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No checks on the 3rd? Is that even possible? What kind of morons are running that country? There are 70 million people who depend on those checks. Now, if we hadn’t spend how many trillions of dollars on the wars we wage all over the world, we wouldn’t have this problem.
All true, maravilla, but not one of those 20 million people who are dependent upon government checks are in the top one percent of income recipients and wealth holders whose selfish interests are the primary concern of the Republicans. Nor are they the ones fighting and dying in the wars.
Senator Bernie Sanders thinks that President Obama might agree to reduce Social Security benefits. Well, Sen. Sanders has it exactly wrong. Absent an about face on the parts of the Congressional Republicans, the country will go into default and they, not the President, will be able to take credit not for any reduction in Social Security but rather for its elimination altogether. Of course, that’s their real endgame anyway. So they’ll win . . .
WOW, Standing there with your hands out waiting for the government to take care of you. How pathetic. Then you buy in to all this fear mongering from our “Community Organizer in Chief” who hasn’t a clue. I can tell moving to Costa Rica made you so courageous and self sufficient. Don’t get me wrong, we deserve what we paid in, because we had to, and our service men and women deserve our support and I’m confident they will all receive their checks. There are BILLIONS$ in redundant and unnecessary programs that need to be closed. Could be a good start. It’s time to take a stand. It is not the responsibility of government to take care of the individual.
[quote=”maravilla”]wat happened to that lock box gore was blabbing about? how could they get away with this theft? they should all be lined up against a wall and shot. that’s MY money. it’s not a hand-out and i paid in plenty and i want it all back WITH INTEREST!!!!![/quote]
The fact is that the Social Security Act restricts the trust fund to investing only in instruments with the “full faith and credit of the U.S. government”.
The only investments that qualify are treasury instruments in which the trust fund has invested since the beginning.
The trust fund is not broke, the government is broke and we are facing a day when the treasury department will no longer be capable of redeeming those instruments when they are presented for payment.
Personal income taxes are the lowest they have been since 1932, corporate taxes, although the highest in the industrial world, are filled with loopholes and take in too little taxes. These tax laws have been passed by congress not any president although the president has the option of signing or vetoing.
Government giveaways passed by congress are costing hundreds of billions of dollars and I’m not talking about social programs, I’m talking about corporate subsidies, foreign aid, wars, giveaways to the wealthy and the like.
In the end it has been our Social Security an Medicare/Medicaid contributions that have kept the government afloat for the past 30 years.
Now, knowing those facts, if the federal government decides to end SS & Medicare/Medicaid there is going to be a civil war in the States and Sprite can take that to the bank.
Sprite agrees with everything you have written and adds an exclamation mark!
It is a fun mental exercise trying to imagine what would the Costa Rican government do with a bunch of expats living in country who have had their social security checks halted or reduced below the required amount for pensionista status? Could the expats request political asylum from an economically oppressive government?
You saw Ralph Nader’s recent article on Corporate Tax Escapees and You?
[ http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28553.htm ]
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The ultra-accurate Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) publishes precise reports on the effective taxes paid by corporations that make an utter mockery of the 35 percent statutory tax rate for corporations (see CTJ.org).
On June 1, 2011, CTJ released a preview of its forthcoming study of Fortune 500 companies and “the taxes they paid–or failed to pay–over the 2008-2010 period.” Judging by the preview, this report should silence those who say that the U.S. taxes corporations more than other industrialized nations.
What do you think the following profitable corporations paid in actual total federal income taxes in that period: American Electric Power, Boeing, Dupont, Exxon Mobil, FedEx, General Electric, Honeywell, International, IBM, United Technologies, Verizon Communications, Wells Fargo, and Yahoo? Nothing!
CTJ reports that “from 2008 through 2010, these 12 companies reported $171 billion in pretax U.S. profits. But as a group, their federal income taxes were negative: $2.5 billion.”
CTJ documents that “not a single one of the companies paid anything close to the 35 percent statutory tax rate. In fact, the ‘highest tax’ company on our list, ExxonMobil, paid an effective three-year tax rate of only 14.2 percent…and over the past two years, Exxon Mobil’s net tax on its $9.9 billion in U.S. pretax profits was a minuscule $39 million, an effective tax rate of 0.4 percent.”
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Nobody explains it more eloquently than George Carlin however, for those of you who don’t know Mr. Carlin’s work – He does use foul language from time to time so be warned:
I have watched this Carlin bit many times. Thanks for posting it. It is an eloquent, concise expression of this truth and the language used is appropriate. I think I have posted this as well once on another thread here.
For those who do not yet “get it”, I wonder what they are hearing here? What part of this truth do they refute and what are their reasons?
Scott, I don’t dispute the figures you quote, but I must pose the follow-on question . . .
These enormously profitable and grossly undertaxed corporations (and there are many more) must have lots and lots of cash, right. So setting aside the matter of profits and taxes, the question is how many new jobs did they create?
How can we possibly have an unemployment problem in the United States with all these highly profitable, cash laden, corporations creating legions of new jobs? We know, do we not, that having huge amounts of cash in corporate, rather than public, coffers does, as a matter of indisputable economic fact, create widespread new employment opportunities among those who actually are paying the taxes. So where are the jobs?
Where are the jobs? Where are they “creating legions of new jobs”?
Did you see my article on IBM To Invest US$300 million in Costa Rica Creating 1,000+ New Jobs?
[ https://www.welovecostarica.com/public/3134.cfm ]
1,000 new jobs in Costa Rica… Dozens of other mega-US and mega-European companies are hiring in India, China and increasingly Africa doing work that used to done in the USA, UK etc…
And it ain’t just brainless, low level work anymore…
Getting back to the thread, Karl Denninger says that: Social Security is NOT At Risk On Debt Ceiling
“President Obama and Tim Geithner are lying and their own data, from their own web sites and the Trustees proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Do not allow the fraudmasters of Washington DC to run their “tanks in the streets” lie once again.”
Well, if the jobs they’re creating are all in India, China, Africa and Costa Rica, why in the devil are the wizards in Congress so hellbent upon giving these corporations tax incentives using American dollars? Why not rely on the Indians, et al, to supply the incentives? Why us?
According to an April 2009 Congressional Budget Office report, in 2006 (the most recent data available) the top 1 percent of taxpayers made at least $332,300 annually and paid 28.3 percent of all federal taxes. The top 10 percent (earning $98,100) paid 55.4 percent. Meanwhile, the bottom 60 percent earned up to $47,399. They paid 14 percent of all federal taxes.
Regarding effective federal tax rates, CBO reported April 4 that in 2007, all taxpayers averaged a 20.4 percent tax rate. However, the top 1 percent effectively paid 29.5 percent, and the top 10 percent paid 26.7. The bottom 20 percent of taxpayers paid an effective rate of just 4 percent.
So, the idea that the evil rich pay less than their “fair share” is yet another lie. If it is insufficient for the top 10 percent to pay 70 cents of each federal tax dollar, what would suffice? – 80 cents? 95? 100?
The disparity in taxes, which ever way it breaks down, is not as bothersome nor as destructive as the income disparity in society. It is that income disparity, created by people exploiting and enslaving other people, which eventually brings down nations, cultures and now, perhaps, even entire species.
get your facts straight
“Company officials acknowledged that the tax department had expanded since he joined the company in 1988, and said it now had 975 employees.”
That is 975 workers trying to find way’s in the TAX laws to to pay less and this is one company, multiply it by 1,000 COMPANIES and find out why the Tax laws in the USA are not only broken but abused by the RICH Corporations
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