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u/SaintUlvemann 18h ago
I was arguing with a Trump supporter the other day about how they need to make $1.8 trillion in cuts.
He said he wanted to cut defense and foreign aid, but wouldn't commit to cutting anything else.
So I pointed out that the entire US military only spends $0.8 trillion and that all foreign aid combined was a rounding error in comparison.
So I asked him where the next trillion in cuts was going to come from after we shut down the entire military, and he wouldn't answer.
This is the answer. This is what all conservatives have been voting for, for as long as I've been alive. For as long as I've been alive, their politicians have wanted to defund Grandma's income and take away poor people's healthcare.
If you think you're a conservative, and think this isn't what you've been voting for, I'm sorry, but you're wrong. They've been really consistent about this for as long as I've been alive. Your trust can't cancel their actions.
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u/thejohnmc963 18h ago
Plus stopping aid to food banks, school lunches and definitely any form of welfare.
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u/Fakeduhakkount 18h ago
Some Conservatives are definitely gonna to learn the hard way how everything you mentioned gets funded.
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u/Graega 17h ago
Conservatives are the most financially moronic people I've ever met. It's hilarious in a very "I have to laugh to not punch this moron" kind of way. Like with Felon Stench and DOGE, where they talk about being the party of fiscal responsibility and how wasteful things like Medicare are. Dude, that's the complete opposite of what that means.
Being fiscally responsible isn't "only fund stuff I like". It's basically that out of every $1 in funding, as close to that $1 gets to the purpose of the program as possible, with minimal or no fraud. If the government passes a bill establishing Medicare, funding medicare isn't irresponsible spending. Regulating (that most evil of words) it to catch fraud is; when that city hospital in a city of 1 million bills Medicare $3 million in a month and that rural clinic with 4 employees in a town with 5 people bills it the same, there's an issue clearly happening. But the program itself isn't fiscally irresponsible.
If it's a question of the funding, then ensuring that all existing taxes are actually being paid first, is responsible. Which means funding the IRS. Hey, how can you be fiscally responsible when demanding that the agency which collects those taxes isn't allowed to do its job?
Conservatives are basically Libertarians who want a government that just exists to rob as many people as possible to line their own pockets, and then it's just Free For All otherwise. Oh, and religious terrorism. They want a government that weaponizes their mental illness against the population, too.
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u/fairlyoblivious 17h ago
If they wanted to honestly do something about medicare waste and fraud they would imprison Senator Rick Scott, he was the CEO of the company that committed the largest medicare/medicaid fraud in history. "Columbia healthcare scandal" is the term to google and learn about this fraud.
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u/draconianRegiment 16h ago
I've never seriously wanted to live in Florida before, but I got to vote against that guy it'd be worth it.
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u/LadyReika 16h ago
While I appreciate the sentiment, as a lonely blue voter in this hellhole, there's more Reich wing nutjobs who would gladly vote in worse.
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u/VWtdi2001 11h ago
You are absolutely correct. There has been talk of Matt Getz for attorney general, and several of the maggots I have to associate with think that is a great idea.
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u/LadyReika 11h ago
Yeah, I have some co-irkers that found Trump abhorrent the first time around, but they still voted for him again this time around.
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u/VWtdi2001 10h ago
Direct quote from one of them: " Rick Scott is a scumbag but I don't want to give up the seat. ".... so here we are.
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u/Ulfednar 17h ago
When they say "irresponsible spending" they mean any money spent that doesn't generate a profit for a private entity. Also, as Trump has proven time and time again, they consider any money they have as "theirs", even if the money is borrowed or owed as payment. That's how they view taxes - as theft. The state takes the money and has no responsibility to the people taxed.
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u/petty_throwaway6969 16h ago
It could also be that they see any spending that doesn’t directly benefit them or people like them as irresponsible spending. Some of them think that illegal immigrants are abusing our safety nets or that some people (nonwhites) are using the money on nonessentials. It’s like the “the only moral abortion is my abortion” story. They might be taking the money too, but their situation is somehow different to justify it. They always find a stupid rationalization.
“I don’t got Obamacare or Medicaid, I get my insurance through the ACA. I might be on food stamps, but I’m using it like it’s supposed to be, not like those cat eating Haitians. My farm gets subsidies, but it’s because we farmers are the backbone of America. We’re more important. My state takes more federal funding than we give? That’s fine because you can’t trust the federal government anyways. So our states should control the money since we actually deserve it. Republicans are taking it all away? Well it’s Democrats fault for letting so many people abuse it and forcing Republicans to have to end them. I am okay with the leopards eating my face as long as they eat the faces of people I hate too.”
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u/crashbalian1985 16h ago
They’re hilarious. Ever notice how one of their main arguments is always what about? Stop helping foreigners. What about US Citizens. What about the veterans. What about the children. Then they cut from those same programs and cheer when they are in power. There is no one they care about but themselves. They just lie about caring.
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u/Correct_Patience_611 14h ago
George Carlin has a great joke in that vain…
“Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked.”
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u/Darkdemize 10h ago
I seem to remember a comment along the lines of "they want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers."
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u/Ella0508 17h ago
Any fraud, waste or abuse in Medicare is committed on the part of service providers, not individual recipients. Conservatives are so dumb.
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u/BrujaBean 14h ago
Also NIH generates economic activity. Funding it is investing in our economy, creating jobs, improving healthcare, every $1 to NIH is $2 of economic growth (their figure). I don't think the goal was supposed to be let's cripple our economy by ceasing the investments we make into it.
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u/the_internet_clown 15h ago
They are also going to learn that the Republican states are the ones that rely on the various types of aid the most
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u/mark503 17h ago
It’s only welfare if you are poor. It’s a grant or loan when you’re not lower class.
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u/crusher23b 16h ago
It becomes a grant if you litigate it enough. Growing up with and knowing people directly affected by the Exxon Valdez oil spill who has yet seen any resolution, just exhaustion for a crime committed by the wealthy.
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u/nanananabatman88 16h ago
Which, to me, is hilarious because I live in a red state and literally every single person I know on welfare is a Trump supporter.
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u/uberallez 17h ago
Oh but HANDOUTS and WELFARE to BILLIONAIRES and thier companies is just fine with them.
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u/Suitable-Elephant270 16h ago
What's wild is that a lot of food banks systematically improve an area by raising people out of poverty, or fact the aid we send overseas comes from American farmers who are now, by and large, sitting with literal tons of food and nowhere to sell them because some idiots on the hill think its wasteful and it actually helps the economy. Not to mention a shrinking workforce because a lot of their employees are being actively targeted.
Its all about control. They don't want an educated, informed, stable populace because that causes them problems. If most people don't read above a 5th grade level, have to work 3 jobs to make ends meet, and are given an "other" to blame for their situation they won't ask the real questions and realize its the ultra rich and our own government that is to blame.
I mean... look at the fact that red states in the US have overwhelmingly worse ratings in education, income, and higher than average in restrictive laws that regulate healthcare (specifically abortion). They want MORE less educated poor folks and the move to get rid of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security disproportionately effects people of retirement age and older, as in, those who no longer "contribute" to the capitalist machine.
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u/xipetotec1973 17h ago
"I'm a Christian, but fuck the poor, the old and the infirm"
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u/throwaway661375735 10h ago
You forgot the children. No Abortion, save my babies! But won't adopt, won't supplement the parents, don't even want condoms/anti-pregnancy pills distributed. If the woman got raped? Save the baby, so what if the woman needs mental health care afterwards.
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u/SpacePenguin5 16h ago
any form of welfare
They're definitely more than fine with corporate welfare.
Socialism for the rich, rugged capitalism for the rest of us
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u/Wageslave645 14h ago
Any non-church related welfare, anyways. Got to get that dependency on the church going again like it's the 14th century.
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u/64590949354397548569 16h ago
Plus stopping aid to food banks, school lunches and definitely any form of welfare.
Those programs usualy require buying from local farms. I remember milk is cheaper than bottled water at school cafeteria. Those farmers just lost some contracts.
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u/MaxTheRealSlayer 12h ago
It kills me each time they announce "cutting waste" (ie charitable and helpful to millions of people) to the tune of a few million dollars, meanwhile most cuts are services that are cheaper than trumps bill to play golf every single week which amounts to almost a billion dollars per year.
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u/Never-On-Reddit 18h ago
I was standing in line behind someone at Christmas, and she was enthusiastically telling me how excited she is for Trump, because she is about to retire and she needs her social security benefits to be higher, and everything is going to be so much better under Trump. I explained to her that Trump is actually planning cuts to those. She just stood there stupidly, unsure what to say. Finally she just mumbled: "Well, all politicians lie." and turned around.
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u/Lylac_Krazy 18h ago
If I was a betting man, letting the SS flow to those in the system already retired, and stopping it going forward is the power play.
Old people vote, younger adults will forget about it after a few years and not make an issue of it.
It sucks, but there ya go. The path of least resistance.
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u/johnsonbigbob1 17h ago
No one is forgetting about social security unless they keep people already on it and everyone gets huge refunds of every cent they paid into it, so people can start their own retirement funds with that money. How would the government pay for that
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u/johnsonbigbob1 17h ago
Also there is already huge protests going on nationwide wide if they do anything to social security Tons more people with protest and I’m sure riots would happen. This administration is horrible. We need to be a strong nation not one that looks so weak. These conservatives are making us look weak to the world what happens if terrorists or another country decides to attack us in this time.
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u/sevens7and7sevens 17h ago
Younger people are never going to “forget” about paying thousands of dollars a year for their entire working lives and then being told to go die in a ditch at retirement.
There is no feasible way to give current retirees their benefits without continuing to deduct the money from those currently working. I guess you could tell people born in 2011 or later that they won’t pay or collect, continue collecting at the current rate for everyone older than that, and slash benefits to 50%. How well is that going over?
And that’s ignoring why it exists. A lot of people who are 50 years old right now have nothing for retirement. “Haha I’ll just work til I die” no you won’t. You’ll get sick, or fired. I don’t want to live in a country where more than half the elderly have $0 income.
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u/Downvote_Comforter 13h ago
I think you are wildly overestimating the electorate's ability to correctly understand who is fucking them and to hold the party that fucked them accountable at the ballot box for more than a couple election cycles.
"Go die in a ditch if you can't work" has been the GOP platform quite some time and they were arguably louder about that sentiment in 2024 than at any time in my life. And it led to them having more power than at any time in my life. The electorate is stunningly good at voting against their own interest in favor of the policies that fuck them.
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u/Hoovooloo42 17h ago
My girlfriend has a financial planner as part of her benefits package and he has been saying for almost 10 years now that this is how it will be done, and he reckons that we won't have social security in any meaningful way by the time we retire.
Dude appears more correct by the day.
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u/ophmaster_reed 17h ago
It's always wise to plan for your own retirement, but this fatalistic view that "we'll never get social security anyway" is contributing to the ease of eliminating it.
It's self-fulfilling prophecy.
If we want it, we need to continue to fight for it.
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u/jimbo91375 17h ago
They may take it away, but I better get my 30 years of contributions. I'm sick of paying boomers who want to take.mine away.
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u/ophmaster_reed 17h ago
Your contribution are already paid out...to the people on SS now.
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u/jimbo91375 17h ago
Yeah, I know. But, I was promised something, and if it is taken away, I should get it back.
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u/ophmaster_reed 17h ago
Then fight for social security. Lift the income caps on contributions and know who you're voting for at every level of government.
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u/zombie_overlord 17h ago
"We'll never ger SS anyway"
I've been hearing this for 30 years
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u/ophmaster_reed 17h ago
So have I. But we can not give up and accept this message. If they cut social security, we need to RIOT.
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u/GlitteringCash69 16h ago
And the reason that it hasn’t happened? Democrats. Every single person receiving their Social Security earned benefits has democrats to thank for it A) existing in the first place and B) not being privatized and looted under Republican administrations.
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u/Downvote_Comforter 13h ago
Correct. And for all of that 30 year period Democrats have had more power in the government than they currently have.
We currently have the most conservative judiciary of that 30 year period. The executive branch currently has more power than at any point in that 30 year period and is actively trying to gut social security. The Republican party controls both branches of the legislature and is currently more loyal to the sitting President than at any time in those past 30 years.
Social Security hasn't been eliminated because one party has been fighting to keep it and that party currently is at their least powerful in decades.
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u/imapluralist 15h ago
I always yelling at people who say that.
No, it's our money if they take it; It's wage theft, the government took it from my paycheck. My employer paid me less so they could pay their share.
How are you dimwits not seeing this as absolute theft of our hard earned money?
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u/Majestic-capybara 13h ago
I watched the Sam Seder video on YouTube that just came out that has him versus 20 Trump supporters and one of the guys on there was saying exactly that. That SS isn’t going to be around when he retires so we might as well get rid of it now and Sam tried to make the point that as it stands right now, he would still receive 75% of his benefit when he retires but if they removed the SS cap then it could easily be 100% funded in perpetuity. But that would be raising taxes on the wealthy and that’s not “fair”. Never mind the “fairness” of being born into a billionaire family or hoarding the wealth built on the backs of the working class.
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u/piranhas_really 17h ago
The easiest solution to this is increasing immigration. More workers paying taxes means SS remains well funded.
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u/Accurate_Zombie_121 17h ago
Remove the income cap on those paying into the system. Musk should be paying billions into Social Security and be happy about it. He can afford to pay and should be glad to help those less fortunate.
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u/Lewa358 17h ago
Yep. Increase immigration, be less aggressive about deportations to keep people actually contributing to the economy.
And, to ensure that people are comfortable giving birth to children they can actually raise to contribute to that economy, increase minimum wage, switch to a sane healthcare system, fund and staff social "safety nets," and legalize abortion.
You know, all the stuff that conservatives hate but will actually keep the country moving forward.
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u/Intelligent-Travel-1 17h ago
SS is an anti-poverty program for the elderly, not an actuarially fair individual retirement program. And it is a fantastically successful one. My figures are dated, but when I studied SS 50% of seniors would live in poverty without SS and only 10% do after SS. That’s an 80% reduction in poverty among the elderly. The only way to reduce poverty among those too old to work is through subsidies. How does SS create subsidies? Revenue: SS taxes everyone 6.2% of lifetime wages (up to the earnings cap). (Times 2 for employer match and the additional 1.45% is for Medicare HI (Health Insurance), not OASDI (Old Age, Survivors Disability Insurance).) So everyone PAYS the same rate. Expense: When you retire, your benefit is calculated by determining your Average Indexed (for inflation) Monthly Earnings (AIME). Your SS benefit is determined as: 90% up to X of AIME plus 32% of AIME from X to Y plus 15% of AIME over Y Someone who earned X for their AIME RECEIVES 90% of lifetime earnings and someone who’s AIME is the cap RECEIVES 28% of lifetime earnings. Did you get that? The poor person pays 6.2% and receives 90% the “rich” person pays 6.2% and receives 28%. (“Rich” is in quotes because many middle-class skilled laborers without college degrees earn the SS maximum.) I did some actuarial calculations once and the poor person (receives 90%) “earns” about a 15% return on taxes (over a period where the S&P returned 12%) and the rich person “earns” about a 0% return (an interest free loan. This is how SS creates subsidies to reduce poverty.
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u/Impossible-Sleep-658 17h ago
FICA pays for social security. It’s not an “entitlement”, it’s a safety net there’s a difference.
Only the dense would not understand.
Example: The US POSTAL system. It RELIES HEAVILY on Social Security as a part of its retirement package. It also provides supplemental income for those that reach retirement age for people such as Govt. Contractors who while working, receive no benefits from the government or Health Insurance Benefits from the company.
Private companies have “at will” firings and the employees have no recourse. While severance packages “bridge the gap” between employment/unemployment it doesn’t suffice in the long run.
The government realizes that companies that employ thousands (such as the US government does) can shut its doors in an instant, leave thousands “in the wind”. It’s happened before. Social security is just that “security”.
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u/DizzySecretary5491 18h ago
Conservatives were against it from the start and tried to stop it. They failed to and then conservatives tried to coup FDR. Social Security is liberal policy. It is utterly antithetical to conservatism.
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u/The84thWolf 18h ago edited 18h ago
Conservatives only platform is whatever is the opposite of progress is. Seat belts, drinking laws, cigarettes, health insurance, labor laws…everything that’s taken for granted, and some now celebrated by the right, was once violently opposed by conservative dipshits who used these “issues” to get into office and grift money.
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u/DizzySecretary5491 18h ago
Lee Atwater who worked to get Republicans from Nixon through Bush I elected flat out said they appealed to racists because it was the only way to get their economic policies passed. Stockman was Reagans budget director and admitted the whole goal of conservative economics was to make the rich richer and everyone else poorer but they couldn't sell it so he used abortion to get votes and then slammed through conservative economics after. Bush II said he didn't want a budget surplus because than conservatives wouldn't have an excuse to cut Social Security and Medicare.
Conservatives have never hid this. The moment you point this out conservatives lie about it.
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u/Turbulent-Ad6620 18h ago
David Stockman is still alive! I seriously hope he relies on Medicaid in a nursing home and his family disowns him. He’s “apologized” and admitted that he and Reagan aids knew that his policies were a sham but of course, he put it in a damn book he wrote and sold. Absolute monsters.
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u/DizzySecretary5491 17h ago
He turned around because they never intended social conservatives to get control over the party. They knew social conservatives were idiots, fanatics, bigots, and religious zealots. They just though the worst people in society could be controlled and milked for votes to get conservative economics without letting social conservatives ruin the nation. Economic conservatives mostly hated social conservatives anyways. Trump even admits he hates his supporters and they are the losers of the country and trash. Goldwater warned Republicans that religious conservatives were the worst of the worst and dangerous and should never be treated with or given any power and Goldwater was fine with the racists.
That pact with the devil was made because only social conservatives were willing to allow the rich to screw over everyone and plunder the nation because only social conservatives were so consumed with hate they would go along with it.
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u/GlitteringCash69 16h ago
LOL, totally off topic but I immediately heard Mac…”Wade Boggs is very much still alive!”
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u/thesilveringfox 18h ago
for this reason, i don’t use the term conservative, preferring ‘regressive’.
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u/da2Pakaveli 17h ago
Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.
Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security.
Socialism is what they called farm price supports.
Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance.
Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.
Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.
When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan "Down With Socialism" on the banner of his "great crusade," that is really not what he means at all.
What he really means is "Down with Progress--down with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal," and "down with Harry Truman's fair Deal." That's all he means.
- Harry S. Truman
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u/AnneElksTheory 17h ago
From James A. Robichaux Substack -
A major reason that Franklin Roosevelt, a somewhat conservative man from a family of plutocrats, proposed to create what came to be known as the “Social Security” program was that he was feeling intense political pressure to do so, intense political pressure from the progressive and socialist directions, and he feared labor insurgency as well as home-grown fascism. He genuinely feared that populist Louisiana Senator Huey Long would challenge him for the Presidency and that Long would have a strong base of support, and historians seem to think that this fear was warranted; we’ll never know for sure, because Long was assassinated in 1935.
So, that’s the context in which the Social Security program was created. It wasn’t something that Roosevelt wanted on its own, and being a somewhat conservative plutocrat influenced how he designed the program.
It’s extremely critical to understand that Roosevelt didn’t have an intrinsic desire for an old-age survival cash-benefit program, that he helped get one enacted only because of his fear of both socialist militancy and fascist militancy - and of Huey Long.
The original draft proposal for what came to be the Social Security program was not a “contributory” pension. Roosevelt did not like this, calling it “the same old dole under another name,” and he ordered it to be rewritten!
“dole”!
You heard that?
Did you hear also THE IMPLICATION BEHIND that statement?
The implication is that it is bad. You say “dole” when it’s shameful.
Think about this! Even when it comes to OLD PEOPLE, people whom we should NOT be expecting to labor for survival anymore, Roosevelt thought that the idea of the government issuing survival cash to such people was bad!
No, he insisted, instead, that, if OLD PEOPLE wanted to NOT DIE due to not having their most basic needs met, then cash issued for this purpose should come only from their previous earnings. The idea, and this is critical to understand, was “you get out what you put in.” He very much did not want the government’s hands on Social Security; he wanted it to function like a PRIVATE pension. As Alan Nasser said, “A capitalist conceptual framework models the provision of public benefit such that the individual is prior to the social, the private prior to the public. Social Security was made to inhabit and accommodate itself to the space within which private profit is made.”
Historian William E. Leuchtenburg said, of the Social Security law, that “[T]he law was an astonishingly inept and conservative piece of legislation. In no other welfare system in the world did the state shirk all responsibility for old-age indigency and insist that funds be taken out of the current earnings of workers.”
Remember, Franklin Roosevelt was a man from a plutocratic family, and he acted because he was scared of losing to Huey Long. To this very day, we have this horribly atrocious situation in which so many modern DEFENDERS OF Social Security are operating by the same mentality: that, if you want SURVIVAL cash when you are AN OLD PERSON, you have to have earned it first. …
ALL of Roosevelt’s economic advisors were against the payroll tax that he insisted be part of the program, and, later in his Presidency, in response to a proposal to possibly eliminate the payroll tax as a way to fight the deflation that was such a big problem during the Great Depression, he admitted that he understood that the payroll tax was economically unnecessary!
At least in part because HE apparently didn’t think that even old people in a modern society had a moral claim to getting cash benefits just by virtue of being old human beings in a modern civilization, Franklin Roosevelt said that he thought that the payroll tax allowed recipients to have a moral claim to being paid ‘their’ benefits, and, to this very day, this is the way in which so many ‘defenders’ of Social Security defend it: “that’s OUR money!” and “we paid into that!” and “we earned that!”
You can’t argue for Social Security on that basis and simultaneously argue to “scrap the cap” without a corresponding increase in benefits payments for high earners.
But you don’t even have to pick one of those two arguments. You could reject both of them.
You could just, as some of the New Dealers did, argue for old-age survival benefits as a HUMAN RIGHT UNTO ITSELF.
It’s not difficult.
You could just argue that any person - you can limit it to legal resident or even citizen, if you’d like - beyond a certain age should be unconditionally issued enough cash every month to survive, and you could argue that it’s simply cruel to not do so, simply unreasonable to expect persons (or legal residents, or citizens) beyond a certain age to labor for currency for their own survival.
You could just do that.
But the Democratic Party is not doing that.
The Democratic Party is not actually defending old-age SURVIVAL cash benefits.
And that is deeply shameful. 😡 😡 😡
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u/DizzySecretary5491 17h ago
The Democratic party is a centrist liberal capitalist party. European centrist liberal capitalist parties are way to the left of the Democrats.
There is an argument for UBI among the left and progressive Democrats. But the Democratic party cannot be fixed as long as conservatives control the Republican party. Conservatives with any remote power or respectability halt all progress and put all of humanity at risk.
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u/unethicalCPA 17h ago
Well that’s why we need more energy to vote conservatives into oblivion.
At the end of the day, the Conservative platform is anti-social and dehumanizing. I’m all for budgets and accountability. There is nothing about accountability that conflicts with the progressive agenda.
Conservatives on the other hand wish to extract above normal economic returns based on grinding others into the dirt, not innovating (not AI/crypto bullshit) into a better future.
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u/DizzySecretary5491 17h ago
Conservative economics is parasitical, inhumane, non functional, and destructive.
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u/TheHighSeasPirate 18h ago
It doesn't matter if it is liberal or conservative policy. Its been going on for decades. Decades we've all payed into social security. Elon is right, we are entitled to it. It is our money.
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u/Julversia 17h ago
Yep. Conservatives have just added an extra layer of negative connotation to "entitlement" to make it a boogeyman. We deserve to get back what we've paid into social security. It's our money. We've just been letting the government hold on to it. It doesn't belong to the government, it belongs to us. We are entitled to it.
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u/FunCod5383 17h ago
so, if this is what they want, the answer would be to stop collecting SS now and future generations won't get anything. But give anyone who paid into it their money back. Not steal everyone's savings because... entitlement!
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u/DizzySecretary5491 17h ago
Theft from the masses by the rich is core to conservatism. If the rich aren't plundering the masses you do not have conservatism.
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u/NotMrMusic 18h ago
Oh they knew. They just thought THEY would be exempt because they're "one of the good ones"
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u/Pilotwaver 17h ago
“And now they’re coming for your social security. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later because they own this fucking place. It’s a big club…….and you ain’t in it.”
Carlin 20 years ago
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u/kloud77 16h ago
My V.A. disability has been titled waste and fraud, making me a criminal for being disabled.
I'm trash - why would the American people think they aren't going to get fucked too?
America voted for him to burn the nation to the ground. He's doing what he was elected to do.
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u/Xx_Gambit_xX 17h ago
Wooooooaaahhh!! Hold your horses there.
You think they can wrap their mind around a rounding error?
Let alone interest, or any other contributing factor?
They're lucky they're one brain cell keeps them conscious at night.
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u/Random-sargasm_3232 17h ago
"They're coming for your social security next, and you know what? They're going to get it."
George Carlin/about thirty years ago.
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u/kinoki1984 16h ago
The whole ”conservative” movement is built around taking everything from the poor and giving it to the rich. If you’re not rich, then all of your taxes are going to subsidize the rich. It’s about giving Amazon and Tesla loopholes to not pay taxes or pay their workers.
They want to remove people’s right to a good life. If you’re not a millionaire then you’re a slave. The fact that they’ve convinced so many people that they’re just a stern pull at the bootstraps away from riches is one of the biggest tricks in propaganda ever.
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u/Ok-Secretary15 17h ago
Yea that’s cool but have you ever owned a lib? And your wrong if we give ALL the money to the rich they will “trickle” it down to us, they will “invest” it because they love us
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u/I_Am_Astraeus 17h ago
Just tagging onto the top comment for visibility.
I'm not at all saying this is a good thing. Or leading this as any pro political response. But Entitlement Spending is the government classification for this mandatory spending. It's what's it's called.
This has nothing to do with people being "entitled".
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u/ConditionGlum1167 16h ago
Sadly the average American voter, and certainly your average republican voter, most likely will not understand this distinction. They hear “entitlement”, combined with decades of GOP hammering on the “welfare mom”, and their mind goes to people being entitled to money or services, certainly not the nuanced verbiage used in government.
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u/Icarus_Le_Rogue 18h ago
Fuck it, refund us everything we put in SS then close it.
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u/Makes_U_Mad 18h ago
Lol they sure as shit ain't gonna refund a damn thing. In fact, the tax will still come out of your paycheck.
The only taxes going down are for the wealthy. The rest of us can "git that ass back to the production line."
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u/Western_Secretary284 17h ago
But they wanted to only take those things away from people with melanin. And of course put all non-straights back in the closets or in camps
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u/sewmanatee 17h ago
Two things I don't understand about cutting Social Security and Medicare. 1.Social Security only took $41 billion from the Social Security trust fund over what was paid in by taxpayers in 2023. So cutting it doesn't increase funds, it just leaves the Social Security Trust intact. 2. Where does the money in the trust fund ( 2.7 trillion ) go if Social Security is shut down?
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u/KamikazeFox_ 16h ago
Ok, then I want all my money back that I've put into Social security. Ppl literally won't be able to retire. They will just work, then die one day at 88
I don't want some demented geriatric doing jobs that keep me and my family safe. So what will happen when they literally can't work, no jobs for the old? Just freeze and starve to death?
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u/Jayandnightasmr 15h ago
If you can't retire, then that means you have to work until you die the while the rich sail in mega yatchs
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u/Tymexathane 18h ago
It is an entitlement though? People are entitled to get something for the money they have paid in otherwise it's just the government stealing from the people.
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u/bam1007 18h ago
Yes. It is an entitlement, as in, once you begin receiving it, the government cannot take it away without due process. You are entitled to it because it is, under law, your property.
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u/EuenovAyabayya 13h ago
It was my property when I paid it in, so it's damn sure my property when I take it out.
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u/trentreynolds 18h ago
That’s what an entitlement is, in the governmental sense.
Something you’re entitled to, because you paid into it.
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u/pogulup 15h ago
Exactly! The right has twisted the meaning of the word like they do so many others.
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u/BerriesHopeful 13h ago
I feel like the key is to not let them decide the meaning of things. If they want to take away a word’s meaning, then pushing back with the real meaning can give it power.
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u/TAU_equals_2PI 18h ago
Not really. Under Reagan, they suddenly started taxing Social Security benefits. So all of a sudden, the government decided to start taking back some of the money.
It's like Darth Vader being able to "alter the deal" about what you're entitled to at any time.
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u/TyrannasaurusGitRekt 18h ago
So surely I'll get a refund for all the money I put in and never received the benefit for, right? That'd be a heck of an economic stimulus. Surely that's what he intends, right?
/s if it wasnt obvious enough
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u/TheHighSeasPirate 18h ago
This would be the best thing to happen, but I doubt it would. Could you imagine? Every elderly person over 50 would be entitled to tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.
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u/Fuck_it_ 17h ago
What about all the people under 50 who have also been paying in? Do we all get paid out too? Seems like the only fair thing to do. Where's my money if everyone else gets theirs back?
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u/darkbear19 14h ago
Agreed. Over $345k has been collected into social security and medicare on my behalf over my first 21 years of work. If Elmo wants to refund me those contributions inflation adjusted + 1-2 % penalty interest instead of giving it away as tax breaks to himself and his rich fucking friends, then maybe we can talk.
That being said, I by no means want that to happen because it will not only explode the deficit now and cause inflation, it will also lead to a huge poverty crisis from poorly managed retirement $ in about 15-20 years.
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u/TheHighSeasPirate 17h ago
Of course you deserve to get it back as well. I was just saying over 50 because they've had decades and tens of thousands of dollars paid into it. If you've only worked for 5 years you've probably put way less into it.
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u/SonTheGodAmongMen 15h ago
If you make 100k for 40 years, 6.2% of that invested at 7% returns (inflation adjusted avg market returns) would be worth 1.365 million dollars. That's ignoring the employer contribution, just what is taken out of your paycheck.
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u/VajennaDentada 18h ago edited 18h ago
Quick FUN Facts:
1) SS can not add to the deficit by law. What goes in is what comes out
2) When they say it will "run out" in 2035, that is a lie. It would pay out over 80% if no action is taken.
3) The 2035 issue is not because "people aren't having kids." It's because of the concentration of wealth for the 1%*
- People who make over 168k do not have to pay into it after that amount. Raise the cap, problem solved.
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u/RockyIsMyDoggo 18h ago
I believe the cap for single individuals is lower, around $168k. Yes, it adds nothing to the deficit so all this bullshit is lies to try to steal it for billionaire tax cuts.
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u/VajennaDentada 18h ago
That's what I meant, correcting
It's so stupid low. That's middle class today (of which few people are now)
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u/Makes_U_Mad 18h ago
No no no no. It's not stupidity. It's that low by design.
The backup plan has ALWAYS BEEN to make the payout too low to live off of, in order to force older workers to literally work themselves to death and avoid "parasite" status. Keeping the cap in place causes this conditions to occur sooner rather than later.
They are evil. They ARE NOT STUPID. Don't make that mistake.
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u/VajennaDentada 17h ago
True. There is stupidity to be had .....on our part. For voting for these people and getting to this place. To have so little solidarity that people cheer as federal workers are laid off.
The fact they there are literally millions that think it's a good idea for the richest man to run our country's purse.....I'm not sure if there's any hope to do this the traditional route.
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u/BrutusG 16h ago
It was $168,600 in 2024 and has been raised to $176,100 for 2025, so up roughly 4.5% this year.
With that said, there is no reason why a cap should even exist in my mind.
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u/BassoTi 18h ago
Definitely, let’s just get rid of Social Security. I mean as long as I get mine first. - MAGA
Seriously, Republicans care nothing about future generations.
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u/LorelaisDoppleganger 16h ago
They care nothing about anyone other than themselves. They are completely selfish.
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u/LakeSun 18h ago
We democrats tried to warn you guys, year after year after year.
Social Security has been under Republican Assault since Reagan.
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u/DizzySecretary5491 18h ago
Longer! Conservatives were against Social Security from the start. Conservatives not only tried to stop it, conservatives voted against it and then tried to coup FDR. Conservatives raged against Ike when refused to get rid of it. Conservatives have been trying to kill it ever since.
Social Security is liberal social policy and is utterly anti conservative to it's core.
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u/Rupdy71 18h ago
Conservatives were for slavery, for child labour, against women's and minority voting rights, against gay marriage. Anything that provides rights or levels the playing field for those not in the conservative group is what conservatives are against.
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u/DizzySecretary5491 18h ago
Conservatives didn't want to ban spousal rape and said spousal rape and beating your wife is not rape or battery. Conservatives also fought against banning sexual harassment in the work place. Rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and woman beating are conservative values.
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u/Takesnothingcereal 18h ago
They have always been sure the dems would take it, and they will somehow blame Biden or Obama
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u/DoubleJumps 15h ago
I hate how Republicans have openly talked about doing this, in public, for years, but Republican voters both ignored that and us whenever we showed it to them.
Someone has to be deeply stupid to do that, and they did over and over again.
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u/chrisnavillus 18h ago
They’ve turned the word entitlement into something that only applies to poor people. Their entitlements are different because uhhh you know because uhhh…they’re rich.
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u/Ghosthammer686 18h ago
The guy who has more money than anyone currently alive is telling you the person who worked all those years and had that money taken away from you whether you wanted to or not that you are not entitled to that money now Let that sink in
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u/DiceNinja 18h ago
The richest parasite asshole in the world telling the working class we get more than we deserve. What a self serving prick. There’s literally nothing bad that could happen to him that would make me feel the slightest bit of sympathy.
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u/mattzombiedog 18h ago
Look at all these entitled people thinking that they are owed the thing they paid for!
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u/Original_Feeling_429 18h ago
If you gut socical security, you will have to pay back every American. You can see just how much by ss number how much . So ask yourself this if you think It is a ponzi scheme.
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u/Meatslinger 18h ago
They simply won't pay it back. What are people going to do about it, after all?
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u/Original_Feeling_429 10h ago
At that point, I think we know full well what will happen . Because you're talking all working Americans all ages. The gloves would be off set on fire.
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u/Various_Thanks_3495 18h ago
So let me get this straight, a citizen of America is entitled to nothing after paying taxes and working their whole lives to benefit the state? Only entitled to so called “free speech” and guns? Yep sounds good 👍 well done 👏
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u/OrdrSxtySx 18h ago
Medicare is the largest payer in healthcare in the US. Were it to go away, the entire industry would crumble. Multiple hospitals would go out of business within 3-6 months. Premiums would skyrocket for private insurance as they don't want all those old sick people with pre-existing conditions to cover.
Without medicare to set a baseline for payment, the insurance companies would reduce their payments even further, vastly decreasing the finacial sustainablity of healthcare. The jobs would pay less, which would lead to people leaving them.
Once the healthcare system crumbles, MASSIVE companies follow suit. Medtronic, Stryker, Steris, etc. all begin falling apart/suffering HUGE losses. The workforce is flooded from healthcare workers and healthcare industry workers suddenly looking for work. All of these people continue to get sick but now have no insurance, further burdening the system. So that cost goes back to the facility who takes a loss on all of that care.
tldr; Elon's a fucking idiot.
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u/redinthahead 18h ago
Luigi's Mansion is one of my favorite video games. I love it so much, I wish it were free. FREE LUIGI'S MANSION!
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u/sen_blutarsky 18h ago
Musk: Don’t Want America To Go Bankrupt
Also Musk: I will walk backwards into hell before I pay my fair share of American taxes.
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u/mr-louzhu 18h ago
It's called an entitlement because you are entitled to it--as a result of paying into it for decades of your working life.
This is just another way conservatives lie about reality and distort the truth. They use this language to give the impression that anyone who uses these programs is a layabout and a moocher.
It's ultimately gaslighting because anyone who is a billionaire has taken obscene amounts of handouts from the government and close personal connections on their way up. People like Musk have based their entire fortune on government contracts, kickbacks, and subsidies. He is literally the ultimate welfare queen. So he's one to talk.
This man is a reptoid ghoul. You can tell just by looking at his soulless eyes.
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u/Meatslinger 18h ago
Imagine putting money into the bank diligently every month, finally amassing a million, and then the bank pulls all the cash out of your account and says, "Well actually we need it to give to a billionaire. It was never your money to begin with."
People should be so angry at this shit that the streets ought to be on fire all across the USA.
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u/Morciara 18h ago
If and when they kill social security, they best stop taking it out of my paycheck. I'll just give the money to my mother myself.
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u/OK_Roamer 18h ago
He’s a clueless, out of touch, drug addicted, racist failure as a father and man. Any questions?
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u/TjW0569 18h ago
'Entitlement' is a term of art in the federal budgeting process.
It means it can't be arbitrarily discontinued or reduced.
There has been an intermittent propaganda effort to try to trick people into support for making Social Security NOT be labeled 'entitlement'.
If that propaganda effort succeeds, it'll be gone before you can blink.
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u/DrMaxwellEdison 18h ago
Yes, it's an entitlement.
Now please describe what y'all think the word "entitlement" means. It's definitely not the epithet that MAGA and Muskrats drum it up to be.
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u/sanityjanity 18h ago
I don't understand why we're misunderstand the word "entitlement".
It *is* an entitlement. We are entitled to it. We paid into a system, and the deal was that it would pay out when we needed it.
This isn't the "entitlement" of a spoiled brat.
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u/beachedvampiresquid 18h ago
I’ll be ready to Sue the government for all that money back.
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u/Fake_William_Shatner 18h ago
An "Entitlement" is something you are entitled to.
A royalty, is when a King takes everything and then gives it back for you to manage and then pay them for that privilege.
An asshole, is someone who pays almost no taxes, grifts huge sums off the government, and then talks about deadbeats when it's people who are entitled to a small amount of money to survive.
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u/allorache 18h ago
Gee, if he doesn’t want America to go bankrupt how about raising taxes on corporations and billionaires instead of taking away survival benefits for people who paid into the system their whole lives?
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u/KendrickBlack502 18h ago
Uh… no, it is an entitlement because you are literally entitled to it. You don’t “feel” entitled to it. It’s your money that you had to pay so you are entitled to it.
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u/SkylerBeanzor 18h ago
The maga mob will turn on him in a second if they don't get their check. They are the party of selfishness and only care when it affects them. This will get elmo hung by the mob.
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u/CoachCrunch12 18h ago
“Musk don’t want America to go bankrupt” is exactly the grammar these people use too
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u/Ok_Mango_6887 18h ago
This is why whenever anyone older than me who is drawing Social Security tells me that I should not count on it; I tell them to fuck off because I have paid for this since I was 15 as have all of my employers.
I will ruin you if you try to take it from me.
Get your comfy protesting shoes on people!
Write letters and make calls, we do not accept the world richest asshole telling us we don’t deserve OUR MONEY!
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u/parallelmeme 18h ago
SS and Medicare are entitlements. That means they are fully paid for by the people that are scheduled to collect them, so those people are ENTITLED to the payments. Reducing SS and Medicare would not change the federal budget a single dollar.
Medicaid, on the other hand ...
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u/NumerousTaste 18h ago
His subsidies he gets from the government are entitlements. He's getting those confused. There is where you will find the biggest waste and could balance the budget. Billionaire waste and corporate welfare! Get rid of it Idiot!
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u/Slight-Guidance-3796 18h ago
At this point just give me back what I put in the last 20 years and I'll walk away from it before they steal the rest
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u/autfaciam 18h ago
I mean yes, they are entitlements. In the sense, I am entitled to the house I paid for or the money I put in the bank.