Paul Ryan says he won’t reduce Social Security or Medicare benefits if the Republicans win–at least not for people who are currently elderly. What about people under 55 years old–the pre-old? How are they supposed to avoid a future of dumpster-diving?
Pre-Old Blues
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
2 Comments. Leave new
Ted,
Back in the late-1980s, it was pretty well suspected that when we undergraduates got to retirement age, social security would not exist (at least not like it’s then-present form). At the time, my biggest objection was not that I was getting jacked out of money I would never see again, but rather that no one was being honest about it: “Friends, someone’s got to be last on the chain letter, and that’s your generation. Sorry. That’s how it is.”
Yes, it means I’ll be dumpster diving and visiting soup kitchens in my golden years (while the Bush twins, Sasha, Malia, the Romney spawn, etc. all have seven-figure “consulting” jobs), but I consider it progress of a sort that the politicians are no longer even bothering to trick us into believing their lies anymore.
All other items in the budget should follow the lead of SS.
Imagine if the Department of War had to collect taxes to fund future wars BEFORE starting them.
SS has a surplus of over Two Trillion Dollars that has been used as general revenue, keeping the tax cut created deficit smaller by that amount. Now that money has to come back out of general revenue, either taxes or expenditures will have to make accommodations to that.
With the largest military budget in the world, it should be easy to suppress the inhabitants of the 50 colonies in America.