Robert Reich: This is why Trump and the GOP are obsessed with cutting Social Security and Medicare. So they can justify

[applegrove]

Post by @rbreich

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Robert Reich:

Cost of extending the expiring Trump tax cuts: $4.6 trillion.

Cost of proposed additional corporate tax breaks: $1 trillion

This is why Trump and the GOP are obsessed with cutting Social Security and Medicare.

So they can justify another round of giveaways to corporate donors.

[senseandsensibility]

1. K and R

for the truth!

[Warpy]

2. Cut, underfund, claim it doesn't work, then kill it

Same damned playbook the servants of the super rich who get into government use world wide.

[chowder66]

3. So they can justify robbing all of us of our retirement that we have paid into.

Because being rich just isn't enough.

[cstanleytech]

4. I have no problem with tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy.

The problem is though that Reaganomics of such tax breaks have proven themselves to an unmitigated disaster that never lead to anything except the wealthy becoming even more wealthy and they have been the only ones that such tax breaks have helped.

[GiqueCee]

15. And what little may trickle down...

... is yellow and smells funny.

[Tribetime]

25. I have a problem.With it I think they should go back to the tax rates of the nineteen fifties

Maybe then could one breadwinner.Supply for a family of four and also have health insurance

[enid602]

5. Supporters

And from the looks of them, most of Trump’s older supporters appear to be among those who need these retirement/health benefits the most.

[flashman13]

6. Medicare/Medicaid is well represented at TSF rallies.

Why do people vote against their own best interests?

[hadEnuf]

18. They sit and watch Fox news all day

and listen to right wing radio in the car and the professional propaganda brainwashers tell them that it is in their best interests.

[Celerity]

20. Because they vote for people who hurt the people they want to see hurt the most.

Like I have said many times before: MAGAts will agree to have a finger chopped off as long as, for instance, a black women has her entire arm or leg cleaved off.

[sakabatou]

7. ♫ They rob from the poor ♫

♫ and gives to the rich ♫
♫ What a bitch! ♫
♫ GOP, GOP, GOP ♫

[live love laugh]

8. To pocket Americans' $$$ plain and simple. (With kickbacks to their "donors")

[rampartc]

10. "donors?" should call them "investors"

and let all the senators wear patches on their suits like nascar drivers do to salute their owners.

"nobody pays a $B to get a $200K job " rampart sr (on why he would never contribute to my campaign fund. advice that he repeated later as

"i didn't pay years of boy scout dues to raise a whore." sr

[Good Dog]

9. Imagine what America can be....

I find it so interesting and extremely frustrating that we are dealing with such big and serious issues in the U.S. that could and should have been resolved decades ago were it not for the Republican Party. Consider the three biggest immediate issues that we face today; "climate change" "guns" and "reproductive rights" not to mention race, gender and immigration. Think about it; do away with Republicans and their twisted ideology and we have what is akin to a utopia in America. The Democrats and even the most Liberal among them are decent, thoughtful and considerate of others. Instead we have a party with a leader that offers no solutions, divides us and creates bigger and bigger problems. Give Democrats a landslide sweeping victory in November, don't look back, and the U.S. will once again be the greatest country in the history of the world.

[Cosmocat]

16. Same thoughts, though I would add healthcare

nm

[Farmer-Rick]

11. In other words

They want to take the tax dollars you pay in for Medicare and Social Security in your payroll taxes. The GOP will use it to paper over the gaps in funding that are created when the filthy-rich and their corporations stop paying taxes.

Remember what happened to Greece under EU when their economy crashed in 2008? It didn't crash because the middle class wasn't paying their taxes.

[spanone]

12. K&R

[BoRaGard]

13. k and r

[Puppyjive]

14. The are not vested in social security

You have to pay into it to get something out of it. Many of these 'self employed' business owners don't pay into social security. Furthermore, they don't want to pay the employer contributions. They don't want to save it because they hate paying into it. They hate paying taxes. They don't understand how taxes pay for infrastructure and clean water. They want everyone else to foot the bill.

[GiqueCee]

17. I'll have to do some digging...

... but I'm pretty sure the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 was enacted specifically to prevent this kind of malicious raiding of the Social Security Trust Fund.
Bottom line: It's NOT the government's money, it's deferred wages held in trust until we reach retirement age, and these greedy fucks have NO RIGHT to touch it. But then, they're Republicans, so the rights of others mean nothing to them. They'll rape and pillage all they want, until those who have the power to stop them grow a pair and take them down without mercy. And you'd better believe that, if the tables were turned, you'd see no mercy from them.
We need only see their actions today to know what they'd do tomorrow.

[aggiesal]

29. Yes but the SS Administration buys US bonds with the money ...

Last edited Sun Jun 16, 2024, 11:48 AM - Edit history (1)

Their plan is to get gain interest on the money through bonds, instead of just sitting there
That's the SS Trust Fund that keeps getting mentioned.

If more SS $$$'s come in than go out, then the excess goes into the trust fund.
If more SS $$$'s go out than comes in, then the SSA sells bonds to cover the excess going out.

When you hear that SS is going bankrupt, it's the Trust Fund they are talking about.
This is by design. The Trust fund is supposed to dry up about ~2033.
If nothing is done to increase SS deposits, by that year, then Social Security will only pay out about 75% of the current monthly payment.
Increasing SS withholdings salaries up to $400K would keep monthly payments at 100%
If SS withholds salaries up to $2M, monthly payments could easily double from current monthly payments.

With Billions in the Trust Fund, that's what the wealthy want to get their grubby little hands on, before it's all gone.
They don't care about the money coming in, because their plan is to stop SS altogether, so no one will be paying into it anyway.

But that Trust Fund is just sitting there and they are just trying to literally rob the bank.

[GiqueCee]

32. Well...

... you have a much better handle on this than I do. Thank you for the enlightenment on the details. Now I know who to ask when I have a question!

Have a nice weekend!

[Hieronymus Phact]

19. people don't even realize that expiring tax cut even existed!

Go ahead ask some non-political regular types, you'll get blank stares about it as you explain why there's no money for anything.

Further, people who rely on Social security especially republicans, refuse to believe (surprise!) that the Repubs. want to cut the program. I keep telling them "the worst thing that can happen to you would be getting exactly what you've been voting for."

Don't make the mistake of assuming your political junkie knowledge level is the norm. it's not.

[JustAnotherGen]

21. We've got to get it through

The heads of millennial and Y's and Z's - who from time to time (not at DU) I read online or hear in person . . .

"Why should I have to pay for that when it won't be here for me?

I can't worry about 50 years from now?"

Well guess what you guys. I'm 51. I never had kids. Know who has paid into your public school? Me.

Know who wasn't eligible for Stafford loans? Me. I wasn't eligible until the second half of my sophomore year - and the loans earned interest while in school - so I worked part time to keep them down. You got yours because I paid for it in the 1990's.

My mom died at 76 years of age last Wednesday. She paid INTO and received Social Security at the same time. She was paying for your grandparents and great grandparents at 76 and retired for 12 years.

Her parents died before they could collect Social Security and she was an only child with two children.

Selfish? Why should I have to pay for YOUR parents retiring in a few years?

I was model as a kid. I was one of the kids on the Kodak billboards - in Hawaiian Punch Commercials, Topps Baseball, etc etc. I've been paying into it since 1981.

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE SOCIAL CONTRACT!

Gen X has paid for the silents, boomers, millennials, y's and z's.

On these TWO THINGS - do not fuck us over. Please - don't do that to Gen X. Don't you . . . forget about me.

[PeaceWave]

22. Gotta love Robert Reich...4'11" with a beard that makes him look like an ewok but awesome.

[Hotler]

23. That and selfishness. nt

[Martin Eden]

24. But... but... didn't I already pay for these earned benefits with paycheck deductions

My entire working life

Doesn't that go for all the MAGAloons as well??

No way will ANY working folk, regardless of political persuasion, vote for a candidate or party who would take money out of their pockets like that and hand it to the filthy rich.

Unless they really ARE as stupid as they appear to be.

[Irish_Dem]

26. When in power, the GOP always backs up their limos to the US Treasury.

They take as much as they can grab.

Then the Dems have to fill up the piggybank when they are in power.
And do a clean up of all the other wreckage.

[red dog 1]

27. "The facts are simple: Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans have repeatedly sought to cut Social Security, Medicare,

and Medicaid, while President Joe Biden has pledged to protect those programs."


https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxpyZmTfWgJi6tzIaK3pzyFw6iGGVTtAh4

[czarjak]

28. Party Of The Rich policies work for the rich every time.

[captain queeg]

30. Every Dem candidate needs to hammer on SSh

It’s the one issue that many magats care about.

[Model35mech]

31. The cutters don't give a shit about deficits

Deficits are fodder that they feed to their sheep.

Don't you know deficits are only created by spending on things that don't deserved the spending?

It is NEVER a problem of LACK OF TAXATION, and too low National Fees strangling the revenue needed to fund essential programs.