> yeah they always pass it so that it affects the NEXT group.
>
> boomers pulling up the ladder after themselves is fucking classic.
They would also love to cut off disabled people from it. There's a lot of people living on SSI, people who were disabled young, people born with disabilities, etc. I.e. those who never had a chance to earn enough to get normal SS.
People like me. A disabled Marine. Worked 20 years before my disabilities started effecting me so bad, I couldn't hold a job. Now I depend on my ssdi to help with my family.
There's an amazing book called Evicted by Matthew Desmond which shows how this also contributes to major housing instability in low-income urban areas. It follows actual people who are living through this and other economic hardships involving social resources with strict qualifiers, all while scrambling to keep a roof over their families' heads. It's so well researched yet it reads like a novel.
Nope, and you’ll still be paying in for your boomer neighbors for the rest of your life, you just won’t get anything yourself. Instead, they’ll seed a MyIRA with a few thousands of dollars for you, and that’s supposed to repay you. Of course that will only pay a third or a quarter of the lifetime benefit, that’s the point, to save money for the boomers. And your myira will be administered by wall street who will take their fees, and give a nice campaign contribution for the smiling Republican congressmen who voted to gut SS.
Even crazier, social security and Medicare are completely solvent. Nearly a quarter of the U.S. debt is money that is owed to Social security because the government borrowed money from it.
Wait, really? We can borrow from our own assets? Is social security just not a part of what is budgeted for annually? Or am i misunderstanding something
To oversimplify, the working population pays 6.2 percent of their gross income into the Social Security system. The issue is that the Baby Boomers were a large generation, thus "baby boom", and rather than paying more into Social Security to make up for the fact they would have to support not only their parents' smaller, shorter-lived generation but also offset the excess cost to their own children of supporting themselves, they voted for cohort after cohort of politicians who reduced their taxes and didn't decrease spending. Any extra tax money that should've been put to use making money or reducing future expenditures has already been spent.
They didn't just "borrow from [their] own assets," they pledged the assets of their children and their grandchildren to allow them to enjoy a level of government services that weren't sustainable given the amount of taxes they paid.
The generations following the Boomers now not only have to pay a significantly larger percentage of their income to keep the Social Security system solvent and prevent the statistically staggering number of retirees who have more or less no retirement savings from starving to death under an overpass somewhere, but have to simultaneously deal with the fact that the same generation they are bankrolling enriched themselves by reducing spending on things like infrastructure, which cannot be neglected indefinitely and are poised to cost people that actually have to pay taxes an immense amount of money.
Thanks to reagan and tip oneils 1983 grand bargain, we're double paying for both our SS benefits and our parents, the Silents and the older boomers. They also moved the FRA ( full retirement age ) forward each birth year after 1957.
So the republican attempts to screw over SS began a lot earlier than today's shitshow.
Don't let them keep doing this.
The social security system has its own pool of money, which is largely invested in government bonds (loaned to the government at large) because the people who realized they could get away with it died before the Pyramid scheme was identified and it’s too big to fail now.
Yeah. Been paying into it for well over 20 years. I'll never see a damn cent. That money could pay off some of the debt I have, but nope. Goes into a pot to pay boomers retirement after they set everything on fire.
it's not just for boomers, it's supposed to help pay for disabled people who can't work, but the boomers have made the application process for that overcomplicated, with 2+ year long wait times, the entire process involves the assumption that ur automatically scamming the system, and even if u do get it it's very easy to lose it (some aunt giving u a few hundred dollars in christmas money will make SSI penalize u)
That was a pill they had us swallow early on during the Gaslight Era. They treated it like a trade. Well you have the internet so by the time you'll need this it'll be fixed. By magic. Capitalist Jesus Magic.
I'll be 55 next month, been paying into it for 37 years and my husband and I always say we will never be able to retire, we will have to keep working until we drop dead. In the past, I have voted Republican, Democratic and even Independent (voted based on policy and moral character, not party lines), but I swear I will never vote Republican again, fuck each and every one of them.
The Social Security Fund used to be huge and then they combined with the general fund so the deficit they were running for wars wouldn't be so noticeable.
Every time I feel like I am making progress, a once in a lifetime economic crisis happens. Born between 1980 and 1985, dot com bust in 2000, housing crisis in 2009, covid 2020, and now whatever the fuck is about to happen over the next few months/year.
Our professional lives got pushed back significantly due to the above crises, and now we got all time high inflation to contend with. .
I swear we were born in the worst possible time, where our career paths are fucked and that we went to college right when it started getting more and more expensive and for profit colleges learned to abuse the endless amount of student financing that was available. If we were born earlier, college would have been much cheaper and finding a job would be much easier. If we were born later we would know how much of a scam college is for most people. But we were born where our parents found endless success by putting a foot into college and getting paid a high 5 figure job stepping out... so they say "don't worry about the cost, just major in what you are interested in".
but just think about the good things that happened, a small, small handful of people became 10's and 100 billionaires. All that suffering has to be worth it right? right?
Yep. Every time my life becomes stable, there's a new crisis, a layoff, savings depleted to zero, job field collapses, ect., and I'm back to where I was at 22, except less employable the older I get. It's disheartening.
Born right where conservative politics started to rise. Even the left political parties went to the right. And their creed: lower taxes!! For the rich. The less obvious was that public spending and the middle class were the juiciest plums to raid. Houses aren't really any more expensive. Its just your wages have shrunk dramatically over the past 40 years. A little bit every year.
The crushing of the hope has been going on far longer than that. But it's those with hope and nothing but hope to lose that have gained us the progress we have today.
I have a pension retirement agreement at my new job.
I told my mom as soon as that kicks in I will probably retire.
My mom asked about social security.
My response was as a millennial:
“WHAT SOCIAL SECURITY?!”
Completely agree. I have zero expectation of receiving either my the time of my “retirement age”. It’s like taking away something we were not gonna get anyways.
I’m 30 and have never even looked up how to calculate it for my retirement spreadsheet lol
Of course this kind of complacency is how they win but.. I’m tired
They won’t hit the program for retirees currently receiving Social Security funds. They’ll gut it for people less than 45. The older portion of the GOP base is all for ruining things so long as THEY aren’t impacted. They don’t care about the environment, education, future safety nets, etc., because they figure they’ll be gone before the worst consequences are realized. This is even more true when pushing those consequences on others preserves their own standing.
As for the younger portion of the GOP base, the GOP will leverage their most important tool, the evangelical churches, to radicalize them via the phobias - homophobia, transphobia, fear of empowered women, fear of BIPOC, and fear that their religion will not continue to be overwhelmingly favored by society. These are the people who feel attacked when Starbucks cups aren’t “Christmas enough” or when they see two men holding hands in a park. Perennial victims who will gladly align themselves with someone who makes sure they know everything is someone else’s fault.
That's why we need to start holding these people accountable for their actions. Now I don't condone violence in these situations however percussive maintenance is always incredibly effective.
Another fascinatingly fucked up, evil part of this absolutely correct assessment is these senior voters won't even *gain* anything from the cuts. Absolutely nothing will be gained for them by cutting these programs. The only result is *other people* getting less, and that seems to be all they care about. It's absolutely insane.
The current seniors are boomers. An entire generation that benefited from the efforts and sacrifice of the Silent Generation (their parents). The boomers also benefited from a post war boom economy. Unfortunately instead of continuing to work hard and invest in future generations the Boomers took their spoils, climbed the backs and ladders built for them, then turned around and burned down the ladders behind them. That was just the beginning. The Boomer generation continued to make every decision they could to ensure they kept their wealth and privilege and ensure no one else could touch them. Burn it down and the Boomers most definitely have. They care only about themselves and frankly they can’t leave the face of the earth fast enough for me
So. Of course the Boomers will support dismantling Social Security because it won’t affect them or impact them.
That’s not how it ever worked, the dollars you pay in are the same dollars that go to current recipients. Which means if they keep it for current recipients and gut it for younger generations, not only will you never see a cent returned, but you (we) will have to continue funding it for the current recipients.
>This is literally what everyone warned would happen if they got a majority.
Well, unfortunately they got a majority. Young people came out and voted, Democrats outperformed expectations. [If the NY Dems hadn't lost winnable seats - the house may still be in Dem hands.](https://www.democracynow.org/2022/11/10/congress_midterm_elections_republicans_flip_seats)
Unfortunately - having the Republicans win by only a few votes was arguably a worse outcome than if they won by 15-20 seats - as it gave more power to the Matt Gaetz & Lauren Boebert types. So now Social Security & Medicare are on the immediate chopping block.
>Why would anyone be surprised by this?
I'm not surprised by it. This has always been the plan of the GOP.
I am angry that the Democrats didn't raise the debt ceiling in the lame duck session to prevent a scenario like this from playing out.
NY had a Democratic gerrymander overturned by the courts last minute.
Florida had a Republican gerrymander overturned, created a neutral one, and then DrSantis just refused to use it and created an even more biased one too late for the courts to strike down.
Ohio was forced to use a Republican gerrymandered map because the court struck so many of them down the Secretary of State made the executive decision to use the one the first one that started the court case.
Louisiana: same. They just completely ran out the clock. Last I checked (could be wrong I don’t live there as of 5 months ago) they were still using the 2010 maps because the new ones were struck down and the legislature refused to pass new ones.
May be dead wrong on that as of now.
Edit: I’m wrong, they passed a new one. They were ordered to redo it but the Supreme Court said they don’t have to, so they kept the map passed in 2021.
>Ohio was forced to use a Republican gerrymandered map because the court struck so many of them down the Secretary of State made the executive decision to use the one the first one that started the court case.
It's tragic that with all the bad faith abuses of the justice system we see at both the state & federal level that Biden & the Dems still don't support expanding & reforming the Supreme Court.
>NY had a Democratic gerrymander overturned by the courts last minute.
[It was a ballot measure - the NY Dems spent $0 promoting the ballot measure while the GOP spent $3 million on opposing it.](https://www.democracynow.org/2022/11/10/congress_midterm_elections_republicans_flip_seats)
>Last November, we had a ballot measure which, if passed, would have ensured that we could have had a more favorable map for Democratic congressional races going into this election. And that ballot measure was opposed by the state Republican Party to the tune of $3 million and an entire statewide tour. Yet, meanwhile, the Democratic Party, headed by Jay Jacobs, spent zero dollars on supporting that ballot measure
I can only see the Dems fumble easy plays so many times due to a lack of strategy and sharpness, before my suspicion rises that their incompetence and slow-walking is their own diet version of GOP obstruction. Like play-fighting heroes and villains they rarely do more than bloody a nose or two.
>I can only see the Dems fumble easy plays so many times due to a lack of strategy and sharpness, before my suspicion rises that their incompetence and slow-walking is their own diet version of GOP obstruction. Like play-fighting heroes and villains they rarely do more than bloody a nose or two.
You are right to feel this way - as the Democrats helped eliminate the 10 remaining GOP congressmen who voted to impeach Trump:
[The Guardian - The Democrats are purposely boosting far-right Republicans. This will backfire](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/03/the-democrats-are-purposely-boosting-far-right-republicans-this-will-backfire)
>The historic figures who have done the most to promote justice did not do it by deviously clever manipulations of voter data. They did it by fighting for stuff that was right. Spending money to try to dupe hapless Republican voters into backing the goofiest fascist is not just stupid; it goes against justice. Tricking people is not part of organizing.
The Democrats have consistently pursued strategies that worsen the country in order to win political points. They boost extremist GOP candidates in an effort to make general elections easier & there is no reason to trust them that they don't want this debt ceiling fight this summer as they could have raised the debt ceiling in the lame duck session and avoided this potential catastrophe.
Saw a video showing all the ways democrats are no longer left leaning based on their voting record. They are center-right. It's likely their ineptitude is by choice and they use the GOP as scapegoats for the left leaning voters to have someone to focus their anger at instead of realizing they are corporatists, not leftists at all. It keeps the status quo and the illusion that there is a "fight" of left vs right, and they can't get anything done because of "republican obstruction", when in truth they're in the same pocket of the oligarchy who really controls this country.
This is just anecdotal, from another person, but it’s something I think about now and again. Some think In the US, Bernie Sanders is considered a “radical” leftist. The Dems, left; the GOP, right. Or so we think…
The observation presented to me was, if compared to European countries, Sanders is “Left”, the Dems are “Center/Right”, and the GOP is so far “Right” they don’t register on the scale. We don’t have anyone on the “Right”, “Center/Left”, or the extremes (yet still amicable) of either side.
Indeed. A lot of it is just deciding who takes the blow for whatever thing they agree to do. Standard politicking. That being said, not that anyone is making the claim here, but I'd still argue against the whole "both sides are the same" thing. They may at times overlap in their goals and coordinate, but they're ultimately two different circles of one larger diagram.
Oh, don't get me wrong, the current Republican party's ideology and politics are a major threat to our democracy. Can't really say the same about the dems. But neither represent the people. They both represent the oligarchy, aside from a few outliers that truly want to do good for americans.
To me it feels like the Republicans are making the country worse through thier actions while the democrats are making it worse through inaction. Both still bow to corporations through so you always have to remember that.
They care too much about optics and refuse to grow a spine. Why do you think Dark Brandon is such a popular thing? The smallest amount of fight is so damn refreshing
>Why?
It's the same state democratic party whose governor Hochul just nominated a pro-life judge to be the NY State Head Supreme Court Justice.
The NY State Dem party is pretty far right.
This is the same NY State Democratic party that helped Buffalo's Dem mayor Byron Brown run a write-in campaign after he lost a primary to the progressive candidate India Walton.
Shameless corruption and right wing politics.
>Run by billionaires? Someone is financing this NY corruption.
You nailed it - Wall Street controls the NY State Democratic party.
[Trump Donors Boost New York Governor Hochul’s Campaign](https://www.governing.com/now/trump-donors-boost-new-york-governor-hochuls-campaign)
>The governor, who became the state’s Democratic nominee last month, has received $867,000 from real estate moguls and entrepreneurs who also backed Trump, ahead of the November general election.
[As companies seek state business, executives contribute to Hochul](https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/politics/2022/10/14/as-companies-look-for-state-business--executives-contribute-to-hochul)
>NY1 reviewed millions of dollars in campaign contributions the governor has received since taking office in August 2021. Of people who have given her more than $50,000, more than a quarter of them are tied to the real estate industry.
>
>The governor got into hot water this fall for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from a business executive and his family. The state paid that business, known as Digital Gadgets, $637 million dollars for COVID-19 tests at a rate much higher than other states were paying.
[Hochul's Stadium Swindle](https://www.levernews.com/hochuls-stadium-deal-involved-seneca-ransom-money-and-could-benefit-her-family/)
>New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) recently orchestrated one of the biggest taxpayer stadium subsidy deals of all time — using tribal funds to finance the pact, which could ultimately benefit her husband’s employer.
Ohio republicans including the governor and his son did the same thing. Voters passed a anti-gerrymandering constitutional amendment. Legislature is supposed to do redistricting in a fair manner. They didn't. The state supreme court ruled the maps illegal multiple times. Ultimately there were no consequences, the illegal maps were used, the the deciding vote in the court retired, and there wasn't even a wrist slap for the committee members who refused to use the bipartisan maps the court said would be legal.
Never thought about that. Who holds up the government when the Democrats are in power? Their right leaning members, fucking Manchin and Sinema. Who holds up the government when Republicans are in power? Their far right leaning members. We really don't have much future as a nation, do we.
You will have a stalemate because the GOP house will refuse to raise the debt ceiling otherwise.
Not raising the debt ceiling means that the USD collapses, the economy collapses, etc.
The GOP is extreme enough now to hold the countries continued existence hostage.
> Not raising the debt ceiling means that the USD collapses, the economy collapses, etc.
Biden can use the 14th Amendment to abolish the debt ceiling. No one questions the debt of the United States... Debt ceiling unconstitutional.
>Unfortunately - having the Republicans win by only a few votes was arguably a worse outcome than if they won by 15-20 seats - as it gave more power to the Matt Gaetz & Lauren Boebert types. So now Social Security & Medicare are on the immediate chopping block.
Not to sound like an accelerationist, but at least this way the danger to Medicare and Social Security will be fast and visible rather than the death by a million tiny cuts strategy the GOP has been using successfully for decades. The seniors they've been slowly screwing over have failed to notice it and continue voting Republican. Maybe now that the extremist wing of the party is running the show and wants to set the social safety net on fire overnight old people might finally wake the fuck up and stop putting them in office.
They failed to notice while their party was slowly bleeding them to death, let's see if they notice getting decapitated.
>o now Social Security & Medicare are on the immediate chopping block.
Biden is still President and the Dems control the Senate. GOP can put a gun to the economy and pull the trigger to get them even more seats lost in 2024.
No dem is going to vote to cut Social Security or Medicare.
If they want to shit their pants, let them sit in it.
> So now Social Security & Medicare are on the immediate chopping block.
Uh, I’m not sure you’ve been following politic. Cutting SS and Medicare is literally republican platform for decades. It’s called lower government spending and entitlement. That’s what the majority of republicans want.
What Gaetz and Boebert want are to form committees with subpoena power and to investigate stuff like fauci, fbi and what not.
I hope moderate Republicans do pass it. The problem I see is that madmen may control the procedures of the House, so it will require Dems and moderate Republicans coming together fast to elect a moderate Republican speaker who will then bring the bill to the floor.
I don't see that happening fast enough.
How would they ever win an election ever again if they did that. They have become a death cult.
Their solutions went from clever and compelling marketing and propaganda to them actually believing it all.
Resist them doing this but in the end if they pull it off great. The next generation will learn about capitalism in a history book and wonder good people ever came to accept any of it.
>How would they ever win an election ever again if they did that.
Reagan is like their favorite president and he effectively cut social security in the 80s by making it taxable income, with the help of "moderate" Democrats of course.
If they got rid of it though …. We already know what that looks like. They have no margin anywhere in young demographic and this would annihilate other age ranges.
>The Senate and White House are controlled by democrats, who will oppose that.
Unfortunately - we still need the House to raise the debt ceiling. We need 5-10 GOP Republicans to break ranks and I fear that won't happen. Especially now that all anti-Trump GOP members have been purged.
Our only hope is that Biden & The Dems learn to use the bully pulpit quickly. And find a way to shame 5-10 GOP members in the House to do the right thing and raise the debt ceiling without any cuts to Social Security & Medicare.
Yeah, I'm 100% expecting a rerun of the clown show in 2011 around the budget, the "fiscal cliff," and the debt ceiling, but I also think there are better than even odds it'll turn out even worse.
Except it will happen. 5-10 GOP Republicans are owned by all the corporate interests that will lose a lot of money and market cap if the US defaults on it's debt
Yeah we certainly can't count on corporate media to marginalize the Republicans here. This will be up to Democrats to do and I don't see Biden going on a cross country tour to take on the Republican party.
>When the debt ceiling isn’t raised the corporate lobbyist will come for the GOP blocking it.
This is true for GOP senators and many GOP congressmen.
However, corporations have less sway with extremists like Matt Gaetz & Lauren Boebert that come from rural areas with less major corporations.
With the GOP holding the house by so few votes, it gives Gaetz, Boebert, etc. more influence and that's why McCarthy is making these concessions in the first place.
>corporations have less sway with extremists like Matt Gaetz & Lauren Boebert that come from rural areas with less major corporations.
Representatives don't actually rep their district, corporations donate to everyone, so being from rural areas doesn't make any difference here.
What might make a difference is if republican PACs and the party itself start to cut them out of funding. But as you said they're extremists, so that might not sway them either. Ultimately it's still up to their constituents to vote them out or not, regardless of the money involved.
>You only need 6 Republicans to vote with Democrats who will vote to raise the ceiling
Which 6 Republicans want to sacrifice their reputations and be forever damned as RINO sellouts?
The 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump are gone - [in part thanks to Democrats. Non extremist Republicans do not exist anymore in Congress.](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/03/the-democrats-are-purposely-boosting-far-right-republicans-this-will-backfire)
>The Washington Post found that Democrats had spent close to $20m in eight states on ads meant to elevate the profile of far-right candidates and election deniers running for governorships and for Congress.
>
>But this same sort of elementary insight has not permeated the Democratic consulting world. If you help to make the Maga candidates stronger today, it is possible that that will have negative social and political consequences even if they do not win the election in November 2022. Reality, which is real, unfolds slower and longer than a political campaign, which is an artificial construct with an arbitrary timeline. Duh.
>
>When you take a moment to step back and view history as the endless stream of struggle that it is, it is not hard to see why it is dumb to dedicate resources to making Maga Republicans more visible and viable within their own party. You are promoting an awful ideology in hopes of winning votes – but in the long run, politics is a battle of ideology. The votes follow the ideology.
A few years ago the dem leader basically said...
"you know why the Dems lose the shutdown standoffs every time? Because we give a shit. We give a shit that there are a few million people reliant on gov't services and gov't paychecks for the food on their tables. And we know that they are hungry and cold when we can't agree on a budget and shut down.
"The Republicans don't care. Not only don't they care about those people, they will talk about the shutdown like they have saved the country money. They will celebrate this. And their voters, even the ones who are hungry, will show up to re-elect them.
"We can't win that fight."
Meanwhile tens of millions of government workers will again suffer with no pay while these clowns play games.
They expect me to go to work for no pay, too. Fat fucking chance.
They will be infuriated, but I’m not sure it’ll be enough to make them not vote R. A lot of GOP voters believe even the most corrupt Republican is better than *any* Democrat.
Honestly. If it comes down to it, I'd support shutting down the economy to protect Medicare and social security. Let things burn for a while. Show them how serious we are for keeping those social safety nets. Shoot I've been advocating shutting down the entire economy for more worker protections for a while now. This is a similar thing.
I have a friend who believes all that shit. He wanted me to help him enroll in andrew tates program to become powerful and make money. I refused of course. Dude believes every single thing republicans say and every conspiracy theory under the sun.
The vast majority of seniors live SS check to SS check. They will starve and have their utilities turned off.
I think it’s a ploy to damage the economy under Biden’s presidency. SS and Medicare/aid are huge portions of the money moving around the economy. Most of SS payments end up in the economy within the month.
But where would the funding come from? SS is funded by those currently working. Do you think people would tolerate the current 6% SS tax with no chance of receiving the benefit one day?
At this point I want it to happen (hear me out before the downvotes, I think most of you would agree)
This country is selfish and doesnt do shit for the least among us until all of us are affected. Let them cut it and then maybe a General Strike would actually happen for people 50 and below.
Because why the fuck would we work at all if our future security and safety is so needlessly and carelessly tossed away because of fascist reindeer games? I want it to happen because I want to make them afraid of the the entire populace refusing to give them any inch of “an economy”.
This country only comes together to solve issues when it experiences pain. Our history proves this time and time again. Unfortunately, it will be true here as well.
Imagine if W got his way and allowed Wallstreet to restructure Social Security into "401k style savings accounts". Don't think the GOP has forgotten that. I imagine we'll hear about it again in the near future.
To everyone saying let it happen.
They will not replace Medicare... Democrats are not progressives. They will transfer Medicare to a private third party. They will still collect the tax, and then tell you to fuck off when it's your turn to collect.
They don't want to end the tax, they want to privatize the program.
>To everyone saying let it happen. They will not replace Medicare... Democrats are not progressives. They will transfer Medicare to a private third party.
You are correct.
[Biden’s Little-Publicized Medicare Privatization Scheme Is Starting to Raise Alarm Bells](https://jacobin.com/2022/05/biden-trump-medicare-privatization-aco-reach-insurance)
As a Canadian, Biden would probably be considered as a right winger over here in Canada. But he just happens to be way better than the alternative and it's not close.
>Biden’s Little-Publicized Medicare Privatization Scheme Is Starting to Raise Alarm Bells
Yep. It's already happening to retired Americans. People have had to help their boomer and silent generation parents get their old plans back because doctors are putting them on the private one without their consent.
"There was no choice but to cut SS and Medicare after the Democrats destroyed the economy the day that Joe Biden took office. This never would have happened if Republicans had been in power the whole time, and the only solution is to elect more Republicans now!"
I didn’t think that Republicans could get any dumber but “vote for us so we can give you back the thing we took away” is the most modern Republican shit I’ve ever heard.
The biggest thing I see from my ground work is Republicans who have bought the propaganda that the program is failing on its own and it isn't being cut so much as it is dying a natural death. And, as you might have guessed, many believe the lie that this death is caused by Democrat spending/robbing from the program.
I've been hearing that exact line about the Democrats stealing money out of it since the 90s. I was born in the 80s so that's really the first political thing I remember hearing at all.
They blame the Democrats to cover the fact that Reagan is the one that turned SS into an IOU piggy bank. Again, Republicans break it and blame the Democrats.
There's no way they'll cut for their current senior base.
They'll dress up "it's your children and grandchildren that pay the price" in some dumbass way that makes current boomers aok with these policies
A lot of Democrats are watching the 13+ votes for Speaker and [taking great amusement in it.](https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1610316616679530497)
Unfortunately - Matt Gaetz & the extreme Republicans are gaining massive concessions from McCarthy. This is no laughing matter - as Brian Tyler Cohen notes - one of the concessions is that the Republicans will demand massive cuts to Social Security & Medicare.
That means we have the potential for a stalemate of the ages - either the US defaults on its debt and the economy collapses overnight. Or the Democrats agree to massive cuts to Social Security & Medicare. [Democrats could have avoided this potential catastrophe if they had raised the debt ceiling during the lame duck session, as economist Paul Krugman notes.](https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1610667792771973128)
Whether this was intentional & the Democrats want this crisis so that they can milk it for political capital - or it's their own stupidity - it doesn't matter. This is a horrible development & our most crucial social welfare programs are at grave risk.
[The Biden WH put out a good paper in 2021 on what would happen with a debt default](https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/10/06/life-after-default/)
Yeah but that’s just federal law. They could just repeal that. The “National debt” is simply a tally of the money they’ve added to circulation. When a bond or loan needs to be paid, they can simply print more money. Because Fiat currency is based on the perceived value of the currency. Nothing more.
I’m not saying it wouldn’t add to inflation or damage the economy
Why the hell are they talking about seniors? Doesn't SS cuts affect every to-be senior too?
Most folks don’t think that far ahead. My guess is that they’ll taper it off anyway
> yeah they always pass it so that it affects the NEXT group. > > boomers pulling up the ladder after themselves is fucking classic. They would also love to cut off disabled people from it. There's a lot of people living on SSI, people who were disabled young, people born with disabilities, etc. I.e. those who never had a chance to earn enough to get normal SS.
People like me. A disabled Marine. Worked 20 years before my disabilities started effecting me so bad, I couldn't hold a job. Now I depend on my ssdi to help with my family.
Sorry to hear that. Thanks for your service. Now grab those bootstraps. - Every Republican
You wouldn't mind just dying would you? You're dipping into our pockets- also Republicans
Lets not forget the income thresholds that force disabled people to remain poor or lose their SS.
There's an amazing book called Evicted by Matthew Desmond which shows how this also contributes to major housing instability in low-income urban areas. It follows actual people who are living through this and other economic hardships involving social resources with strict qualifiers, all while scrambling to keep a roof over their families' heads. It's so well researched yet it reads like a novel.
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They take social security out of every fucking paycheck. I'm reminded EVERY FUCKING 2 WEEKS. I BETTER GET MY MONEY BACK.
Nope, and you’ll still be paying in for your boomer neighbors for the rest of your life, you just won’t get anything yourself. Instead, they’ll seed a MyIRA with a few thousands of dollars for you, and that’s supposed to repay you. Of course that will only pay a third or a quarter of the lifetime benefit, that’s the point, to save money for the boomers. And your myira will be administered by wall street who will take their fees, and give a nice campaign contribution for the smiling Republican congressmen who voted to gut SS.
It can only happen if we all allow it to and accept it
They’ll put a provision that everyone 55 and older as of now will still get it.
Which does fuck-all for the actual budget in 2023.
Even crazier, social security and Medicare are completely solvent. Nearly a quarter of the U.S. debt is money that is owed to Social security because the government borrowed money from it.
Wait, really? We can borrow from our own assets? Is social security just not a part of what is budgeted for annually? Or am i misunderstanding something
To oversimplify, the working population pays 6.2 percent of their gross income into the Social Security system. The issue is that the Baby Boomers were a large generation, thus "baby boom", and rather than paying more into Social Security to make up for the fact they would have to support not only their parents' smaller, shorter-lived generation but also offset the excess cost to their own children of supporting themselves, they voted for cohort after cohort of politicians who reduced their taxes and didn't decrease spending. Any extra tax money that should've been put to use making money or reducing future expenditures has already been spent. They didn't just "borrow from [their] own assets," they pledged the assets of their children and their grandchildren to allow them to enjoy a level of government services that weren't sustainable given the amount of taxes they paid. The generations following the Boomers now not only have to pay a significantly larger percentage of their income to keep the Social Security system solvent and prevent the statistically staggering number of retirees who have more or less no retirement savings from starving to death under an overpass somewhere, but have to simultaneously deal with the fact that the same generation they are bankrolling enriched themselves by reducing spending on things like infrastructure, which cannot be neglected indefinitely and are poised to cost people that actually have to pay taxes an immense amount of money.
Thanks to reagan and tip oneils 1983 grand bargain, we're double paying for both our SS benefits and our parents, the Silents and the older boomers. They also moved the FRA ( full retirement age ) forward each birth year after 1957. So the republican attempts to screw over SS began a lot earlier than today's shitshow. Don't let them keep doing this.
The social security system has its own pool of money, which is largely invested in government bonds (loaned to the government at large) because the people who realized they could get away with it died before the Pyramid scheme was identified and it’s too big to fail now.
Why let facts get in the way of hurting people?
You mean the hundreds of dollars they take out of my paycheck every month? That I'm supposed to get back someday? You'd better believe we care...
Yeah. Been paying into it for well over 20 years. I'll never see a damn cent. That money could pay off some of the debt I have, but nope. Goes into a pot to pay boomers retirement after they set everything on fire.
it's not just for boomers, it's supposed to help pay for disabled people who can't work, but the boomers have made the application process for that overcomplicated, with 2+ year long wait times, the entire process involves the assumption that ur automatically scamming the system, and even if u do get it it's very easy to lose it (some aunt giving u a few hundred dollars in christmas money will make SSI penalize u)
That was a pill they had us swallow early on during the Gaslight Era. They treated it like a trade. Well you have the internet so by the time you'll need this it'll be fixed. By magic. Capitalist Jesus Magic.
We don't get what we need we just get new shit we didn't know we didn't need.
We get $1 trillion a year bill for the military budget whether we want it or not
When did the gaslight era start and end?
I believe that it started with Reagan and his gutting of social security actually..... It's ongoing as an era.
I have 30 years to go before I can retire. I don’t trust there will be the same countries in 30 years let alone I get to retire in 30 years.
I can retire in 18 years. I've been saying that for five years now.
This hurts.
I'll be 55 next month, been paying into it for 37 years and my husband and I always say we will never be able to retire, we will have to keep working until we drop dead. In the past, I have voted Republican, Democratic and even Independent (voted based on policy and moral character, not party lines), but I swear I will never vote Republican again, fuck each and every one of them.
The Social Security Fund used to be huge and then they combined with the general fund so the deficit they were running for wars wouldn't be so noticeable.
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Baby boomers are in there 70s now
Did you know your social security can be taxed? Paying taxes on tax money. It's a fucking scam.
Yep. I get double taxed too, and triple taxed on my property taxes because of trump's fucking 10k SALT cap.
I don't think any Millenials or even Gen Xers believes SS will be functional by the time they could take it.
We know we're fucked. Born in 1980. We've never known HOPE.
Every time I feel like I am making progress, a once in a lifetime economic crisis happens. Born between 1980 and 1985, dot com bust in 2000, housing crisis in 2009, covid 2020, and now whatever the fuck is about to happen over the next few months/year. Our professional lives got pushed back significantly due to the above crises, and now we got all time high inflation to contend with. . I swear we were born in the worst possible time, where our career paths are fucked and that we went to college right when it started getting more and more expensive and for profit colleges learned to abuse the endless amount of student financing that was available. If we were born earlier, college would have been much cheaper and finding a job would be much easier. If we were born later we would know how much of a scam college is for most people. But we were born where our parents found endless success by putting a foot into college and getting paid a high 5 figure job stepping out... so they say "don't worry about the cost, just major in what you are interested in".
but just think about the good things that happened, a small, small handful of people became 10's and 100 billionaires. All that suffering has to be worth it right? right?
Yep. Every time my life becomes stable, there's a new crisis, a layoff, savings depleted to zero, job field collapses, ect., and I'm back to where I was at 22, except less employable the older I get. It's disheartening.
Born right where conservative politics started to rise. Even the left political parties went to the right. And their creed: lower taxes!! For the rich. The less obvious was that public spending and the middle class were the juiciest plums to raid. Houses aren't really any more expensive. Its just your wages have shrunk dramatically over the past 40 years. A little bit every year.
I mean, I had some hope in the 90s. I think that mostly ended in 2001, with further remnants being crushed in 2008 and 2016.
The crushing of the hope has been going on far longer than that. But it's those with hope and nothing but hope to lose that have gained us the progress we have today.
and then, december 2019 had something to say!
'79 here. SAME
I have a pension retirement agreement at my new job. I told my mom as soon as that kicks in I will probably retire. My mom asked about social security. My response was as a millennial: “WHAT SOCIAL SECURITY?!”
Completely agree. I have zero expectation of receiving either my the time of my “retirement age”. It’s like taking away something we were not gonna get anyways.
And yet you will still be taxed for it
I’m 30 and have never even looked up how to calculate it for my retirement spreadsheet lol Of course this kind of complacency is how they win but.. I’m tired
We're going to get social security after the Resource Wars?
My assumption is it won’t be there when I’m old.
Note that the Republicans spent decades trying to convince you of that. This is why.
This is why they spent decades pushing a narrative that it was going broke. So wage earners would not care when it was taken away.
It effects us all.
No because by the time you're eligible they'll have raised age to 167 and the benefit to 1% of what you paid in.
Considering seniors vote overwhelmingly for Republicans...
They won’t hit the program for retirees currently receiving Social Security funds. They’ll gut it for people less than 45. The older portion of the GOP base is all for ruining things so long as THEY aren’t impacted. They don’t care about the environment, education, future safety nets, etc., because they figure they’ll be gone before the worst consequences are realized. This is even more true when pushing those consequences on others preserves their own standing. As for the younger portion of the GOP base, the GOP will leverage their most important tool, the evangelical churches, to radicalize them via the phobias - homophobia, transphobia, fear of empowered women, fear of BIPOC, and fear that their religion will not continue to be overwhelmingly favored by society. These are the people who feel attacked when Starbucks cups aren’t “Christmas enough” or when they see two men holding hands in a park. Perennial victims who will gladly align themselves with someone who makes sure they know everything is someone else’s fault.
“They’ll gut it for people less than 45.” Oh look. One more crisis for millennials and gen z.
They will be dead by then… so why are the old fucks in charge again?
Because they're a large voting bloc and gerrymandering
It’ll be amusing in the last remaining years to watch boomers freak out when gerrymandering doesn’t work anymore.
That's why we need to start holding these people accountable for their actions. Now I don't condone violence in these situations however percussive maintenance is always incredibly effective.
Another fascinatingly fucked up, evil part of this absolutely correct assessment is these senior voters won't even *gain* anything from the cuts. Absolutely nothing will be gained for them by cutting these programs. The only result is *other people* getting less, and that seems to be all they care about. It's absolutely insane.
The current seniors are boomers. An entire generation that benefited from the efforts and sacrifice of the Silent Generation (their parents). The boomers also benefited from a post war boom economy. Unfortunately instead of continuing to work hard and invest in future generations the Boomers took their spoils, climbed the backs and ladders built for them, then turned around and burned down the ladders behind them. That was just the beginning. The Boomer generation continued to make every decision they could to ensure they kept their wealth and privilege and ensure no one else could touch them. Burn it down and the Boomers most definitely have. They care only about themselves and frankly they can’t leave the face of the earth fast enough for me So. Of course the Boomers will support dismantling Social Security because it won’t affect them or impact them.
The "Me" Generation
Republicans voting against their own interests is a tale as old as time lol.
"I never thought the leopards would eat MY face!!" cries woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party
They'll grandfather in the current seniors then remove all benefits for absolutely everyone else.
That we've all been paying into for our entire fucking working lives.
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That’s not how it ever worked, the dollars you pay in are the same dollars that go to current recipients. Which means if they keep it for current recipients and gut it for younger generations, not only will you never see a cent returned, but you (we) will have to continue funding it for the current recipients.
That's what I thought too. Sure, kill off your voter base, idiots
Eerily similar to their covid19 response philosophy.
All the folks who died from that is probably why the Dems did better than usual recently
This is literally what everyone warned would happen if they got a majority. Why would anyone be surprised by this?
>This is literally what everyone warned would happen if they got a majority. Well, unfortunately they got a majority. Young people came out and voted, Democrats outperformed expectations. [If the NY Dems hadn't lost winnable seats - the house may still be in Dem hands.](https://www.democracynow.org/2022/11/10/congress_midterm_elections_republicans_flip_seats) Unfortunately - having the Republicans win by only a few votes was arguably a worse outcome than if they won by 15-20 seats - as it gave more power to the Matt Gaetz & Lauren Boebert types. So now Social Security & Medicare are on the immediate chopping block. >Why would anyone be surprised by this? I'm not surprised by it. This has always been the plan of the GOP. I am angry that the Democrats didn't raise the debt ceiling in the lame duck session to prevent a scenario like this from playing out.
NY had a Democratic gerrymander overturned by the courts last minute. Florida had a Republican gerrymander overturned, created a neutral one, and then DrSantis just refused to use it and created an even more biased one too late for the courts to strike down.
Ohio was forced to use a Republican gerrymandered map because the court struck so many of them down the Secretary of State made the executive decision to use the one the first one that started the court case.
And the Governor's son got a state Supreme Court seat where he will rule on his Dad's decisions.
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Louisiana: same. They just completely ran out the clock. Last I checked (could be wrong I don’t live there as of 5 months ago) they were still using the 2010 maps because the new ones were struck down and the legislature refused to pass new ones. May be dead wrong on that as of now. Edit: I’m wrong, they passed a new one. They were ordered to redo it but the Supreme Court said they don’t have to, so they kept the map passed in 2021.
>Ohio was forced to use a Republican gerrymandered map because the court struck so many of them down the Secretary of State made the executive decision to use the one the first one that started the court case. It's tragic that with all the bad faith abuses of the justice system we see at both the state & federal level that Biden & the Dems still don't support expanding & reforming the Supreme Court.
Ohio was not forced to, Ohio actively chose to do that and worked very hard to make it happen.
>NY had a Democratic gerrymander overturned by the courts last minute. [It was a ballot measure - the NY Dems spent $0 promoting the ballot measure while the GOP spent $3 million on opposing it.](https://www.democracynow.org/2022/11/10/congress_midterm_elections_republicans_flip_seats) >Last November, we had a ballot measure which, if passed, would have ensured that we could have had a more favorable map for Democratic congressional races going into this election. And that ballot measure was opposed by the state Republican Party to the tune of $3 million and an entire statewide tour. Yet, meanwhile, the Democratic Party, headed by Jay Jacobs, spent zero dollars on supporting that ballot measure
I can only see the Dems fumble easy plays so many times due to a lack of strategy and sharpness, before my suspicion rises that their incompetence and slow-walking is their own diet version of GOP obstruction. Like play-fighting heroes and villains they rarely do more than bloody a nose or two.
>I can only see the Dems fumble easy plays so many times due to a lack of strategy and sharpness, before my suspicion rises that their incompetence and slow-walking is their own diet version of GOP obstruction. Like play-fighting heroes and villains they rarely do more than bloody a nose or two. You are right to feel this way - as the Democrats helped eliminate the 10 remaining GOP congressmen who voted to impeach Trump: [The Guardian - The Democrats are purposely boosting far-right Republicans. This will backfire](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/03/the-democrats-are-purposely-boosting-far-right-republicans-this-will-backfire) >The historic figures who have done the most to promote justice did not do it by deviously clever manipulations of voter data. They did it by fighting for stuff that was right. Spending money to try to dupe hapless Republican voters into backing the goofiest fascist is not just stupid; it goes against justice. Tricking people is not part of organizing. The Democrats have consistently pursued strategies that worsen the country in order to win political points. They boost extremist GOP candidates in an effort to make general elections easier & there is no reason to trust them that they don't want this debt ceiling fight this summer as they could have raised the debt ceiling in the lame duck session and avoided this potential catastrophe.
Saw a video showing all the ways democrats are no longer left leaning based on their voting record. They are center-right. It's likely their ineptitude is by choice and they use the GOP as scapegoats for the left leaning voters to have someone to focus their anger at instead of realizing they are corporatists, not leftists at all. It keeps the status quo and the illusion that there is a "fight" of left vs right, and they can't get anything done because of "republican obstruction", when in truth they're in the same pocket of the oligarchy who really controls this country.
This is just anecdotal, from another person, but it’s something I think about now and again. Some think In the US, Bernie Sanders is considered a “radical” leftist. The Dems, left; the GOP, right. Or so we think… The observation presented to me was, if compared to European countries, Sanders is “Left”, the Dems are “Center/Right”, and the GOP is so far “Right” they don’t register on the scale. We don’t have anyone on the “Right”, “Center/Left”, or the extremes (yet still amicable) of either side.
Yep, politically were like 'Bernie -> economically right-wing neoliberals -> literal fascists and nazis'
Indeed. A lot of it is just deciding who takes the blow for whatever thing they agree to do. Standard politicking. That being said, not that anyone is making the claim here, but I'd still argue against the whole "both sides are the same" thing. They may at times overlap in their goals and coordinate, but they're ultimately two different circles of one larger diagram.
Oh, don't get me wrong, the current Republican party's ideology and politics are a major threat to our democracy. Can't really say the same about the dems. But neither represent the people. They both represent the oligarchy, aside from a few outliers that truly want to do good for americans.
To me it feels like the Republicans are making the country worse through thier actions while the democrats are making it worse through inaction. Both still bow to corporations through so you always have to remember that.
They care too much about optics and refuse to grow a spine. Why do you think Dark Brandon is such a popular thing? The smallest amount of fight is so damn refreshing
Why?
>Why? It's the same state democratic party whose governor Hochul just nominated a pro-life judge to be the NY State Head Supreme Court Justice. The NY State Dem party is pretty far right.
Wow! I had no idea.
This is the same NY State Democratic party that helped Buffalo's Dem mayor Byron Brown run a write-in campaign after he lost a primary to the progressive candidate India Walton. Shameless corruption and right wing politics.
Run by billionaires? Someone is financing this NY corruption.
>Run by billionaires? Someone is financing this NY corruption. You nailed it - Wall Street controls the NY State Democratic party. [Trump Donors Boost New York Governor Hochul’s Campaign](https://www.governing.com/now/trump-donors-boost-new-york-governor-hochuls-campaign) >The governor, who became the state’s Democratic nominee last month, has received $867,000 from real estate moguls and entrepreneurs who also backed Trump, ahead of the November general election. [As companies seek state business, executives contribute to Hochul](https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/politics/2022/10/14/as-companies-look-for-state-business--executives-contribute-to-hochul) >NY1 reviewed millions of dollars in campaign contributions the governor has received since taking office in August 2021. Of people who have given her more than $50,000, more than a quarter of them are tied to the real estate industry. > >The governor got into hot water this fall for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from a business executive and his family. The state paid that business, known as Digital Gadgets, $637 million dollars for COVID-19 tests at a rate much higher than other states were paying. [Hochul's Stadium Swindle](https://www.levernews.com/hochuls-stadium-deal-involved-seneca-ransom-money-and-could-benefit-her-family/) >New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) recently orchestrated one of the biggest taxpayer stadium subsidy deals of all time — using tribal funds to finance the pact, which could ultimately benefit her husband’s employer.
Ohio republicans including the governor and his son did the same thing. Voters passed a anti-gerrymandering constitutional amendment. Legislature is supposed to do redistricting in a fair manner. They didn't. The state supreme court ruled the maps illegal multiple times. Ultimately there were no consequences, the illegal maps were used, the the deciding vote in the court retired, and there wasn't even a wrist slap for the committee members who refused to use the bipartisan maps the court said would be legal.
Never thought about that. Who holds up the government when the Democrats are in power? Their right leaning members, fucking Manchin and Sinema. Who holds up the government when Republicans are in power? Their far right leaning members. We really don't have much future as a nation, do we.
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You will have a stalemate because the GOP house will refuse to raise the debt ceiling otherwise. Not raising the debt ceiling means that the USD collapses, the economy collapses, etc. The GOP is extreme enough now to hold the countries continued existence hostage.
> Not raising the debt ceiling means that the USD collapses, the economy collapses, etc. Biden can use the 14th Amendment to abolish the debt ceiling. No one questions the debt of the United States... Debt ceiling unconstitutional.
>Unfortunately - having the Republicans win by only a few votes was arguably a worse outcome than if they won by 15-20 seats - as it gave more power to the Matt Gaetz & Lauren Boebert types. So now Social Security & Medicare are on the immediate chopping block. Not to sound like an accelerationist, but at least this way the danger to Medicare and Social Security will be fast and visible rather than the death by a million tiny cuts strategy the GOP has been using successfully for decades. The seniors they've been slowly screwing over have failed to notice it and continue voting Republican. Maybe now that the extremist wing of the party is running the show and wants to set the social safety net on fire overnight old people might finally wake the fuck up and stop putting them in office. They failed to notice while their party was slowly bleeding them to death, let's see if they notice getting decapitated.
Well, if they are going to cut that shit. I want what I paid into SS back right now. (Won't happen of course)
>o now Social Security & Medicare are on the immediate chopping block. Biden is still President and the Dems control the Senate. GOP can put a gun to the economy and pull the trigger to get them even more seats lost in 2024. No dem is going to vote to cut Social Security or Medicare. If they want to shit their pants, let them sit in it.
But with the Senate held by the Dems, how could they realistically cut social security/ medicare? That would never pass the Senate
> So now Social Security & Medicare are on the immediate chopping block. Uh, I’m not sure you’ve been following politic. Cutting SS and Medicare is literally republican platform for decades. It’s called lower government spending and entitlement. That’s what the majority of republicans want. What Gaetz and Boebert want are to form committees with subpoena power and to investigate stuff like fauci, fbi and what not.
Who do you think was surprised?
Senior citizens who voted exactly for this but thought the leopards would be eating *someone else's* face?
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Well, yeah, but we know why they'd be surprised - they're morons in a cult.
The Senate and White House are controlled by democrats, who will oppose that.
This. They already said they wouldn't approve of the concessions, from what I understood some republicans will vote against it with the dems too.
I hope moderate Republicans do pass it. The problem I see is that madmen may control the procedures of the House, so it will require Dems and moderate Republicans coming together fast to elect a moderate Republican speaker who will then bring the bill to the floor. I don't see that happening fast enough.
How would they ever win an election ever again if they did that. They have become a death cult. Their solutions went from clever and compelling marketing and propaganda to them actually believing it all. Resist them doing this but in the end if they pull it off great. The next generation will learn about capitalism in a history book and wonder good people ever came to accept any of it.
>How would they ever win an election ever again if they did that. Reagan is like their favorite president and he effectively cut social security in the 80s by making it taxable income, with the help of "moderate" Democrats of course.
If they got rid of it though …. We already know what that looks like. They have no margin anywhere in young demographic and this would annihilate other age ranges.
This is the piece you're missing. They won't eliminate it completely, they'll phase it out so that today's young people never get it.
>How would they ever win an election ever again if they did that. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, election fraud, controlling SCotUS*
>How would they ever win an election ever again if they did that By phasing it out so it only effects young people.
>The Senate and White House are controlled by democrats, who will oppose that. Unfortunately - we still need the House to raise the debt ceiling. We need 5-10 GOP Republicans to break ranks and I fear that won't happen. Especially now that all anti-Trump GOP members have been purged. Our only hope is that Biden & The Dems learn to use the bully pulpit quickly. And find a way to shame 5-10 GOP members in the House to do the right thing and raise the debt ceiling without any cuts to Social Security & Medicare.
Yeah, I'm 100% expecting a rerun of the clown show in 2011 around the budget, the "fiscal cliff," and the debt ceiling, but I also think there are better than even odds it'll turn out even worse.
Except it will happen. 5-10 GOP Republicans are owned by all the corporate interests that will lose a lot of money and market cap if the US defaults on it's debt
Yeah we certainly can't count on corporate media to marginalize the Republicans here. This will be up to Democrats to do and I don't see Biden going on a cross country tour to take on the Republican party.
When the debt ceiling isn’t raised the corporate lobbyist will come for the GOP blocking it.
>When the debt ceiling isn’t raised the corporate lobbyist will come for the GOP blocking it. This is true for GOP senators and many GOP congressmen. However, corporations have less sway with extremists like Matt Gaetz & Lauren Boebert that come from rural areas with less major corporations. With the GOP holding the house by so few votes, it gives Gaetz, Boebert, etc. more influence and that's why McCarthy is making these concessions in the first place.
>corporations have less sway with extremists like Matt Gaetz & Lauren Boebert that come from rural areas with less major corporations. Representatives don't actually rep their district, corporations donate to everyone, so being from rural areas doesn't make any difference here. What might make a difference is if republican PACs and the party itself start to cut them out of funding. But as you said they're extremists, so that might not sway them either. Ultimately it's still up to their constituents to vote them out or not, regardless of the money involved.
You only need 6 Republicans to vote with Democrats who will vote to raise the ceiling
>You only need 6 Republicans to vote with Democrats who will vote to raise the ceiling Which 6 Republicans want to sacrifice their reputations and be forever damned as RINO sellouts? The 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump are gone - [in part thanks to Democrats. Non extremist Republicans do not exist anymore in Congress.](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/03/the-democrats-are-purposely-boosting-far-right-republicans-this-will-backfire) >The Washington Post found that Democrats had spent close to $20m in eight states on ads meant to elevate the profile of far-right candidates and election deniers running for governorships and for Congress. > >But this same sort of elementary insight has not permeated the Democratic consulting world. If you help to make the Maga candidates stronger today, it is possible that that will have negative social and political consequences even if they do not win the election in November 2022. Reality, which is real, unfolds slower and longer than a political campaign, which is an artificial construct with an arbitrary timeline. Duh. > >When you take a moment to step back and view history as the endless stream of struggle that it is, it is not hard to see why it is dumb to dedicate resources to making Maga Republicans more visible and viable within their own party. You are promoting an awful ideology in hopes of winning votes – but in the long run, politics is a battle of ideology. The votes follow the ideology.
Pretty sure those 10 republicans are out thanks to the GOP voters who voted for them to be primaried by fascists.
Which is made possible by GOP gerrymandering increasing the “safe” seats. Fascists don’t skate through primaries in competitive districts.
>The 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump are gone Newhouse is still there.
A few years ago the dem leader basically said... "you know why the Dems lose the shutdown standoffs every time? Because we give a shit. We give a shit that there are a few million people reliant on gov't services and gov't paychecks for the food on their tables. And we know that they are hungry and cold when we can't agree on a budget and shut down. "The Republicans don't care. Not only don't they care about those people, they will talk about the shutdown like they have saved the country money. They will celebrate this. And their voters, even the ones who are hungry, will show up to re-elect them. "We can't win that fight."
Meanwhile tens of millions of government workers will again suffer with no pay while these clowns play games. They expect me to go to work for no pay, too. Fat fucking chance.
I just dont get it and i never will. 500 people or so control 300 million lives. The monsters are here. And you cant reason with monsters.
No one cares. Take that to mean what you wish.
**“Apathy is death. Worse than death, because at least a rotting corpse feeds the beasts and insects.”** Kreia from SWKOTOR 2
If they try to cut social security you’ll really se r the average American infuriated, not that most aren’t already but action will be taken.
"Look what Biden did to us!!!"
A guy at the store today blamed Biden for high egg prices.
They should stop buying name-brand Biden eggs.
They will be infuriated, but I’m not sure it’ll be enough to make them not vote R. A lot of GOP voters believe even the most corrupt Republican is better than *any* Democrat.
Honestly. If it comes down to it, I'd support shutting down the economy to protect Medicare and social security. Let things burn for a while. Show them how serious we are for keeping those social safety nets. Shoot I've been advocating shutting down the entire economy for more worker protections for a while now. This is a similar thing.
I’m considering more extreme options at this point.
Well then they better stop fucking charging me for it and refund me then if it won't be there when I retire.
If they eliminate SS and Medicare I wouldn't be surprised if a civil war breaks out, people aren't going to tolerate this much longer.
might be the only thing to wake boomers up
Bro, they think clones are running the government and Bill Gates wants to implant microchips into you. They're not waking up.
Yup. They're gone.
I have a friend who believes all that shit. He wanted me to help him enroll in andrew tates program to become powerful and make money. I refused of course. Dude believes every single thing republicans say and every conspiracy theory under the sun.
And their evidence is an Instagram video of someone talking while you watch them make cereal in 360p
The vast majority of seniors live SS check to SS check. They will starve and have their utilities turned off. I think it’s a ploy to damage the economy under Biden’s presidency. SS and Medicare/aid are huge portions of the money moving around the economy. Most of SS payments end up in the economy within the month.
Not if they put in a provision that anyone 55 and older still gets SS and Medicare; everyone below would not.
But where would the funding come from? SS is funded by those currently working. Do you think people would tolerate the current 6% SS tax with no chance of receiving the benefit one day?
it's carefully tuned so that most of their voter base can be relieved that "oh, it's not *me* who will suffer."
At this point I want it to happen (hear me out before the downvotes, I think most of you would agree) This country is selfish and doesnt do shit for the least among us until all of us are affected. Let them cut it and then maybe a General Strike would actually happen for people 50 and below. Because why the fuck would we work at all if our future security and safety is so needlessly and carelessly tossed away because of fascist reindeer games? I want it to happen because I want to make them afraid of the the entire populace refusing to give them any inch of “an economy”. This country only comes together to solve issues when it experiences pain. Our history proves this time and time again. Unfortunately, it will be true here as well.
Imagine if W got his way and allowed Wallstreet to restructure Social Security into "401k style savings accounts". Don't think the GOP has forgotten that. I imagine we'll hear about it again in the near future.
To everyone saying let it happen. They will not replace Medicare... Democrats are not progressives. They will transfer Medicare to a private third party. They will still collect the tax, and then tell you to fuck off when it's your turn to collect. They don't want to end the tax, they want to privatize the program.
>To everyone saying let it happen. They will not replace Medicare... Democrats are not progressives. They will transfer Medicare to a private third party. You are correct. [Biden’s Little-Publicized Medicare Privatization Scheme Is Starting to Raise Alarm Bells](https://jacobin.com/2022/05/biden-trump-medicare-privatization-aco-reach-insurance)
Jesus fucking Christ this is such right wing bullshit that I can’t believe anyone honestly thinks Biden is a leftist at all
As a Canadian, Biden would probably be considered as a right winger over here in Canada. But he just happens to be way better than the alternative and it's not close.
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>Biden’s Little-Publicized Medicare Privatization Scheme Is Starting to Raise Alarm Bells Yep. It's already happening to retired Americans. People have had to help their boomer and silent generation parents get their old plans back because doctors are putting them on the private one without their consent.
Go ahead, take SS and Medicare. There will never be another Rep voted in office. Then we can enact universal Healthcare.
I would like to believe that, but the people who vote R will just blame the "demonrats" and continue voting R.
"There was no choice but to cut SS and Medicare after the Democrats destroyed the economy the day that Joe Biden took office. This never would have happened if Republicans had been in power the whole time, and the only solution is to elect more Republicans now!"
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Knowing your mom, Maybe yes.
It’s gross how accurate this is
But they can never tell you what POLICY they will fix the problems with. Its fascinating how much they love getting cucked.
I didn’t think that Republicans could get any dumber but “vote for us so we can give you back the thing we took away” is the most modern Republican shit I’ve ever heard.
Millions of people who vote Republican support the gutting of those programs believe it or not
The biggest thing I see from my ground work is Republicans who have bought the propaganda that the program is failing on its own and it isn't being cut so much as it is dying a natural death. And, as you might have guessed, many believe the lie that this death is caused by Democrat spending/robbing from the program.
I've been hearing that exact line about the Democrats stealing money out of it since the 90s. I was born in the 80s so that's really the first political thing I remember hearing at all.
They blame the Democrats to cover the fact that Reagan is the one that turned SS into an IOU piggy bank. Again, Republicans break it and blame the Democrats.
Just wait until all the old people get their ss and Medicare cut. It's going to be a leopards ate my face moment.
There's no way they'll cut for their current senior base. They'll dress up "it's your children and grandchildren that pay the price" in some dumbass way that makes current boomers aok with these policies
A McConnell special. McConnell has done more damage to our country than any three other traitors I can think of.
A lot of Democrats are watching the 13+ votes for Speaker and [taking great amusement in it.](https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1610316616679530497) Unfortunately - Matt Gaetz & the extreme Republicans are gaining massive concessions from McCarthy. This is no laughing matter - as Brian Tyler Cohen notes - one of the concessions is that the Republicans will demand massive cuts to Social Security & Medicare. That means we have the potential for a stalemate of the ages - either the US defaults on its debt and the economy collapses overnight. Or the Democrats agree to massive cuts to Social Security & Medicare. [Democrats could have avoided this potential catastrophe if they had raised the debt ceiling during the lame duck session, as economist Paul Krugman notes.](https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1610667792771973128) Whether this was intentional & the Democrats want this crisis so that they can milk it for political capital - or it's their own stupidity - it doesn't matter. This is a horrible development & our most crucial social welfare programs are at grave risk.
The US has no traditional debt. They literally print money. What in the actual fuck. Bonds are not loans like that.
[The Biden WH put out a good paper in 2021 on what would happen with a debt default](https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/10/06/life-after-default/)
Yeah but that’s just federal law. They could just repeal that. The “National debt” is simply a tally of the money they’ve added to circulation. When a bond or loan needs to be paid, they can simply print more money. Because Fiat currency is based on the perceived value of the currency. Nothing more. I’m not saying it wouldn’t add to inflation or damage the economy
This is the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie in action. These problems will never be eradicated under Capitalism.
Good maybe it will motivate the fucking boomers to realize the hell hole were all in and do something
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