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2024 Presidential Election thread


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37 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

Haley endorsed Trump once after attacking him, said she would pardon Trump, has already voted for an abortion ban, and has said she will cut social security and Medicare but Biden is the disgusting lowest denominator. 

If I’m not mistaken, Haley said that SS and Medicare need reforming. I believe she is correct on both counts. Trump accused her of planning to cut SS-not the same. Trump states that Haley’s plan cuts SS for 82% of recipients. Later retirement ages-means testing, etc., should be on the table. The system cannot sustain in it’s present model. I applaud a politician that has the willingness to even broach this topic. 
 

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3 minutes ago, 1776 said:

If I’m not mistaken, Haley said that SS and Medicare need reforming. I believe she is correct on both counts. Trump accused her of planning to cut SS-not the same. Trump states that Haley’s plan cuts SS for 82% of recipients. Later retirement ages-means testing, etc., should be on the table. The system cannot sustain in it’s present model. I applaud a politician that has the willingness to even broach this topic. 
 

Many on the left hav proposed solutions, but the right doesn't like them. 

Means testing sounds like it would screw the middle class.

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10 minutes ago, 1776 said:

If I’m not mistaken, Haley said that SS and Medicare need reforming. I believe she is correct on both counts. Trump accused her of planning to cut SS-not the same. Trump states that Haley’s plan cuts SS for 82% of recipients. Later retirement ages-means testing, etc., should be on the table. The system cannot sustain in it’s present model. I applaud a politician that has the willingness to even broach this topic. 
 

Medicare is the more serious problem, but the solution to that is a more general re-alignment of medicine in the US for all. SSI is not as bad. Relative small changes drive big differences in the out years. Some means testing, add a single year to eligibility, increase the payroll tax a single point - despite the way things get talked the solutions for SSI are hardly end of the world fixes, it's just very hard in the present inter party politics for anyone to touch any important issue because the old system of the two parties giving each other cover when that kind of fix was made is dead. 

And to TBH, the SSI issue is somewhat transitory. Once the boomers start dying off in numbers the system will begin to right itself based on a less skewed population distribution and more stable long term population numbers.

Edited by gehringer_2
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22 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

The simple solution is to just raise the income threshold on social security but republicans have convinced a bunch of poor people that raising taxes slightly on wealthy people is bad. 

Right. In short, Social Security is a political problem, not an economic one.

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36 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

The simple solution is to just raise the income threshold on social security but republicans have convinced a bunch of poor people that raising taxes slightly on wealthy people is bad. 

The limit in 2024 is $168K. The most a person can pay in SS taxes is $10,453.  

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15 minutes ago, oblong said:

The limit in 2024 is $168K. The most a person can pay in SS taxes is $10,453.  

80% of US households have income less than $150K so given the proportion of 2 income households, maybe 10% or less of individual wage earners hit the cap? It's not a big chuck of $ to raise the cap, more if you eliminate it completely - which would be fine with me. Maybe you give high wage earners some break on AMT for putting more into their FICA. Anyway - lots of potential solutions. Nothing like the difficulty of fixing medical costs in the US.

Edited by gehringer_2
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58 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

The simple solution is to just raise the income threshold on social security but republicans have convinced a bunch of poor people that raising taxes slightly on wealthy people is bad. 

This is the correct solution.

And also an identification of the problem, reiterated by G2:

 

35 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Right. In short, Social Security is a political problem, not an economic one.

 

Political Polemics.

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6 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

... It's not a big chuck of $ to raise the cap, more if you eliminate it completely - which would be fine with me. Maybe you give ...

Eliminating the income cap would allow the overall rate to be reduced.

But that equals lower taxes paid for lower-to-middle-incomes (more progressive taxes) and higher taxes on the top 10% of wage earners.

Verboten since 1980.

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50 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

80% of US households have income less than $150K so given the proportion of 2 income households, maybe 10% or less of individual wage earners hit the cap? It's not a big chuck of $ to raise the cap, more if you eliminate it completely - which would be fine with me. Maybe you give high wage earners some break on AMT for putting more into their FICA. Anyway - lots of potential solutions. Nothing like the difficulty of fixing medical costs in the US.

The value in fixing it is less than the value of grievance politics. 
 

I’ve always been in favor of raising retirement age but now that I am 50… screw that.  62 here I come. I just checked my payout and my wife’s payout. 
 

I love the argument that “well your taxes are rally 13.5% because of the employer half. As if they would give that to us. 

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53 minutes ago, oblong said:

The value in fixing it is less than the value of grievance politics. 
 

I’ve always been in favor of raising retirement age but now that I am 50… screw that.  62 here I come. I just checked my payout and my wife’s payout. 
 

I love the argument that “well your taxes are rally 13.5% because of the employer half. As if they would give that to us. 

If everyone put in the same percentage of their income as a whole as the middle class wage earner I might consider some variation to the SS formula.  I'm gonna be punished for working in a high wage city?  Screw that.

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6 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

She'll endorse him.  These people have no shame.  Look how many have humiliated themselves supporting Trump already.  And then they come back later like Christie and try to take him down and are not taken seriously anymore.  

It also depends on what Trump has on her.

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4 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Medicare is the more serious problem, but the solution to that is a more general re-alignment of medicine in the US for all. SSI is not as bad. Relative small changes drive big differences in the out years. Some means testing, add a single year to eligibility, increase the payroll tax a single point - despite the way things get talked the solutions for SSI are hardly end of the world fixes, it's just very hard in the present inter party politics for anyone to touch any important issue because the old system of the two parties giving each other cover when that kind of fix was made is dead.

What they need to do with SSI is remove the annual income cap on having to contribute to it, or at least triple or quadruple it.

EDIT: Whoops, looks like a lot of other people got there first.

Edited by chasfh
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4 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Many on the left hav proposed solutions, but the right doesn't like them. 

Means testing sounds like it would screw the middle class.

I've posted here before that the idea that SS is a pension plan you pay into and get your own money back is a fallacy, yet even given that I've said that, I'm not sure I like means testing for the benefit. It may be a fiction, but I think it's a socially useful fiction that if you put some money in, you get some money out - no matter who you are or how rich you get. High income people are still paying income tax so the Treasury does gets a big chunk or maybe all of the value of the SSI payments to the rich back - it just doesn't go to the SSA's ledger, but in the end that's just book keeping.

I'd much rather see the contribution cap lifted. That never made that much sense to me in the 1st place.

Edited by gehringer_2
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15 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I'd much rather see the contribution cap lifted. That never made that much sense to me in the 1st place.

It is not at all surprising as we seem to bend over backwards to protect the wealthy at every opportunity.  Logically, it makes no sense and lifting the cap would end the fabricated social security crisis.   It would be interesting to know what percentage of people even know that the cap exists.   

  

Edited by Tiger337
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