Feel the Bern...the campus has been compromised
- Thread starter PurduePete
- Start date
and what percentage of SNAP recipients do you actually think this is?
You're smarter than that post.
My father passed at 53, so no, you didn't pay for him and my mother has no desire to retire so her benifits are reduced. I doubt the programs will exist in any way that will see my wife and me approach the levels we have put into the system through all the years we employed people. I don't get worked up about for myself, I have enough, but it bothers me those former employees probably won't get back an inflation adjusted benifit that will come close to matching what was contributed for them.
I see a hypocrisy when people say they are "paying for others" as if your life hasn't benefited greatly from the efforts, taxes, of the the others on this board and across the country, including the poor working in low income jobs. Corporations, Wall Street, insurance...have grown wealthy beyond anything seen before from the protection, security, education, infrastructure... provide on the backs, taxed income, of all Americans. It's a vanity I can't understand that has people believing they "did it all themselves" and that the poor are ruining it all and sponging off of them.
Well...look man you can't deny the spending levels. I get what you are saying, but medicare/medicaid/social security is ~2T a year. That is a LOT of money. Almost unimaginable. And it goes to a relatively small portion of society and ALSO is taken from a relatively small portion of society. Namely, households like mine, where both are educated and work. My household paid 60k after deductions in state and federal tax. That's ****ing insane. I'd rather just adopt a family, at least I'd get some say in how the money is spent. I'm tired of people taking from me and acting like I should get no say in what's done with it. That's tyranny.
Refuting ecouch.
Look, my wife worked in WIC center when she was getting her masters in nutrition. The goal was to find any reason, whatever it was, to qualify the individuals for SNAP benefits. Some (yes more than 1) were not exactly a part of the originally intended beneficiaries. Do i think it should be done away with, no. Is it completely stupid to assume that noone who recieves such benefits could possess a nice automobile, Yes.
I'm pretty sure ecouch's point was not that no one who receives such benefits could ever possess a nice automobile.
If
If your mom is at least 70 she can collect the greater of her's or your dad's SS retirement income with no reduction in benefit amount no matter how much she earns from working.
If your mom is at least 70 she can collect the greater of her's or your dad's SS retirement income with no reduction in benefit amount no matter how much she earns from working.
About 60 million people receive Social Security Benefits, about 60 receive Medicare (these 2 populations overlap some obviously) and about 60 million receive medicaid. Of the 60 million on Medicaid there are about 4 million that are poor elderly recipients that are receiving supplements to their medicare coverage, and another 40 million are children and adults with disabilities (most of these adults work and thus pay FICA,see below), some are low income pregnant women who are only covered while pregnant so that is hard to capture. There are about 320 million people in the US. Once we take out duplicates there are likely 120 million receiving those benefits or ~37.5% of the population. Doesn't strike me as a relatively small portion. Also, this will increase as more people retire and increase the SSI and Medicare population.
166 million people, or ~51.9% of the population paid FICA taxes which fund SSI and Medicare. Doesn't strike me as a relatively small portion.
The stats on income tax are harder to parse. With that said the consensus is that ~45% of households or ~75 million households don't pay any federal income tax, of course of those 33 million are exempted because they are retirees/elderly. This means that really there are 133 million households eligible to pay income tax (166 million minus 33 million retirees/elderly) and 91 million or ~68% paid income tax. Unfortunately it is difficult to turn "households" in to "population". Again doesn't strike me as a relatively small portion.
Great, but meaningless without income and effective tax rate information. However, congratulations on having a high earning household. One typically doesn't owe income taxes (and I paid $40,000 in taxes this year, but I did get to book a business loss so that skewed my number) if they don't make a decent living.
We have elections nearly every year. Run for office or support a candidate that matches your views.
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51% funding a total of 3.3T, 2T of which for roughly a 1/3 of the population? Your definition of fair is lot different than mine. And you better believe I vote.
I clearly missed the part where you or I said anything about fair.
Feel free to use the multi-quote function to address what I wrote.
the whole point of using a larger pool of people to to fund retirement for a smaller pool of people is that it spreads that cost among a wide swath of folks, thus taking less from any one person.
I'd say it's plenty fair, but you are right, his response was pretty much a non-sequitur since you weren't talking about fairness at all, and neither was he until you more or less dispensed with everything he'd tried to argue up to that point.
Loved Carly yesterday when she referred to us a "Indianans!" Right. Years ago I saw and listened to Bobby Kennedy in Bloomington when in grad school at IU. Two weeks later he was killed in California.
so 60% of the federal budget being used by 37% people doesn't seem out of proportion? ok...
A gross and purposeful misrepresentation. The top 0.1% of families pay the equivalent of 39.2% and the bottom 20% have negative tax rates. Thus the top 15% are paying around 80% of all income taxes paid. That is an extremely small portion.
Everyone pays SS taxes up to just over 100K of income. The poor, the rich, the middle class. The poor do not get tax breaks for SS and medicare taxes. SS tax is not income tax, income tax does not fund SS, so talking about the income tax during a discussion about SS is like talking about cars during a discussion of horse racing.
The only folks who don't pay SS taxes on 100% of their income is the rich, as, again, it is capped at a certain income level. Now, so are benefits, but as of now the SS tax is, in fact, not based on need.
The proposal is to raise the income limit while not raising the benefit limit. This would funnel a ton of money into the program but it would turn it into a need-based program because the rich would pay more but receive less. But that is not currently how it is set up.
Well, you're the one who was griping about paying for others. I'm one of those who writes the big check every year, so I have no idea why you feel the need to lecture me about this stuff. I pay gas taxes for the roads and property taxes for the schools. I don't begrudge people who are poor their benefits.
My life benefited primarily from the incredible hard work and thrift of my immigrant grandparents and farsightedness of my unselfish parents, who were too unsophisticated to realize how much the government would take of their hard-earned savings when they died. They didn't do it all themselves because there were people who had their own capital at risk to run the businesses who hired them and paid their salaries.
I strongly admire small business owners in today's business environment. They are the real heroes of this economy, the only true job creation engine. We don't do nearly enough to make their lives easier and help their businesses prosper.
And regarding the kids who are gobbling up Bernie's bloviating, I don't worry much about them. Once they get away from their safe spaces and trigger warnings on campus, they'll be worried more about their credit histories and interactions with mortgage loan officers than pink unicorns dancing on rainbows in Bernie's democratic socialist paradise. They'll figure it out; after all, they went to college.
you don't know shit. SS is income tax. Seriously you have never made a dime in your life.
You started the conversation citing the use of SSI and Medicare. Those are primarily paid for through the FICA tax. The fact that the SSI system has been effed up since the mid 1980's (we can chat about that if you like) and we have to fund it out of general income tax revenues isn't the fault of the people that have dutifully paid in to the system over their careers.
Depending on the year it is actually the top 25% of earners who pay about 80% of the income tax. Of course, the top 25% of earners also collect about 70% of the AGI in the United States so those numbers make some sense. Ideally those numbers would be relatively equal, but we do have a progressive (small "p" not big "P") tax system.
The bottom 20% of earners earn about 3-5% of the AGI in the US. To be counted among the bottom 20% of earners you usually make less than $23,000 per year. If one would like them to pay income tax, we could find a way for them to make more money...
It is a tax on wage income, but it is typically not classified as Federal Income Tax, thus the acronym FICA, Federal Insurance Contribution Tax.
It's a tax, on my income. Where do you think this money comes from, if not an income tax? Please elucidate me. No wait. I changed my mind. I'm right and you're a barely functioning retard who can't read the line items on his check.
https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10003.pdf
lol
"Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax /ˈfaɪkə/ is a United States federal payroll (or employment) tax[1] imposed on both employees and employers to fund Social Security and Medicare[2]—federal programs that provide benefits for retirees, the disabled, and children of deceased workers. The tax also provides funds to the health care system for institutions that provide healthcare for workers that do not have health insurance and cannot afford healthcare treatment."
It's a payroll tax, not an income tax. Everyone pays the same rate. It is not based on income levels. It is also, again, unlike income tax, levied on BOTH employees AND employers.
In fact, it is a REGRESSIVE tax unlike the federal income tax which is progressive, that is the rate depends on income level, increasing as you go up.
But sure...you're..."right." lol
FICA is an income tax. It even gets its own line.
I checked 2014 and 2000. Almost identical. What year are you referencing?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/top-20-of-earners-pay-84-of-income-tax-1428674384
I'm not trying to crap on poor people, just the ignorance of buffoons like Mr. Sanders who seem to think I'm somehow screwing the poor.
lol wtf is payroll? It's an EARNINGS tax. period. No matter whether you're on a payroll or not, if it's taxable income, you owe it. Make some money sometime. You'll see how it works.
Regardless if it is too 25 or top 20 (and I found my numbers via Google in Forbes and WSJ articles and I was using AGI not straight earnings so maybe that skews the number) my overall point still stands:
I will even grant you that the tax rate are too high, but we are in a situation where we need to cut spending along with cutting taxes.
I never said you were. Just wanted to give some perspective to the conversation about who pays taxes by highlighting who earns what.
And thus I said:
I will even expound to try to explain where I am coming from...
FICA tax is on wage income, but is set aside to fund the SSI and Medicare expenditures. Again, the fact that the SSI system has been effed up since the mid 1980's and we have to fund it out of general income tax revenues isn't the fault of the people that have dutifully paid in to the system over their careers.
I understand what you are saying when you say "it is a tax on income" but the system was set up in a way to make it a designated revenue with a specific expenditure purpose.
We and the people we elected to be stewards of the federal budget, screwed it up and got us in to a situation where we have to use other funds to help support it. If we had simply followed the Reagan plan where the income cap on FICA was allowed to grow to encompass 90% of wage income (currently between 83% and 86%) and we hadn't borrowed from the trust fund to pay for tax cuts and other spending (kicking the can down the road) in the 80's and 90's, we wouldn't be talking about using non-designated income tax to help support SSI and Medicare.
Since we had a fix that insured that you would receive back a benefit based upon your income and what you paid in, I have always held it aside when having these discussions. It is too easy to treat it like it an entitlement (which was done in your original post) without having the discussion that we made it that way.
This is the last time I am going to talk semantics about FICA.
I would love to have a continued conversation about why the people who earn a vast majority of the income shouldn't be paying a vast majority of the taxes. Of course, if one would like, they could lower their income to the $23,000 level mentioned earlier to reap that princely $1,000 that a -4% tax rate kicks back to them.
I will even grant you that the tax rate are too high, but we are in a situation where we need to cut spending along with cutting taxes.
I never said you were. Just wanted to give some perspective to the conversation about who pays taxes by highlighting who earns what.
And thus I said:
I will even expound to try to explain where I am coming from...
FICA tax is on wage income, but is set aside to fund the SSI and Medicare expenditures. Again, the fact that the SSI system has been effed up since the mid 1980's and we have to fund it out of general income tax revenues isn't the fault of the people that have dutifully paid in to the system over their careers.
I understand what you are saying when you say "it is a tax on income" but the system was set up in a way to make it a designated revenue with a specific expenditure purpose.
We and the people we elected to be stewards of the federal budget, screwed it up and got us in to a situation where we have to use other funds to help support it. If we had simply followed the Reagan plan where the income cap on FICA was allowed to grow to encompass 90% of wage income (currently between 83% and 86%) and we hadn't borrowed from the trust fund to pay for tax cuts and other spending (kicking the can down the road) in the 80's and 90's, we wouldn't be talking about using non-designated income tax to help support SSI and Medicare.
Since we had a fix that insured that you would receive back a benefit based upon your income and what you paid in, I have always held it aside when having these discussions. It is too easy to treat it like it an entitlement (which was done in your original post) without having the discussion that we made it that way.
This is the last time I am going to talk semantics about FICA.
I would love to have a continued conversation about why the people who earn a vast majority of the income shouldn't be paying a vast majority of the taxes. Of course, if one would like, they could lower their income to the $23,000 level mentioned earlier to reap that princely $1,000 that a -4% tax rate kicks back to them.
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Boy this thread went off topic quick! For all of you complaining about food stamps. You should be ashamed , look at the wealthy farmers getting government assistance. Why don't you complain about their 60k truck and the way they have driven the cost of land to the point where normal people can't buy it.
Smh ridiculous
Smh ridiculous
WTF is payroll?
LMAO how the hell do you not know what payroll is? No, it is not an "earnings" tax. If I run a business, and I don't make a single dime, but I have six employees, I have to pay their SS tax REGARDLESS of whether I earn a single dime or not.
I hope you know that most people on here know what I do for a living, so the "make some money" line is just kind of pathetic. Try another insult, that one is as silly and ignorant as the fact that you don't know what payroll is.
He mentioned FICA tax, you mentioned income tax. Different things. Everybody pays FICA even the single mom with 2 kids working minimum wage at McDs.
When all forms of taxes and levies are added up at every level (especially for folks living in republican states). The comprehensive tax rate is nearly flat, regardless of income level.
call it FICA a "tax on your income" and that's okay because it indeed still is. But don't call it "income tax". The term "Federal income tax" has a specific meaning and that meaning clearly excludes FICA.
I love this. By the way that $23k is for head of household with multiple dependents. A single person earning that much will and does pay income tax!
I didn't want to get too complicated. We are still working why FICA isn't the same as Federal Income Tax...
The FICA rate may be flat, but the nominal amounts are nowhere close, and the benefit side of FICA is certainly anything but flat, once again to the severe detriment of high earners. Now I understand this money is to keep little old ladies out of bread lines, and I could be on board with it, if it were not horrifically managed, the age was updated, and I believed my government could function properly enough to keep it afloat. In the 2009 Trustees Report, the projected 75-year actuarial deficit in the program was estimated at 2 percent of taxable payroll. In dollar terms, this means the program has a 75-year shortfall of approximately $5.3 trillion (in present value). Stated another way, after the trust funds are depleted (projected to be so in 2037), payroll tax revenues will be sufficient to pay only 76 cents of each dollar of promised benefits. This report was 1 of 21 consecutive, yearly reports in which the trustees reported that the program was not in long-range actuarial balance.
Payroll tax is a colloquial term dumbass. There is no "payroll tax". It is an "earnings tax". Read the link. You are literally the most ignorant shithead I've ever met on the internet. I've run two businesses, am starting a 3rd this year, and may buy out my current employer as well AND my degree is in management. What the **** are you going to tell me about business?
Social Security and Medicare taxes
Social Security taxes
2015
2016
Employee/employer (each)
6.2% on earnings up to $118,500
6.2% on earnings up to $118,500
Self-employed
*Can be offset by income tax provisions
12.4%* on earnings up to $118,500
12
. 4%*
on earnings up to $118,500
Medicare taxes
2015
2016
Employee/employer (each)
1.45% on all earnings
1.45% on all earnings
Self-employed
*Can be offset by income tax provisions
2.9%* on all earnings
2.9%* on all earnings
High-income earners also pay an additional 0.9 percent in Medicare taxes on earnings above certain amounts.
Check with the Internal Revenue Service for more details
LMAO
Payroll tax is a colloquial term?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payroll_tax
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Insurance_Contributions_Act_tax
Have someone read you the big words, then come back to us to understand why it isn't a "colloquial term."
What am I going to tell you about business? Well, apparently I'm telling you about a payroll tax that you seem to think first didn't exist, and then second was a "colloquial term."
You really should just sit this one out.
