Our 'Leaders' Sharpen Their Knives for Our Safety Net

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/21/997058/-Our-Leaders-Sharpen-Their-Knives-for-Our-Safety-Net-?via=sidebyuserrec

Do these bastards know no shame? It's a rhetorical question and of course they don't. They never get tired of demonstrating that fact either. Every time I think they have reached an historic new low, they double down. And it's always the poor who suffer.

I am sick and tired of paying for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires when millions of the rest of us can't find jobs to save our lives. How stupid is that, that anyone would expect it? How bright does one have to be to see the folly, the madness and the outrageous injustice?

And while this shameless thievery is going on, we are in turbo-drive wasting our nation's treasure on bogus, trumped up and disgustingly immoral wars. While our 'leaders' are busy plotting to take their tax cuts out of the hides of those of us least able to afford it, they are wasting trillions to slaughter innocents, bomb villagers and torture helpless prisoners.

We know of at least 100 detainees who died during interrogations at our “black sites,” many of them succumbing to the blows and mistreatment of our interrogators. There are probably many, many more whose fate has never been made public. Tens of thousands of Muslim men have passed through our clandestine detention centers without due process. “We tortured people unmercifully,” admitted retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey. “We probably murdered dozens of them …, both the armed forces and the C.I.A.”

More at the link --

[Why Syzygy]

1. Sickening and putrid...

Our government has been hi-jacked.

[ixion]

2. This country, built on the backs of the poor, has always enjoyed telling them

to piss off once it was done with them. It's a sad statement on our way of life, in my opinion.

[Cool Logic]

3. No need to cut it. Boomers are about to split it wide open anyway.

[MineralMan]

5. I'm not quite sure what you mean by that.

Can you expand your thinking a little, please?

[Cool Logic]

7. Off-balance-sheet accounting was bad for Enron and it is bad for the fedgov.

It will require about $2.6 trillion to clean up the SS accounting scandal. This amount will continue to climb until Congress repeals the unified budget act.

Do you think that will ever happen?

[MineralMan]

8. No, my friend. That's not an explanation at all.

You need to use more words. I'm an old man, and I have to have things explained more completely, you see. I was born in 1945, so I'm not a boomer. I've been getting SS payments for almost four years now. I follow all of this pretty closely, you see. My wife is eligible before too long, too.

[Cool Logic]

10. The key to comprehending the subject is to conceptualize Social Security

as one of the government's special purpose entities. Unfortunately, the funds are as depleted as one of Enrons's SPEs.

As Boomers continue to retire, a huge group of people putting money into the system will begin taking it out of the system. The surplus of money ($2.6 trillion) paid into the system by Boomers will allow it to run into the late 2030s, even though it will begin paying out more than it takes in by 2017.

The CBO's numbers show that Social Security has $2.6 trillion of assets which predominately consist of receivables from the general fund. However, as you should be aware, these receivables aren't collectible because the $2.6 trillion has already been spent.

The next generation of workers, the so-called Gen Xers, numbers are some 15 million fewer than the boomers. There are simply not enough of them to make their own contributions, pay for the boomers SS, and restore the $2.6 trillion that has been looted. Not unless their taxes are increased to 80% or 85%.

Do you think they will go for that?

[Lorien]

6. Social security is fully funded until 2054

at this rate humanity will be lucky to last that long.

[Cool Logic]

9. Actually ,according to the Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees

it's fully funded to 2017.

And it is...on paper.

[woo me with science]

4. ...

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1522513

K&R, btw. Great post.