
"Ann: May I suggest you consider a “Worse than Trump” tag."
The rule against tag proliferation bars that one.
Plus I don't like committing to judgments like that and to always have to be ranking everything. Bad things are bad. It's enough for the day to note what's bad and good. Putting all the things in order is a mug's game.
A mug's game is worse than other games.
Ed Kilgore: managing editor of thedemocraticstrategist.org.
I bet Rolling Stone has a team who's standing assignment is to figure out, "how do we kick Trump and DeSantis in the nuts today and every day?"
Seems to me that DeSantis has a fiscal record to point to and run on as governor of Florida. Has he kept to a budget without balancing it on the backs of taking away benefits from those in need? Should any other candidate start to become very competitive against Trump, the irony of irony thing is that most media is going to amplify Trump's negative comments about that person. They want Trump to be the GOP candidate so they can super hate on him when the time comes.
A mug's game is worse than other games.
Good one!
bennies also slang for:
New Yorker who visits the Jersey shore
$100.00 dollar bill
Benefits as in I took the job for the benefits
The best part of the article is where DeSantis rapes Trump on the glass-top coffee table.
DavidD said...
If Trump ran as a Democrat he’d win in a landslide.
I thought he should have announced a flip before the 2020 season. That would have been a mind-blower for millions, wouldn't it?
These days, the word "bennies" is much more likely to bring to mind benzodiazepines than benzadrine. Bezadrine hasn't been popularly thought of as speed in many years. So, think Xanax or Valium.
I have never in my life ever heard of "bennies" as referring to benzedrine. It's always been shorthand for "benefits."
Then again, I missed the "baby boomer" cutoff by a year or two. I make my living outside the rarefied halls of academia, working instead in an industry and profession where illicit drug use is fatal to employment; even many prescription drugs mean time out on sick leave or disability.
Different worlds.
Kind regards,
CS
The establishment GOP has generally talked the talk rather than walked the walk on federal spending, and they talk the loudest when the Dems have power. They did very little with their unified government under W. That said, spending did balloon enormously under Trump, but that was chiefly a consequence of COVID. FWIW I do agree that DeSantis is more likely to try to control federal spending than Trump, who probably does find the idea of bennies for the masses appealing.
Ass for bennies, social security is a hybrid program having welfare and defined benefit plan characteristics. Everyone must pay in based on income, but people who pay in the most (i.e., higher income earners) get the worst return, and those who pay in the least, the best. Americans generally seem content with this approach, but the problem is that it is actuarily unsound and will eventually require increased taxes or reduced benefits. IMO DeSantis is more likely to try to address this than Trump, who will rightly see it as an unnecessary (for him) political risk, meaning best to defer to a successor.
Kilgore is stupid fullstop,
Trump says don't touch Social Security because it's a contract. He doesn't say it to seduce the masses.
There are two sources of money that can pay for our government addiction: Inflation (print more money) and Tax the Middle Class. Anything else is fantasy.
At the Jersey Shore, Bennies are the tourists. At the end of summer they have "Bennies go home" parties. One common theory says the term originates from an acronym that was stamped on the beachgoers' train tickets, representing the city in which they boarded the train to the Jersey Shore: Bayonne, Elizabeth, Newark, and New York City.
“A mug's game is worse than other games.”
Yes… worse than some. But a mugwump’s game is hard to top for its ferretness.
Trump usually craps on his team first and with more ferocity.
Trump lets the very people who would destroy him - the corruptocrats(D) - off the hook.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
that said- the left are the bigger liars here. The left are using Trump to get rid of DeSantis.
The left see DeSantis as the greater threat.
The left always lie and say R's are going to take away Social Security. It is always a lie.
The truth is - Democrats are taking away all of our social security - by handing all of our collective hard work to the illegal entrants.
@rhhardin --
It is not a contract, but just a government program. If it were a contract in your "untouchable" sense, it would not have been amended dozens of times, often to expand benefits without new revenue sources. As a consequence of these unfunded expansions as well as changing demographics social security will not have the resources to fully pay benefits in less than 15 years, unless we "touch" social security to address. If Trump sees social security as an untouchable contract he is an idiot.
Trump cut everyone's taxes not just the rich.
so - another media lie.
Trump did balloon the budget.
As usual with the hack press, you have to tip-toe thru the lies to get to any tiny sand grains of truth or fact.
It was "bennies" for benzedrine back in the 50s but we called them beans. Others called them white crosses. I took them once in awhile but never continually.
There are people taking that stuff every day now. Like to get through college, law school, med school, residency. Because of some "disorder" or other.
Talk about your human constructs.
My hesitation about DeSantis is that he's an establishment man. Sometimes Trump's instincts are genius.
In all the times I've sung along to Benny and the Jets I never stopped to wonder if the lyrics were about speed. Duh.
"I took Two Bennies and My Semi Truck Won't Start" A Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen songs from the 70s. Anyone who proposes changing the laws to fix the social security program is accused of wanting to cut social security. Anyone refusing to change the law is guaranteeing that social security will be cut, the latest estimates are 20-25% cuts a decade from now. Although that last little bit never seems to get mentioned in the media, most likely because it doesn't help the current DNC line.
Saying that Trump is figuring out how to kick DeSantis in the nuts is Kilgore, trying to kick Trump in the nuts. But how could we ever expect anything less, from the Rolling Stone?
Isn't it funny how, when the Republicans take the House and start talking about budget discipline, the conversation immediately homes in on budget topics guaranteed to be unpopular with the voters, like cutting SS and Medicare? Hey! I've got an idea! How about ending COVID-related entitlements, ruthlessly pursuing Medicare and unemployment/disability fraud, closing the borders and eliminating the Ukraine military welfare programs immediately, after an audit, while we scrutinize the budget to shave of pork-barrel discretionary spending?
"bennies also slang for...."
also slang for an overcoat.
OED examples:
1903 R. L. McCardell Conversat. Chorus Girl 29 He had on one of them dust-proof Bennys that delegates to Granger conventions wear.
1914 L. E. Jackson & C. R. Hellyer Vocab. Criminal Slang 17 Benny. General usage. A sack coat; derived from Benjamin, some say the biblical character, while others say the New York manufacturer of men's garments.
1931 ‘D. Stiff’ Milk & Honey Route xiii. 145 The benny, or overcoat, he should have for at least four months in winter.
1945 L. Shelly Hepcats Jive Talk Dict. 7/2 Benny, an overcoat.
1955 D. W. Maurer in Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. No. 24. 126 An overcoat of full size and weight is called a benny.
Makes you want to read Shelly's Hepcats Jive Talk Dictionary, doesn't it?
How wonderful! I'd never heard of benny as an overcoat. When I googled, all I got was the paint company and how many coats to apply.
In order to understand bennies, one must take a benny. It's Lewis Carroll territory.
Trump's budget busting was a drop in the bucket compared to the left's trillion dollar theft and grift.
With Trump - we had a great economy... Until the planned-demic arrived and the corrupt left installed their puppet. Crook Biden.
Unless something is done about the growth of Medicare and SS they will collapse.
With the current debt at $30trillion and growing it is, perhaps, the top threat to the Republic’s stability - and yet there is never any serious discussion about it.
There is no reason why any pol that is being interviewed should not be pressed on it.
Your blog is Aces Althouse, just groovy.
I'm old enough to have heard some of that Jive stuff.
If I had invested the money put into Social Security for over 50 years of my working life, I would be far far wealthier now.
It is not a social welfare program for the middle class. It is another way to take our money and use it to "govern".
My second point is that I thought Trump was too big of a spender which is why many Democrats liked him.
Trumpers commenting elsewhere have begun characterizing DeSantis as a RINO, or some such. Seems delusional to me given what DeSantis is doing. Trumpers themselves are following the RINO tradition of cannibalism.
OTOH, buying into Rolling Stone is like buying into the NYT - crazy.
Let's you and him fight!
Dems' fake concern about GOP. It never fails. On Friday I had a bunch of smart Dem friends tell me earnestly that Marjorie Taylor Greene is someone that Republicans should worry about. I said, who is Marjorie Taylor Greene?
I know the word bennies for benzedrine tablets. Sold in rolls like Lifesavers in California gas stations in the 60s. All quite legal until 1967 or so.
But as several people have already mentioned, it only kinda, sorta, works in that paragraph in that context. Several people have already pointed out that a common (more common?) meaning is benefits. It makes much more sense in that context.
Any shipmates here remember Benny Suggs? Is he still around? In the 60s-70s Navy there was a program akin to a suggestion box. You could get money if you made an improvement suggestion that was adopted. They had a cartoon character Benny Suggs (for beneficial suggestions) to promote it.
And there is a movie about Benny, Uncle Benny Comes Home by our own seldom seen Lazlo.
John Henry
Rolling Stone isn't where you go to get Trump news, or DeSantis news, or GOP news.
It's where you go to get your fake rape news.
Nothing written by the Rolling Stone is trustworthy, especially where elections and politics are concerned.
"What's the frequency, Kenneth?" is your Benzedrine, uh-huh
Oh, and mezzrow, a big upvote for Bennie the Bouncer.
What's the synergy between these two references? Music groups known by initials: REM, ELP. Is there a Scrabble word in there?
Social security as an insurance scheme was unconstitutional and the Roosevelt admin was twisting themselves into pretzels trying to figure out a workaround. Much like the Obama admin did with Obamacare.
Justice Harlan Stone told Frances Perkins who was heading the effort that if they structured it as a straight payroll tax it would pass supreme court muster. So that is what they did. The payout is straight welfare, which Congress has pretty much unlimited power to do.
There is no contractual, legal, actuarial, or any other relation between what is paid in and what is paid out. Congress could cut Social security payments in half tomorrow while doubling the tax. They could, and often talk about, tying the social security payments to other income. Eg; if you have a pension over a certain amount, or a certain amount of savings NO SOCIAL SECURITY FOR YOU! and fuck all the money you paid in.
https://www.ssa.gov/history/tea.htm
As work on the administration's legislative proposal continued into the closing days of 1934, Frances Perkins and her team were beginning to grow worried. This was a new area of American law and practice and there were serious constitutional questions about any Social Security scheme.
...
At one point in the afternoon Secretary Perkins found herself seated next to Justice [Harlan] Stone, and in their small talk he inquired as to how her work was going. The Secretary freely admitted they were stuck on the Administration's new Social Security bill, and were uncertain on what basis the new program should be founded. Upon hearing this, the Justice looked around to see if anyone was listening, leaned over to her, and putting his hand up to his mouth, whispered, "The taxing power of the Federal Government, my dear; the taxing power is sufficient for everything you want and need." The Secretary excitedly returned to her staff and announced she had made up her mind, they would base the new program on the government's power to tax. (She never told them how she had finally come to this insight.)
John Henry
Makes you want to read Shelly's Hepcats Jive Talk Dictionary, doesn't it?
Yes, please! Let's have some posts about interesting expressions from the Jive Talk Dictionary! You never know when a good vocabulary of jive may come in handy in an emergency situation...
In 1967 boot camp we had classes on Navy pay and compensation. One of the lectures was on Social Security and how they took the money out of our pay and how we would benefit in the future. We were also told not to worry about the benefits because SS would be broke in 10 years (1977 then) and we would never see a penny. It's been going broke in 10 years continuously since then. It will be broke in 2033 if we don't do something now!!
But this is bullshit. Social Security can no more go broke than the food stamps can go broke, of WIC or or Pell Grants or Section 8 Housing or any other government welfare program.
It is a straight welfare program. You and I did not "our" social security payments with the money we paid in. Congress can increase or decrease payments and taxes any time they want. They can exempt people from paying in (like my wife) and still pay a benefit. They can force people to pay in and not pay out anything to them.
It is straight welfare and once we understand that we can quit worrying about it. It is not going broke, ever. The only risk to our SS payments is that Congress cuts funding.
John Henry
Blogger Hunter Biden's tax payer funded Hooker said...
Trump cut everyone's taxes not just the rich.
And he was the first president ever to impose a federal wealth tax. Kinda/Sort of, Indirectly.
By limiting the amount of state/city property taxes that one could deduct from federal income tax, it had the indirect effect of taxing wealth tied up in property and, in some states, other assets.
Nobody ever gives him credit for that. At least none of the people who think wealth should be taxed. (I'm not necessarily one of those)
John Henry
Hmmm. I had written a comment a few hours ago and only now realized that I failed to hit 'publish' before I took our dog out for a walk. (was commanded to do so, by the dog). Obediently, I did so. And only now, hours later realized I left the page and moved on, leaving my best thoughts behind in the early morning.
Oh well. I will say this much: Ron DeSantis is Governor of the fastest growing state in the Union. It's also the state with the largest senior population in the Union. I doubt very much DeSantis is working on cutting Social Security or Medicare in any way, shape, or form. Not even a consideration. On the other hand, the rest of the government could be and he probably would look for ways to cut back.
Hell, The Villages alone would create a war he would not think of entering when it comes to soc. sec.
The politics of reduced spending reflect the sad truth that you make more enemies than friends when you cut spending. Moreover, by putting government on a sound fiscal basis, you have opened the door for the next barrage of fecklessness.
The mRNA "vaccine" is Trump's Achillies heal. I think Trump is a rockstar, and understand at the time he had no choice if it was available. I would doubt he fully understood, or was told the truth regarding the untested dangers of mRNA. He still wants to claim the vaccine was a great accomplishment. It wasn't. Like DeSantis, Trump is anti-mandate.
This may push me toward DeSantis in a primary. And I'm a guy that thinks Trump should get another term in 2024 just to make up for the one stolen from him and his supporters in 2020 via COVID absentee voter fraud.
Nobody is going to touch Social Security. They don't have to. It'll go broke on it's own. Our leaders are selfish, corrupt idiots.
Notice how the Republicans, except Trump, always portray the use of the Government to help average people as illegitmate. Social Security and Medicare are yoked together and given the sneering title "Entitlements".
We're immediately supposed to think about some "entitled" white old fart in a Golf cart, living the high life, cashing in their massive social security check while getting "free" medical care.
What bullshit. We don't need to "Reform" social security. And you want to cut Medicare, start by controlling medical COSTS, as opposed to cutting benefits.
Paul Ryan was your typical Bushie-Romney Republican. This stupid motherfucker hates the average person who votes Republican. He supported massive illegal and legal immigration, useless foreign wars, bad trade deals, outsourcing jobs, tax cuts for the rich, and cutting social security ad medicare. Everything for his rich donors, nothing for the average voter. I hope DeSantis is NOT a Ryan republican.
One reason The Democrats hate Trump, is he was the first POTUS candidate in a longtime that stayed clear of "Reforming" social security. All the others Bush II, McCain, Romney, Dole all opened themselves to attack on this issue. They couldn't stop jabbering about the issue, even though no one wanted it.
Stupid. Very, very stupid. But for some reason (probably rich donors) some Republicans just can't stay away from the poop. STop touching the poop!
My hesitation about DeSantis is that he's an establishment man. Sometimes Trump's instincts are genius.
------
Desantis is like Cruz in that his entire life seems basically tailored to run for office. He's a political creature, and I doubt his ability to think differently than any other political creatures. Trump, being an outsider, saw the world differently, and that was very valuable.
I fear that, at best, desantis would be a very competent administrator of the status quo; a competent imperial president who wields the power of the executive branch and bureaucracy, but does nothing to radically change it. In the long run, that will be more harmful to the US.
Gov't bennies are the opiate of the masses.
It's all Trump's fault, plus the Republicans are natural meanies who are going to throw Grammy out in the snow. It gets old.
...but its political persuasiveness never seems to wane...
He's reacting to the Rolling Stone article "Trump Is Plotting How to Kick DeSantis ‘In the Nuts.’
You stay classy, Rolling Stone.
I thought Trump did confound the usual right/left ideological categories. Was he to the right or to the left of Ted Cruz? Is he further right than Pence? I also don't see him as any radical either. If by some miracle he does get elected again, the most I'd expect and all I'd want is for him to restore some sanity to the country again. That said sanity may in itself be radical in today's America.
Ten Benny was an early Adrian Brody picture. The film was about gambling and debts and trying to pay them off, but I have no idea what the title meant. One reviewer puts it this way:
The title refers to the shoe size of Paul Newman-10B, which really has nothing to do with explaining anything about the film. But, there are a lot of things about this film that are not compelling: the constant brainless chatter between the buddies, their uneventful growing pains, and the emptiness of their lives.
Okay ... I do know that in French, le benjamin means the youngest child in a family.
Nobody is turning New College into a Hillsdale of the Florida state system. In Florida, the school is widely considered a joke and can't even fill its classrooms. Their acceptance rate is in the shitter, and despite still attracting a handful of very talented students, they are an exemplar of every pathetic academic trend from S&M clubs to extremist identity politics to anorexic empty-eyed boys wandering the campus working for MAPS (look it up).
The governor always appoints five trustees. Big deal. This is normal: his share of trustees represent the taxpayers who pay for the school. One is an alum, a brilliant and accomplished South Florida attorney. Two are highly accomplished academicians. The one I know isn't even a conservative, but he is an excellent scholar. The other, from Hillsdale, is no ideologue and knows the difference between Christian and public institutions. Mark Rufo is a skilled writer. He's the combative political one, but which board doesn't have a political loudmouth?
Even the local hard leftist newspaper ran a series on how New College didn't prepare students for careers. Perhaps a bit more political diversity will be good for these students.
When I went there, it was already going to hell because they were feeding students experimental psychedelics in fake "tests" associated with Tim Leary and Rick Doblin
(some students I knew never recovered). But there was still a critical mass of older professors who could help you craft a Great Books program taught on the British tutorial model. Now it's a 30/60 male/female identity politics orgy that largely only wins awards because so many academic awards are now handed out on the basis of "community participation" and other non-intellectual leftist nonsense.
In the 80s, I suspected my professors were probably all liberal, but they kept it out of the classroom. That is what these appointees seek to do: return the school to its more rigorous, apolitical educational roots.
Is this a political move by DeSantis? Of course. But all such appointments are political one way or the other. Listen to Hillsdale President Larry Arnn's surprising interview on Jordan Peterson. Oh, and Hillsdale was the first American college to accept black students and educators ... in 1844.
“But for some reason (probably rich donors) some Republicans just can't stay away from the poop. STop touching the poop!”
But how can one “stop touching the poop”, as you so eloquently put it? To quote my shocked 28 month old (at the time) grandson - who had just rapidly departed the mesh-net enclosed trampoline toot suite, “the poop is evweewheya… evweewheya!”
Paul Ryan bashing is more popular than pickleball but on social security he had it right. The current system is unaffordable and will inevitably fail but don't you dare dare try to save it or -heaven forbid- point out the fatal Ponzi scheme problem. The same people who will set you on fire for calling it a Ponzi scheme will say the 'solution' is to import more people into the system...which is literally the definition of a Ponzi scheme...
Funny, Temujin. I can picture the Villages sharpening their shuffleboard cues into bayonets. But since so many of the men there fought in war, I bet those will be effective bayonets.
Temujin’s comment at 10:02 made me womder if the Villages could be a bell weather for the GOP primary. I googled and found this article . Interesting.
Again, it no longer matters who the Republicans nominate- with mail-in-voting the result of the 2024 election is already known. The only thing that isn't known is whether or not the Republican can claw back Arizona and Georgia while retaining Iowa and Ohio, but that isn't enough to win.
When lefties say "worse than Trump" they just mean more likely to win than Trump.
It is straight welfare and once we understand that we can quit worrying about it. It is not going broke, ever. The only risk to our SS payments is that Congress cuts funding.
Disagree. The real risk is bankruptcy. The interest rate is now in control. With 30 trillion dollars in national debt, an interest rate of 10% would dominate the "budget." We can no longer stop an inflation rate of 20%.
The Republicans lost any credit as spending hawks when they controlled all three branches of government. Instead we got Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Floridians I know and have talked to about this want DeSantis to serve as governor for as long as possible and then run for president. That they like him where he is and aren't in a hurry to give him up means more to me than some Rolling Stone writer's opinion.
"Could Trump Run to DeSantis’s Left in 2024?"
Sure he could. Blow-out spending, trade restrictions, no foreign adventures. Back to being Dick Gephart + non-existent Wall + some FedSoc judges.
Looks like DeSantis doesn't want any enemies to his right.
Vietnam veterans have been using the term "bennies" to refer to VA benefits since, well, Vietnam-- early 70s.
Grandma was certain the Republicans wanted to take it away. Assume the rumor was born in the forties.
I didn't know what that was. And since the discussion always included the age of 65, I assumed that was the age when old people died.
Michael
You are right. If the us govt runs out of money,nothing, including ss, will be funded.
But the story that I call bullshit on is tha ss can run out of money. As long as congress is willing and able to fund it, ss can no more "go broke", "run out of money" or whatever.
It is not funded by ss taxes. That is a myth. It is funded from general revenues.
Ss taxes also go into the general fund. Not into michael k, john h etc accounts. We have no claim on that money. We get as much or as little as congress decides we should.
John Henry
I was rather hoping that Althouse, a notable law blogger, was going to blog Warren v. DeSantis (N.D.Florida 2023) as soon as her attention turned to the current Florida governor.
Social security distribution, absent progressive prices, is predictable, and nearly completely funded with current receipts. The problem exists principally in the medical sector, where single/central/monopolistic solutions (e.g. Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacares) are only marginally (~20%) funded, and forcing unsustainable climate change through shared responsibility. The green embrace of not so novel Green deals exacerbates a clear, present, and progressive problem.
Self-esteem is the opiate of the masses.
It is highly irresponsible to cap the user contribution to Medicare at $168 a person a month when it costs more than a $1,200 a person a month. It's being subsidized now to the extent of 2.9% of every bit of earned income in America plus 3.8% of unearned income over $250,000.
We are dedicating 12.4% of earned income to Social Security. Benefits can't reasonably exceed the amount collected without inflationary money printing and debt. The age at which you can collect has to rise, the amount of the benefit needs to be reduced, people who are working and earning middle class wages need to be excluded from benefits.
We shouldn't be taking more of the income of young families; we should be asking the financially secure elderly to contribute more or take reduced benefits.
I speak as someone who enjoys a greatly enhanced life style from social security on top of my earnings and investment income and having my medical costs covered.
Historically when a nation reaches 100 percent debt to GDP, ‘funny’ things start happening. The United States is there…
Trump spotted that Social Security is a contract, not a government program. That separates him from the deep state.
You're persuaded to pay the tax on the promise of on the average getting it back, plus an insurance contract that you won't outlive those savings.
Is the cola increase for SS anywhere near the real rate of inflation? In my reality the value of SS payments in the States dropped at least ten percent this last year. Isn't that the real plan? Just inflate the debt away?
Trump was a unique figure. Beside him, everybody is Establishment. Being "Establishment" isn't an automatic disqualifier. There are different ways, kinds, and degrees of being "Establishment."
I suggest anyone interested in "Social Security Reform" and thinks the system is "Going bankrupt" read Bush's Memoirs where he talks about his attempt to pass it, along with the memoirs of his then Secretary of the Treasury.
You will learn that Bush's "scare talk" about saving SS from going bankrupt was a sales tactic. He needed to sell his package deal to the American people and the way to do was to claim he was "saving Social security".
In fact, Bush true objective was to allow younger people to put some of their SS payroll taxes in the stock market. And he wanted to "Cap" the benefits.
All the talk of "bankruptcy" was just a dodge. It was the same with Amnesty. He could only get Amnesty by claiming a "package deal" would secure the border. In fact, as shown by his words/behavior since 2005, Bush has never cared about "Securing the border" and wants unlimited illegal and legal immigration. And Amnesty - no matter what.
“The full sentence from Marx translates (including italics) as: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."... “
Interesting, I suspect that in 1840 people thought that opium was healing and not bad, it was relatively new and there were not many effective drugs. Perhaps he really meant that religion was helpful for the common man.
Paying attention to "the national debt" is a mug's game. The so called "National Debt" is $30 trillion, but Medicare has $55 trillion of unfunded liabilities and SS has $41 trillion of liabilities. The debt, Medicare, and SS are all just promises that the Fed gov has no plan on how to pay. It's all opium for the masses.
before proceeding further -
something is off about 'state college' and Hillsdale [of the South]
"I have never in my life ever heard of 'bennies' as referring to benzedrine."
"Bennies" has been a slang term for benzedrine for decades.
"Interesting, I suspect that in 1840 people thought that opium was healing and not bad, it was relatively new and there were not many effective drugs. Perhaps he really meant that religion was helpful for the common man."
I don't think he meant it with contempt or in a derogatory manner. As you suggest, I think he observes objectively that in a world of woe and privation, religion is for people with little or no means a ready-to-hand balm that helps them persevere or explain away tragedy. The problem with that balm is that it can prevent the search for actual remedies or substitute for actions taken to create actual remedies. It can explain away tragic circumstances as "providence" when it may be the result of actions taken by humans for their own reasons.
Thus, true remedies are not sought and, where present, guilty parties escape blame or punishment.
"Even the local hard leftist newspaper ran a series on how New College didn't prepare students for careers."
Ha! Where in Florida does a "local hard leftist newspaper" even exist?
Because it's nonsense, Narayan.
Because it's nonsense, Narayan.
Leftist politics is the speed of superfluous men.
Gummies are the light-weight religion of the masses.
Miami new times or some other altrnative paper
Post a Comment