Vote for us. We give you "free" stuff.

[Pat Hartman]

I guess it is a testament to the quality of our public education that so many people believe that the government pulls money out of thin air.

I'm feeling pretty stupid. My twin granddaughters just graduated last year and my daughter and I and they made sure they came out debt free. I guess they shouldn't have worked summer and winter jobs for 4 years to cover their personal expenses.

Responsible people get screwed and the irresponsible people get "free" stuff that you and I pay for.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Not only do the dullards and the slackers get free stuff, but the dollars we get back as a return on OUR investments buy less each day as inflation rips apart our country's stability.

 

[AccessBlaster]

Nothings free but the cheese in the trap.

 

[Pat Hartman]

The people who are happy about getting the "free" stuff are also too stupid to understand that they have to pay income tax on the debt being forgiven AND they need to pay their share of everybody else's forgiven debt in taxes. The estimates are $2000 per tax payer. But they don't mention over what amount of time. If it is 10 years then the guy getting the "free" stuff has his taxes increased by $200 each year for 10 years PLUS he pays taxes on the forgiven debt in the current year.

And the real kicker is that the $10000 is not money put in his hand If his tax bracket is 15%, this "free" stuff is going to cost him $1500 out of pocket plus an average of $200 per year for the next 10 years Hope the guy getting the "free" stuff has $1500 he can pull out of his pocket

 

[AccessBlaster]

You see the same behavior with people who participate in a company 401k. Their contribution is taken out before taxes which is great as long as you abide by the contract. I have seen employees break this contract and remove some money before the contract time is due. The result is a stiff penalty where the employee must now reach into his own pocket and pay back the deficit with after taxes dollars, which defeats the purpose. And usually cost them around 33%. The same employee will often claim this is my money and I can do with it as I please. They quickly learn they are in a 3-way contract that they, the company, and the government have entered into. Being naïve can cost you big time.

 

[Pat Hartman]

We learned during COVID that the government can void any contract they want to void. So much for the Constitution. It's just some irrelevant old document written by white slave holders so it is meaningless to today's woke freeloaders. The US was always the safe haven of the world because people could rely on our Constitution that said what was yours was yours and couldn't be taken away from you except in extremely rare circumstances. I wonder what the landlords who got screwed think about that.

 

[Steve R.]

Something to think about, you paid off your loan. Too bad, you are screwed.
Have a loan today, you just hit the jackpot.
Get a loan tomorrow (figuratively) you will owe big $$$$$.

Additionally, based on it not being discussed, the elimination of student debt will not address the problem of the universities gouging it's students. Students today are "revenue units", guaranteed income. Subsidize something, the cost goes up. Tuition increases will soon follow. (I understand that those manufacturing subsidized electric cars have already increased their car prices.)

 

[Pat Hartman]

I posted this before but here it is again. My daughter graduated from Southern Connecticut State University in 1995. Tuition in her last year was $1500. My granddaughter graduated from the same school last year. Her tuition was $15,000 in her last year. According to the inflation calculator, her tuition should have been $2916. Why did tuition increase at more than 5 times the rate of inflation? Easy, the government intervened to make college "more affordable". Did they succeed? I guess they did for the people getting their loans forgiven but not for the rest of us suckers.

When will bureaucrats ever be held to account? Why are they allowed to just throw money at a problem and not evaluate the results? I know it's other peoples money but I'm really tired of it. The actual result of their efforts has been to raise tuition significantly more than inflation would justify. Year after year after year. Nobody cares. Nobody does anything. The colleges get richer. The education gets poorer. We get poorer.

 

[Pat Hartman]

In the news today. Apparently Ford and GM figured out that there was a $7500 tax credit for EV's in the newest overspending bill. So, they raised the price of their EV's by 6-8 thousand. Who's the stupid part of this event? Who gets hurt? Houses are another thing destroyed by "help" from the government in the form of secured loans with small down payments. New split levels in our neighborhood were going for $13,000 in 1965. Based on inflation, they should be $115,000 today. I think the average house price is now over $350,000.

The more the government "helps" us. the more the price raises. Healthcare is probably the worst because that isn't actually optional the way college and living in a house are.

 

[Isaac]

Nothings free but the cheese in the trap.

Although, receiving pricey government services of great monetary value that are funded involuntarily by the half of the country who's paying taxes comes pretty close to free!

Unfortunately, the price is being perpetually resented by those from whom you have stolen..

 

[Pat Hartman]

I think the founding fathers foresaw something like this when they restricted voting originally to landed "men". Essentially, they wanted people who had skin in the game to determine the policies of the country.

I would love to see something like restricting voting only to those citizens of age who were not collecting handouts from the government for themselves or their immediate family and of course who are not incarcerated or legally mentally incompetent. SS is not a handout. It is simply the government returning money they've taken from you at gunpoint for all your working life. SS is a scam but not the scam that the left talks about. If you save/invest money all your life and you die without spending it all, the remainder goes to your heirs. Not with SS. If you die, you lose it all. That's what makes the scam work. It's all about actuary tables. How long are people going to live so we can take the most from them and pay back the least It sure would be nice to have at least half of my husband's SS check. Granted, I can live on my own with my savings but he collected for 2 years after paying in for 45. Doesn't seem fair does it? Hundreds of thousands of dollars down the proverbial toilet that should have come to my husband or to me and our daughter, his heirs.

People on the dole are not voting for the good of the country, they are voting for what the government will give them for "free" as they steal it from the 52% of wage earners who actually pay taxes. What is wrong with this picture folks?

 

[Isaac]

I think the founding fathers foresaw something like this when they restricted voting originally to landed "men". Essentially, they wanted people who had skin in the game to determine the policies of the country.

I would love to see something like restricting voting only to those citizens of age who were not collecting handouts from the government for themselves or their immediate family and of course who are not incarcerated or legally mentally incompetent. SS is not a handout. It is simply the government returning money they've taken from you at gunpoint for all your working life. SS is a scam but not the scam that the left talks about. If you save/invest money all your life and you die without spending it all, the remainder goes to your heirs. Not with SS. If you die, you lose it all. That's what makes the scam work. It's all about actuary tables. How long are people going to live so we can take the most from them and pay back the least It sure would be nice to have at least half of my husband's SS check. Granted, I can live on my own with my savings but he collected for 2 years after paying in for 45. Doesn't seem fair does it? Hundreds of thousands of dollars down the proverbial toilet that should have come to my husband or to me and our daughter, his heirs.

People on the dole are not voting for the good of the country, they are voting for what the government will give them for "free" as they steal it from the 52% of wage earners who actually pay taxes. What is wrong with this picture folks?

What about the Survivor benefit for a widower?

 

[Pat Hartman]

The survivor benefit only applies if you don't have any income of your own on which to collect or if your personal benefit is less than half of your spouses. Remember, the system was designed when the norm was the husband worked and the wife stayed home or perhaps worked some menial job. So, if the higher earning spouse's benefit is $2000 per month and the lower earning spouse's benefit is $700, While the higher earner is alive, you can collect $2000 + $700 OR $2000 + $1000 and then when the higher earner dies, all you get is the $1000. But if your benefit is $1200, then that's what you get. $2000 + $1200 or when the higher earner dies, just $1200.

Given that the system was developed when only one spouse worked and that has changed over the years, the government is getting to keep more of the money you contribute because of what happens when the higher earner dies and you are left with at most, half of that amount instead of 1.5 times the amount.

Pretty good scam I'd say. It is part of how the government screws two income households when the incomes are approximately equal. During the 40 years of our marriage, my husband and I paid an additional $125,000 in income taxes not to mention twice the SS tax all for the privilege of being married. But for little additional benefit since there was only a short time where we could benefit from the + 50%. That was only because we had sufficient income to not need to take SS at the earliest possible moment and could let mine grow. We picked mine because it was going to be ultimately more and women tend to live longer anyway. Presumably, the +50% benefit is baked into the lifelong deductions that were taken from our wages at gunpoint even though we were never going to be able to collect. There was a loophole we were able to take advantage of but it has been closed. My husband retired at the earliest minimum age to get full benefits which was 67. I did collect 50% of his benefit for three years until I reached 70 at which point, I wouldn't gain any benefit from not collecting on my own account. So, for 2 years we got 1.5 times his benefit. Then for one year I got .5 of his benefit, and now i collect my own which is 8% higher than it would have been because I waited until age 70.

Benefits for Spouses

 

[AngelSpeaks]

We benefit because we have a special needs daughter. When I went on early social security, she got half of my full benefit. I think only those with children who collect social security come out ahead.

 

[Isaac]

This is all very interesting, my wife has worked relatively small fraction of my work over the last 24 years, but that is about to change for quite possibly as much as the next 20 but that remains to be seen.

Overall I agree it stinks that it's supposed to be our money and it's mostly not given to us.

Double Stinky Poo

 

[Pat Hartman]

I think only those with children who collect social security come out ahead.

SS was intended to be a retirement insurance but rapidly morphed into a catch-all social program. I grew up poor as were all my neighbors. When my best friend was 10, her father died so the SSA stepped in and paid for college for her and her brother. They would never have been able to afford college if their father hadn't died while they were still minors. The welfare state took care of them. My family was just as poor especially once my parents were divorced and my mother who had never worked before now had to support three children. The welfare state did not take care of us. Somehow we managed.

Overall I agree it stinks that it's supposed to be our money and it's mostly not given to us.

The loophole that allowed me to collect my "share" of my husband's benefit and defer my own is closed now. I like the idea of the enforced savings aspect of SS but because the money stays totally under the control of the government, they get to decide how to waste it and to take it all away from my family in the end. I'm not sure at what point the Congress managed to get their hands on the money but sometime in the 80's I think, the SS withholdings got shuffled into the "general" fund rather than a restricted fund and then Congress could spend all the savings and they did. Now it is essentially the Ponzi scheme that some call it. Current workers pay in and the money goes directly to the retirees. Not to worry though. Pretty soon the baby boomers will die off and the bubble will burst removing the strain. SS is one of the reasons that the Dems want open borders. They need more bodies working. Of course the fact that the illegals work under the table and avoid paying ALL taxes except for sales tax doesn't seem to affect their equation.