Yes very important....... so he either needs someone completely vanilla like Pence or he needs someone younger but not too crazy to the left. What is scary, is that the other top candidate (Sanders) is even older!
With social security, what you get is a formula based on what you paid in. That money is owed to the retirees. Why would you means test that? And, if you do means test it, you turn it from a safety net to a handout for the poor and you'll lose its widespread support. Cutting the super-rich out won't meaningfully change the financials for the program. Cutting the merely-rich will hurt the image of the program. It's something we all have to be together on. Gotta be with glynch on this. Though it doesn't make me worry about Biden's candidacy.
I think you can have somewhere in the middle where it is somewhat graduated. The reason I say this is that there are a whole lot of senior citizens that their only income is SS and at around $1,200 it simply isn't enough to live on. We can preach personal responsibility, etc..... but at the end of the day, that is just the reality. Especially with there being fewer pensions for blue collar workers. An increase to even $1,500 a month for those at the bottom would make a large difference and arguably there would be a number of positive consequences with an increase.
Sure. I know from experience the inadequacy of social security payments. If it was up to me, I'd put a floor on the payments formula so that all retirees are living somewhere above the poverty line. I just don't see any justification for telling someone they're too rich to take the benefits from a fund they spent their whole lives paying into. Should I tell Chase they make too much money to deserve my mortgage payments?
I agree with a lot of this. Main thing is that the idea of Trump as Hitler is beyond ridiculous. You're right in that the better comparison is to the Germany of the 1920s, which was very divided and contentious, as you show above. There are some echoes there. Still, there are huge differences between the US of today and the Germany of the 1920s, most notably the hyper-inflation that existed in the Weimar Republic. I would also say that the US of today is way more diverse and multi-cultural (for better or worse) than Germany was in the 1920s or 1930s, perhaps even today.
Isn't the US economy booming along the best we have seen it in forever? If people are "still hurting" economically in this context, one has to wonder .....
I don't think SS was ever expected or designed to be an individual's sole source of retirement income. If it is........
Trump is ridiculous, but the idea that a US President could do anything but denounce white supremecy after the deaths of 6 millions Jews and uncounted totals of black Americans at American hands is appalling. The thought that the President of The United States, a country of immigrants would divide and sequester apart families in search of asylum is appalling, It's not wrong to point out the departure from our creed and it's eventual results
You want to talk about Sanders record on gun control and his cozy relationship to the NRA? Since we are dredging up past votes and positions.
Why does Trump have to denounce this? Everybody knows it was a horrible thing. Does he need to go down the list of all the horrible acts in human history and denounce those too?
... why we tolerate a system that allows so much of our country's wealth creation to be captured by investors while leaving workers in perpetual financial distress.
That's fine from a theoretical perspective, but it's not really how it works in practice. The formula has been changed numerous times, benefits have been changed, taxes have been changed, etc. Parts of it - like disability - are already limited to certain groups of people. Means-testing doesn't change the safety-net aspect of the program (rich people don't need the net), nor does it make it something for the poor (set the level properly). It just extends its sustainability without having to add an additional tax burden on someone else. I think wastefully spending billions of dollars on a financially tricky program just to maintain its image and popularity is terrible policy, and there's no evidence that this is actually true. For all we know, it might be more popular if more of the funds were used to truly help those need it. It might be more popular with young people if they think it will be sustainable in 50 years. This idea that it won't work is a crutch people use to avoid considering changes. In glynch's world, there's unlimited money for unlimited services - endless social security, free healthcare, free college, etc. In reality, good government is about making difficult choices. We agree that a safety net is vital and beneficial for country. Rather than spending that money on people who don't need it on some mythical principle, why not be even *open* to considering the idea of spending it where it's most useful?
Because any placating white nationalism is tacit promotion of white nationalism. It's a dangerous idea to let fester. The point is discrimination by race, the means includes violence, it's inherently undemocratic and counter to the 'community' of the United States. And only fools ignorant of history gail to recognize it, The President has to actively condemn as required by the oath to defend the Constitution, you know, the ;All Men Are Created Equal' part.
