as with any insurance you usally do draw more than you pay in! If you have a (for example) $250,000 life insurance policy, do you think you are going to pay in $250,000 for it?
All this complaining about people drawing SS but I tell you if you are paying in and happen to have a catastrophic illness and have to draw disability benefits, you will be glad you paid in.
Complete Discussion Below: marks the location of current message within thread
The messages you are viewing
are archived/old. To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select
the boards given in left menu
Other related messages found in our database isn't that social security?
We already pay 7.5 of income to social security and employers pay an additional 7.5%. An IC pays the full 15% themself. Is this 5% in addition to that, replacing that or what? Can you provide additional information or a source for such?
Re: Social Security
Yes, I applied in April of 2008. Was denied. Filed Request for Reconsideration. Was denied. Am now awaiting a hearing, which might take another year. Since my initial application, I've developed a few more diseases, and I'm hoping to talk with my lawyer today to see if we can send a "Dire Need Letter," since the situation is now dire.
As far as quarters, I have plenty of them and was even told when I applied how much I could expect to receive each month.
I never, EVER thought I would be in a position like this. If anything, I've softened my attitude about "those people" who are forced to take advantage of government assistance. You just never know when it might happen to you.
What would your plan be for the elderly population then?
No drug laws? I thought libertarians only objected to posession of marijuana as a crime. I didn't know you actually objected to all drug laws. So then, you believe all drugs should be legalized?
You don't believe in a standing military. I am not sure I remember that right. It's hard to remember that very long list without it in front of me. So is your plan then that we should all live in a drug-haze, leave all other countries to their own devices and we won't need a military because we won't be bothering anyone and who will care anyway because, of course, we will all be stoned? I can't say that I see any cogent thought behind this list. It's a morally relative list of Doctor Feel Good. I thought libertarians had more sense. What a bummer dude.
I think the quickest way to fix Social Security...
is to make it so politicians have to rely on it when they are of retirement age instead of us paying them their government salary after they leave office.
I think a lot of economic problems would be solved if politicians would have to play by the same rules as the rest of us.
Do you draw social security or do you know
someone who does?
Medicare and social security
This today regarding Social Security and Medicare. For the person below who thought this money could not be used for other purposes, please note the *** paragraphs and the final paragraph stating this administration would run a deficit this year of $1.84 trillion, four times last year's record, and said the deficits will remain above $500 billion every year over the next decade.
Washington – The financial health of Social Security and Medicare, the government's two biggest benefit programs, have worsened because of the severe recession, and Medicare is now paying out more than it receives.
Trustees of the programs said Tuesday that Social Security will start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2016, one year sooner than projected last year, and the giant trust fund will be depleted by 2037, four years sooner. Medicare is in even worse shape. The trustees said the program for hospital expenses will pay out more in benefits than it collects this year and will be insolvent by 2017, two years earlier than the date projected in last year's report.
*******The trust funds — which exist in paper form in a filing cabinet in Parkersburg, W.Va. — are bonds that are backed by the government's "full faith and credit" but not by any actual assets. That money has been spent over the years to fund other parts of government. To redeem the trust fund bonds, the government would have to borrow in public debt markets or raise taxes.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the head of the trustees group, said the new reports were a reminder that "the longer we wait to address the long-term solvency of Medicare and Social Security, the sooner those challenges will be upon us and the harder the options will be." Geithner said that President Barack Obama was committed to working with Congress to find ways to control runaway growth in both public and private health care expenditures, noting the promise Monday by major health care providers to trim costs by $2 trillion over the next decade. However, Republicans pointed to the newly dire assessments as evidence the Obama administration has failed to come forward with actual entitlement reform to close the funding gaps. "Instead of getting existing public programs in order right now, some are saying we should create a new government-run health insurance plan," Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, said in a reference to the administration's health care proposals. "When we can't afford the public health plan we have already, does it make sense to add more?" House Republican leader John Boehner said the trustees report "confirms what we already knew: Our nation cannot afford to continue this reckless borrowing and spending spree." The findings in the trustees report, the annual checkup given the two benefit programs, did not come as a surprise. Private economists had been predicting that the dates the programs would begin to pay out more than they take in and the dates the trust funds would be insolvent would occur sooner given the economic recession.
The deep recession, the worst the country has endured in decades, has resulted in a loss of 5.7 million jobs since it began in December 2007. The unemployment rate hit a 25-year high of 8.9 percent in April.
Fewer people working means less being paid into the trust funds for Social Security and Medicare. The Congressional Budget Office recently projected that Social Security will collect just $3 billion more in 2010 than it will pay out in benefits. A year ago, the CBO had projected that Social Security would have a much higher $86 billion cash surplus for the 2010 budget year, which begins Oct. 1. The trustees report projected that Social Security's annual surpluses would "fall sharply this year," then remain at a reduced level in 2010 and be lower in the following years than last year's projections. The report said that the Social Security annual surplus would be eliminated entirely in 2016, reflecting increased demands from the wave of 78 million baby boomers retiring. That means Social Security will have to turn to its trust fund to make up the difference between Social Security taxes and the benefits being paid out beginning in 2016. The trustees projected the trust fund would be depleted in 2037, four years earlier than the 2041 date in last year's report. At that point, the annual Social Security taxes collected would be enough to pay for three-fourths of current benefits through 2083.
*******To tap the trust fund, the government would have to increase borrowing or raise taxes because Social Security bonds exist only as bookkeeping entries. While the government is obligated to redeem those bonds, it has already spent the excess Social Security collections over the years to fund general government operations, providing the trust funds with IOUs.
While the smaller surpluses that will begin this year will not have any impact on Social Security benefit payments, the government will need to borrow more at a time when the federal deficit is already exploding because of the recession and the billions of dollars being spent to prop up a shaky banking system. Medicare's condition is more precarious, reflecting the pressures from soaring health care costs as well as the drop in tax collections. Obama on Monday praised the pledge by the health care industry to achieve $2 trillion in savings on health care costs over the next decade, but it was unclear how much help those pledges would be in achieving Obama's goal of extending coverage to some 50 million uninsured Americans. The administration is pushing Congress to pass legislation in this area this year, preferring to tackle health care before Social Security. The trustees report is likely to set off renewed debate over Social Security and Medicare. Critics have charged that the Obama administration has failed to tackle the most serious problems in the budget — soaring entitlement spending.
*****The administration on Monday revised its federal deficit forecasts upward to project an imbalance this year of $1.84 trillion, four times last year's record, and said the deficits will remain above $500 billion every year over the next decade.
Post Office, Social Security
Am I missing some bigger picture? I'm serious with that question.
Last night Barrack mentioned how he's against the raising of the retirement age. Hillary didn't really speak to it, but I got the impression that she also doesn't want to see that happen. Is there some reason other than AARPs very powerful lobby? I mean, in the 60's, the average life expectancy was about 70 years, now it's close to 78. Why shouldn't retirement age be raised? We are not only living longer, but we're living healthy longer. I do realize that not all will remain healthy, but for those there is disability also.
SS is in so much trouble, it just seems to me to be a no brainer that by raising the retirement age, even by just a couple of years, some of those problems can be lessened.
Thank goodness my DH and I took all of our retirement
and investments out of the market about 6 weeks ago, had a feeling something was coming.
People near retirement age will be put out on the
ice floe to die. But since out country is a little short of ice floes, those who have reached the end of their 'productive lives' will be denied medical care and allowed to seek whatever undignified death seems appropriate to them. Adapt or die. Next question?
I am a PT MT receiving my retirement
social security benefits. Here is what the letter I received from the SSA stated:
On February 17, 2009, President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Among its provisions are one-time payments to Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) beneficiaries, as well as funding to help the agency address critical needs.
One-Time Payments of $250 For Social Security and SSI Beneficiaries
Nearly 55 million people who receive Social Security and SSI benefits will get a special one-time payment of $250. They should receive the one-time payment by late May 2009. 401K/retirement fund
You can't "take" your pension and 401K out of the stock market if you are not retirement age. We are stuck with whatever the companies we work for invest in. my husband and I have some choices about where we invest our 401K but they all involve mutual funds, stocks, bonds, etc.
That's where DH is. Forced to retire because of no work (road construction). The stimulus money went to 2 cities in my state. The rest of the state got nothing towards road construction or very little.
We didn't get last year's stimulus check because we owed taxes and they put the money towards that. Now he's getting screwed out of the $250 because he wasn't retired when this happened. Never fails.
Remember that cartoon of the guy always under the grey cloud? That's us.
Aaaagggggg!!!! I know, I shouldn't of done it. But I just HAD to take a peek. And what I saw was almost too depressing for mere words to describe.
So, this afternoon I logged on to my 401K, just to see how the poor thing has been faring these past coupla weeks. It started hemorrhaging pretty badly a couple of months back, lost first 1/4, and then about 1/3 of its value. But oh, my GOD..... today it's down just a few dollars shy of being only HALF it's former value. A mere shadow of its former self. Now there's not even enough money left in it to buy a decent used car.
I guess now there's only one thing left to do when we reach a point in our lives when we can no longer work, and need to retire. That would involve a gun and a single bullet. Well, mabe 2 bullets. (My aim is pretty bad.....)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Amid record oil prices and soaring gasoline costs, Exxon Mobil's $400 million retirement package to its former CEO is a shameful display of greed that should be reviewed by Congress and investigated by federal regulators, Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record) said on Tuesday.
Dorgan said he wants Exxon Mobil officials to appear at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing to explain how the corporation justifies giving its former boss, Lee Raymond, such a huge retirement package.
There can be no more compelling evidence that the price gouging and market manipulation which has produced record oil prices is out of control, and is working to serve the forces of individual greed and corporate gluttony at the painful expense of millions of American consumers, Dorgan said.
Dorgan's criticism of Raymond's financial package came on the same day that U.S. crude oil prices hit a record high of more than $71 a barrel at the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Higher crude oil prices are helping to push of up gasoline costs. The Energy Department reported prices jumped 10 cents over the last week to a national average of $2.78 a gallon, up 55 cents from a year ago.
President George W. Bush said on Tuesday he was concerned about the impact high gasoline prices were having on families and businesses.
Exxon earned the wrath of many lawmakers when it reported more than $36 billion in profits last year as energy prices paid by consumers soared.
Dorgan said he will push to win passage of his legislation that would impose a windfall profits tax on big oil companies and rebate that money to consumers, unless the companies used their earnings to explore for and produce more energy.
I think a sensible public policy would insist that the big oil companies either invest those windfall profits in things that will increase our own domestic energy supplies, or we should return some of that money to consumers, Dorgan said.
Using them to drop $400 million dollars in the pocket of a big oil executive is simply unacceptable, he added.
Exxon Mobil has defended Raymond's retirement package, saying it was pegged to the rise in the company's profit and market capitalization that occurred during his tenure.
On a weekend when we are all preparing to celebrate our independence, some of us can get ready to kiss that very same independence goodbye.
If Bush stays true to his "base" and the Democrats are unsuccessful in what I hope will be a very aggressive filibuster (if the candidate does turn out to be someone who is unwilling to substitute the Constitution for the Bible), we will have conservatives chipping away at our independence: controlling our lives, our deaths, defining which God is "politically correct," who people with the "wrong" orientation are "allowed" to love, etc., etc., etc.
I wonder how much "independence" we will have left to celebrate on July 4, 2006.
So, you look forward to paying for more social
xx
Perhaps it was the social and community outreach
1. Can-Cer-Vive support to cancer patients and caregivers.
2. Churh school and youth church.
3. Counseling services, both individual and group.
4. Emmaus Road Ministry, which provides companions, prayer partners, helpers and friends for grieving persons, months after the passing of a loved one. Ongoing contact with the family is maintained.
5. Girl Scouts.
6. Teen choir.
7. Computer classes.
8. Assistance to physically, mentally and emotionally handicapped.
9. Marriage enrichment seminars.
10. Workshops on building and maintaining Christian homes.
11. Men's chorus.
12. Men's fellowship.
13. Bible study.
14. Sanctuary choir.
15. Stewardship.
16. Women's chorus.
17. Women's drill team.
18. Yoga.
19. Youth drill team.
20. Active seniors.
21. Adopt-a-Student.
22. Athletes for Christ.
23. Career development.
24. Church in the community.
25. Domestic violence advocacy and support.
26. Drug and alcohol recovery.
27. Food share.
28. Grandparent's ministry.
29. HIV/AIDS support.
30. Housing workshops.
31. Health and wellness.
32. Legal counseling.
33. Math tutors.
34. Prison ministry.
35. Reading tutors.
36. Drama.
37. Fine arts and literary guild.
38. Quilting.
39. Adult dance.
40. Music.
Compare these ministries with Obama's life experiences, political views and current campaign platform. That is explanation enough for me.
Yeah, they are liberal on social issues. sm
And, they have run amuck chasing the adoption records of Roberts. It's things like this that make people want to lump liberals/democrats all up in one pile when in fact this is one, maybe two journalist starting this up. It gives fuel to the right wing media and the wheels keep on turning.
This is not social programs......this is HUGE government
!!
Correct....or the 3.5 trillion dollar social programs
@
Tax cuts, progressive tax system, social programs
are as American as apple pie and these same policies and initiatives can be found puncuating the pages of our history from the day of our country's inception.
You do not understand Marxism or socialism, or you would be a lot more exercised by the current redistribution of wealth that takes your tax dollars and moves them upward to an elite ruling class that represses and undermines the middle class at the drop of a hat. State ownership of banks, lending institutions and direct personal property "buy outs" (as proposed by McCain certainly smack of Marxism and are not exactly what you could call traditional American values.
So why wasn't social services called on this girl?
So the parents who are involved in the lives of their children should be punished because some are not? Obviously if the parents don't care then something is wrong in the household and their needs to be an investigation or a report.
I just don't think a 14-year-old girl has the maturity to make decisions on her own like that. God knows the stupid things I would have done at 14 if my dad had just let me do whatever I wanted or wasn't informed!
I mean in that case, schools shouldn't call home when we skipped school because we should be allowed to make our own decisions about whether we want to be educated or not.
Exactly! Look what they did to Soc. Security.
nm
O is smarter than JM on nat'l security.
Just for starters, here are a few concepts that would tend to argue in favor of inernational diplomacy...and hes got a brilliantly inspired plan.
2nd clue: He knows that US cannot be a leader in a world that it has alientated.
3rd clue: He understands the concept of common purpose. It is in the best interest of all modern, civilized nations to defeat terrorism.
3rd clue: Understands that securing, destroying and stopping spread of WMDs can only succeed as a a global effort, i.e., we can't be everywhere at once.
4th clue: Recognizes value in renewing and constructing old alliances to meet common challenges and threats.
5th clue: Foreign aid aimed at constructing foundations of sustainable democracies; strong legislatures, independent judiciaries, rule of law, civil society, free press and honest police force.
6th clue: Knows his geography. Appropriage military initiatives against AL Quaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan, their home base.
7th: Securing nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states.
8th: Energy Security.
9th: Obama on diplomacy: "The United States is trapped by the Bush-Cheney approach to diplomacy that refuses to talk to leaders we don't like. Not talking doesn't make us look tough — it makes us look arrogant, it denies us opportunities to make progress, and it makes it harder for America to rally international support for our leadership. Obama is willing to meet with the leaders of all nations, friend and foe. Reagan did this with Gorbachev, who posed a much greater immediate threat (i.e., "We are going to wipe you off the face of the earth") than Iran, Venezuela or Cuba does (for example). He will do the careful preparation necessary, but will signal that America is ready to come to the table, and that he is willing to lead."
10th: Obama: "The United States should have the courage and confidence to talk to its adversaries. Demanding that a country meets all your conditions before you meet with them, that’s not a strategy. It’s just naive, wishful thinking."
I realize this is a bit much for the scorched earth disciples, so it really serves very little purpose to really go to far beyond these basic principles, they way that he has. This is was real leadership looks like.
Well they should have the same security clearance
if they are a threat, as Obama is supposed to be. Okay if he gets in, then the FBI can do their thing and he can get thrown out of office, put in jail? or what? What has he done that is illegal??? Do not get it.
I apologize. I'm obviously not understanding your statement.
Are you saying that a United States Senator, now internationally known because of his historic run for United States President, who is constantly surrounded by Secret Service people, is unable to pass a SECURITY check?
If that is what you're saying, please provide a link to support that.
Security Clearance
Can you post where you found that he had a security clearance denied? I have not seen that before.
McCain Lobbyist Scandal Continues: Government Warned Senator That Campaign Manager Was Undermining National Interests
The lobbying firm of McCain campaign manager Rick Davis acted in direct opposition to American foreign interests, which prompted a warning to McCain's Senate office from the United States government, according to a recent New York Times article.
Much has been reported about Rick Davis, top McCain adviser and lobbyist whose company, Davis Manafort, made its fortune in part by accepting jobs that didn't require employees to register as lobbyists. Davis has been in particular hot water for his company's work with pro-Russian Ukranian political candidates; Davis arranged for one of Putin's allies to meet with McCain during the time.
However, the New York Times has managed to take that already embarrassing story and make it even worse:
Mr. McCain may have first become aware of Davis Manafort's activities in Ukraine as far back as 2005. At that time, a staff member at the National Security Council called Mr. McCain's Senate office to complain that Mr. Davis's lobbying firm was undercutting American foreign policy in Ukraine, said a person with direct knowledge of the phone call who spoke on condition of anonymity.
A campaign spokesman, when asked whether such a call had occurred, referred a reporter to Mr. McCain's office. The spokesman there, Robert Fischer, did not respond to repeated inquiries.
Such a call might mean that Mr. McCain has been long aware of Mr. Davis's foreign clients. Mr. Davis took a leave from his firm at the end of 2006.
This isn't the only time when Davis' business interests have appeared counter to those of the United States: Davis' Ukranian contacts shared several business ties with Iran.
McCain suffered from a perception problem last month when the extent of his lobbying connection caused his campaign to fire several key staffers, as well as institute a new conflict-of-interest policy. The McCain camp has said that Davis is unaffected by the policy, as its implementation is not retroactive. Davis is no longer registered as a lobbyist.
A lot will be revealed, when it is safe to do so, so that our national security is not compromised.
You and I, as citizens, do not have the security clearance to be made aware of what has been averted.
It's not like he skipped a security briefing!
There was nothing in Bush's self-serving farewell speech that would be of any importance to Barack Obama. Obama has much more important things to concentrate on these days. Personally, I would rather have Obama concentrate on issues that will be affecting the future of our country than waste his time listening to a lame duck pat himself on the back!
As far as being disrespectful...respect is something that is earned, and George Bush has done nothing to earn respect from anyone.
marks the location of current message within thread
