Friday, September 3, 2010
Arkansas Politics Boozman's aim on Social Security
Posted by Max Brantley on Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 10:29 AM
The Arkansas Republican Party is trumpeting the news that the respected Politifact news service has found only "barely true" Sen. Blanche Lincoln's claim that opponent John Boozman wants to privatize Social Security.
Barely true is not false. It is true.
A reading of the Politifact research on the ad shows quite clearly the many ways in which John Boozman has indicated he believes Social Security is unsustainable and needs to be changed by opening the door to to privatization measures. Allowing such individual investment decisions would be the doom of the system as we know it and those who favor the approach know it full well. Imagine if G.W. Bush had succeeded in the Republican plan to privatize the system before the market collapse. Imagine.
Said Republican spokeswoman Alice Stewart:
He supports a plan to allow young workers to divert a portion of their payroll taxes into personal investment accounts, these would be safe investments,
Pray tell those safe investments. We'd all like to know.
It is also wholly true that Boozman is a co-sponsor of legislation to impose a 30 percent national sales tax. Imagine.
PS — The Republican shill wants you to believe a 30 percent sales tax would be offset by end of the income tax. Hah. A family of four earning $75,000 pays an effective income tax rate of under 5 percent, or about $3,750 a year. But virtually every dime they make would be spent on 30 percent sales taxable goods. That $20,000 pickup would add $6,000. A house? Who knows? And that's if 30 percent would be revenue neutral after all the special pleaders were accommodated. It slanders pigs to call this a pig in a poke.
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Comments (26)
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And the Waltons will be eternally grateful. The working poor and middle class? Not a very good swap.
Let's see, how much do the working poor and people living on Social Security pay in income tax? And how would they pay if the sales tax were to be increased 30 percent? I wonder if Boozman can figure that out. This a tawdry idea. A cheap, selfish, political dirty trick. These people have no shame.
It's very simple what rich Republicans want and why they want it. Boozman has set himself up very well. He doesn't need Social Security or Medicare in his old age. It's still a risky bet because NOozman has no idea if he'll develop some horrible disease that puts him in bed for the last 14 years of his life. Most nursing homes have at least one person in that terrible predicament. Boozman could die a poor man if that happened to him. But he's betting it won't happen.
He's betting he won't have to live on Social Security either, but hide and watch if he gives his SS check back when he becomes eligible in a few years. Our blog friend FireBlancheLincoln talked a lot about a future world without social security, medicare, public schools...you name it, he wanted none of these things because they require tax money to be taken from you and I and Republicans will do anything to not pay taxes.
Allowing people to place all or part of their Social Security contributions into stocks and bonds will make thousands of new wealthy brokers who probably already vote Republican and who cares if the "small people" starve to death when the next crash comes.....the new wealthy Republican brokers will just jet away to Switzerland at the first sign of trouble.
Boozman and his ilk envision a future with super rich white people living in a fairytale world hovering above the chaos and wreckage the rest of us will have to endure. They'll live in Shangri La while we live in the world of Mad Max, carving each other up for a bit of bread. Compassion for others has never been a part of the Foxpublican platform so don't look for it to spout up in the future.
Boozman will happily tear down all the institutions that FDR put in place that made this a great country, just to lower his taxes. Don't matter to him if kids go back to quitting school in the 3rd grade to work in the fields. Won't matter to him if old people die in a watery ditch or sick children waste away in your back room. By god he earned his money and how dare you want a small portion of it to maintain a civilized country!
We are NOT all in this together...according to Boozman. Those who can't should die.....oh how very Christian a thought that is...... Instead of voting Republican we should start rounding them up for deportment or at the very least home detention. They're ideas are no good. They are a cancer on civilized Democracy. Scat!
Show me one hard statement (much less a record behind such a statement) which could possibly convince a thinking person that Blanche Lincoln wouldn't vote to allow a percentage of Social Security (or alternate retirement investments - removed from Social Security) to be placed in the hands of fraudulent privateers?
Once again, the kubuki here is dangerous because both of these candidates will screw the social security pooch. Guaranteed. They are both sponsored by and have a long history of supporting the looters to varying but certain degrees.
Vote for either one and you or your children will eat a last supper of cat food. After being forced by law to work until age 67 or 70 plus.
Get out of the D or R box... it's killing us.
"these would be safe investments,"
What a Republicon scam!!! The RATS on SCOTUS open the flood gates for unlimited, non-disclosed corporate funding and the Republicon choir is singing a song guaranteed to funnel BILLIONS back to those invisible corporate donors.
Mr Boozman, and fellow thieves, who will determine what is a "SAFE INVESTMENT?"
A committee naturally. And who will appoint such a committee? You will naturally.
And what steps will a corporation take to assure the owners their corporation is a
"SAFE INVESTMENT?"
Big donations to the Party doing the committee selections.
It would amount to the largest pool of graft ever created. Thanks to the RATS it would be perfectly legal.
I agree that neither candidate is looking out for the little man, but the obvious "best of two evils" is, sadly, Lincoln. I hate that I may vote for her instead of standing by my principles and voting for any 3P candidate. In this case death by a 1,000 paper cuts means we as a nation last a little longer than death by the knife.
Message to ANY Lincoln campaign person out there: LISTEN AND READ THIS THREAD!!!!!! If Lincoln can't clearly articulate Boozeman's position as simply as the comments above (i.e., a family making $X pays $Y now, but would pay $Z under Boozeman's plan) then Lincoln doesn't deserve another term. Of course, she likely won't make things so clear since then she would be stuck with her position, and Lord knows, Lincoln never wants take a position.
I weep for the future.
Ironyman, bless your, and dbi's and Max Brantley's hearts.. y'all are negotiating with errorists.
Cat food tastes the same no matter which box you remain inside / delivers it.
The billionaire Pete Peterson (cat food) deficit commission which president Obama ushered in after congress refused to do so... is now in private meetings and will deliver a myriad of ponzi scheme recommendations which must be voted upon in the coming lame duck session. So this means in all likelihood,win or lose Plantation Blanche will cast a vote on this issue as Senator and John Boozman will as Congressman.
Even the token liberals on the commission (such as Andy Stearn) have already signaled a willingness to recommend as much as 20 percent of SS monies be turned over to privateers.
The criminals are in office and still in charge of both parties.
Much more in very clear words here.
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/08/2…
Do I share that last sentiment with you IronyMan! We've lost the "vision thing" and we all know from Leviticus what that means. The bottom line is that almost everyone is only interested in their own bottom line. There is no shared sacrifice, shared responsibility, shared community. Robert Reich's Oped in the Times this morning presents some stark figures about what has happened to the middle class, especially since the late 70s. The corporate moguls and thier political lackeys seek to consume even more of the nation's wealth for themselves. No one seems able to stop it before it consumes the middle class and the country as we know it. I too, weep for the future.
Geez Petes, you weepy types love the histrionics. Someone mentions taking a portion, hell, as little as 2% and the reign or error screams as if the whole SS rip off is being pillaged.
I don't weep. I know this country will survive the ineptitude of the Obama reign, and things will improve, especially when the fed has to contract itself a bit. Getting rid of the parasites of FDR would be a good thing, and I do look forward to that bright, sunny day. Till then, I won't weep, 'll just wait and support those that try to get rid of some of this nonsense.
I've changed my tune. A vote for a third-party candidate means Boozman wins. There IS a lesser of two evils. A third-party candidate won't win in my lifetime, probably not in my child's lifetime, painful reality being what it is, painful. They have neither the organization nor the money.
>>Getting rid of the parasites of FDR would be a good thing, and I do look forward to that bright, sunny day.<<
For you boz n' girls playing with tinker toys in the 1970s FDR and his "parasites" just happened to build the largest middle class society the world has ever seen. They also build the largest industrial society seen on the face of the Earth and the best interstate highway system to support it and until the Ray-guns aimed their evil beams the wrong way we led the world in college degrees, engineers and scientists.
Since Ray-gun it's been a downhill race to the bottom with U.S. producing about 17th in educated workforce ratings.
"What we learned under Reagan is that deficits don't matter."
Dick Cheney
Didn't the Democrats get a law passed saying that anyone who used the words "parasite" and "FDR" in the same paragraph automatically went to prison? I believe the law said that we skip due process and just round them up.
"Now it is true that I believe this country is following a dangerous trend when it permits too great a degree of centralization of governmental functions. I oppose this--in some instances the fight is a rather desperate one. But to attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by it. The political processes of our country are such that if a rule of reason is not applied in this effort, we will lose everything--even to a possible and drastic change in the Constitution. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon "moderation" in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
Dwight Eisenhower, 1954 letter to his brother, Edgar.
Further on his letter states
"A year ago last January we were in imminent danger of losing Iran, and sixty percent of the known oil reserves of the world. You may have forgotten this. Lots of people have. But there has been no greater threat that has in recent years overhung the free world. That threat has been largely, if not totally, removed. I could name at least a half dozen other spots of the same character."
http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presiden…
Yes, I was right, I checked. It was Pub. L. 109-45, 107 Stat. 25 and has to do with whore hoppers who swear false, misleading and scurrilous oaths against Franklin D. Roosevelt. Sorry estrada, it's been (something inaudible) knowing you, don't worry about the black helicopter, the pilot is skilled and the soldiers in black will "take care" of you on the way to that special little part of Cuba. You do have the right to remain silent (and you will). Vaya con dios.
billy, it only looks black. They are such a dark shade of blue, from a few feet away, as they hover outside your window with snooping devices, they look black.
eL, the Depression was still going strong when WWII broke out. FDR built nothing but the longest economic slump in history.
Cuba, yech! There is your socialist paradise. Complete with state police that will lock you away for the incorrect thoughts, social or sexual orientation, or unwillingness to give up your will.
no estrada, there are no FDR parasites. The real parasites are the super rich/elites. Money they have is by almost always stealing from working class/poor people. They think they live forever. "I've got mine...mine..." If you support them, then you must also be filthy rich. If not, your mind's twisted or you have a cold heart.
"Behind every great fortune there is a crime." ~ Honore de Balzac French realist novelist (1799 - 1850).
We just finished stocking the food pantry at our small church for tomorrow and while we were picking up the food we saw another order, at least 4 times as large. for the large Methodist church in the area. We see new families each week, families with children, which is different from years past. A lot of these people have fallen off the unemployement treadmill. The town also has a house for families in transition and is enlarging it as well as a soup kitchen everyday. I am sure there are other food pantries in the town as well as a large one in the small town I actually live in. If Steven feels that we don't need to help those in need, I guess there is a church somewhere that preaches that but not the ones that majorf religions thatI am familar with.
I just hope for Steven's sake that he never finds out what it is like to be unemployed for a long period. I went through it twice and frankly, the biggest issue was medical over even food. It is scary.
Blanche isnt going towin anyway so you might as well do the right thing and vote
Blanche isnt going towin anyway so you might as well do the right thing and vote green
It's interesting to me that it's always a wealthy against poor or middle class argument. And that is the way that many political leaders want it. The not-rich people will always comprise a greater portion of the vote. And what is the primary job of the politician? — Get elected, of course!
So now we have every sort of social and entitlement program that depends on taxpayer dollars to be funded. These programs were not instituted because they were the right thing to do, but because they have high vote-purchasing power. They couldn't be the right thing to do because every last one of them robs the freedom of the very people that they are supposed to help.
One commenter lauded FDR for all the wonderful things that he did. Ha! That's ignorance gone to seed. I believe that history will and should ultimately find him to be the absolute worst president.
On the tax issue, itself: I don't believe that any tax change should be revenue neutral. No a tax bill should reduce taxes for all to a fraction of what they are and be married to other bills that cut or eliminate many or maybe all programs that amount to the government redistributing wealth (purchasing votes, remember). We certainly don't need a 30% percent sales tax to support the things in government that are actually provided for in our constitution. On that point, I believe most people would be amazed at how much money is spend by the federal government doing things that have no other constitutional basis than "promote the general welfare." If all those things were stopped, then I believe that we could have a national sales tax that would not be any more upsetting that state sales taxes are. And, if we were really cleaning house, state sales sales and income taxes could likewise be dramatically reduced.
I say, let the wealthy keep their wealth and get more if they so desire — but let it be lawfully. It's just not right for me to say that the wealthy should give up their wealth because I don't have as much. At its root, that's envy gone amuck. But if their wealth is ill-gotten gain, then let them be prosecuted or at least sued and let them pay dearly for their dishonesty.
CBB, been there, done that, I managed to get out of it without that killer envy that calls the rich parasites. You forget, we the 'little uns' keep them fed.
I don't support them, I just don't envy them and seek to steal form them. I let other small minds seek that kind of theft.
Cuba, yech! There is your socialist paradise. Complete with state police that will lock you away for the incorrect thoughts, social or sexual orientation, or unwillingness to give up your will.
The USA has more per capita in prison than Cuba where does that put us Estrada?
"I say, let the wealthy keep their wealth and get more if they so desire — but let it be lawfully. It's just not right for me to say that the wealthy should give up their wealth because I don't have as much. At its root, that's envy gone amuck. But if their wealth is ill-gotten gain, then let them be prosecuted or at least sued and let them pay dearly for their dishonesty." cwbird
The rich commits crimes all the time and it's done legally. They're above the law. So they can't be prosecuted.
Hackett, it still puts us FAR ahead. There is simply no comparison. Most of our incarcerations are rug related, which would evaporate once we end this stupid and wastful war on drugs.
Cuba, on the other hand, will shoot you DEAD for trying to escape their paradise, stick you in a 'camp' if your gay, or put you in a dark hole if you do not daily give copious thanks to Fidel. That doesn't even begin to touch the surface of tortures and executions of their own people.
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